In our shop, we are understanding that the art of "designing and implementing algorithms, step-by-step specifications of procedures, by writing code in one or more programming languages" (Source: wikipedia) shifted to LLMs does not mean that programming has ended, but that expectations around what and how humans do programming has changed and will continue to change. We still need humans who understand how databases should work and should be designed/evolved because these humans are the consumers of the programs. The prompters (programmers) are the consumers. LLMs are not consumers. Without programmers, LLMs don't do any work.
The End of Programming
41–50 of 124 posts
Re: The End of Programming
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
And who will fix the slop? Not Silicon Valley programs being paid $200K or whatever. We stand on the verge of a golden age of outsourcing in software which will make all previous phases of outsourcing look like trial runs.
Won't this mean that a lot of developers in Silicon Valley will find themselves out of a job? If the competition (AI operators) can sit 8000 miles away and be paid peanuts.
The whole point is that we’re TikToking the software industry and no one will know what to tell the ai to get the software written in a way that works. It’s in principle the same as idiocracy where no one knows how to make burrito covers anymore because shit won’t grow
Re: The End of Programming
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
And who will fix the slop? Not Silicon Valley programs being paid $200K or whatever. We stand on the verge of a golden age of outsourcing in software which will make all previous phases of outsourcing look like trial runs.
This is cope. There is no going back to artisan programming. Any issues will also be fixed by ai agents.
Sufficiently complex software is something agents still struggle a lot with
Re: The End of Programming
#44This is a strong article with a distracting headline. Challenge for commenters: can you discuss the content without getting caught up in the headline? My favorite paragraph: > The fact that AI wrote 1M LOC and then refined it over the course of the next couple of months to produce a reliable piece of software that is currently running on millions of developer machines is absolutely mind blowing. And you can say, “wel…
This is a terrible, shallow article, that is about what you'd come to expect.
> If you can build a verification system and give proper direction,
That's called programming. The Bun tests and oracle are the result of years of programming. If you have to spend years programming an oracle before, programming is not ended. This is not just the headline claim. They are also making the claim in the article. `What I mean by this is that I think the act of writing code manually and having other humans review it to create useful, working software is headed for extinction.`
I'd also note the $165,000 figure is cited for the 11 day sprint, but this has only been released months later with both employees and agents hammering away at it. The true cost of this rewrite is likely in the millions.
There's also the quality angle. It's taken as a given that because Claude Code is using it in production, it must be quality software. This couldn't be further from the truth. Claude Code is absolute dogshit software that nobody in their right mind would even consider using if Claude didn't gatekeep their subscription subsidy token rates behind it. It is the absolute worst of any possible harness that anybody uses seriously.
Don't get me wrong, this is impressive in some degree. It is a genuine feat of software engineering to have written a class of programs that can generate other programs of this scale. I use LLMs daily for various classes of tasks because they are helpful tools. But the claims of its relevance and impact are wildly, wildly overstated. Note also the exponential growth in Github commits, and yet there is not a single piece of non-LLM related, LLM-generated software that I use, or existing software that I have felt has improved as a result of adopting full LLM-based workflows. There is no massively popular new software that regular end consumers are using, just a bunch of .md file wrappers for certain types of developers to obsess over while failing to provide value to non-developers. To the contrary, software in general appears to be degrading even more rapidly than it already was, with major Windows issues, Github issues, outrageous security breaches [as a result of woefully incompetent security practices rather than amazingly competent offensive practices], etc. becoming more and more common.
Re: The End of Programming
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
And who will fix the slop? Not Silicon Valley programs being paid $200K or whatever. We stand on the verge of a golden age of outsourcing in software which will make all previous phases of outsourcing look like trial runs.
This is cope. There is no going back to artisan programming. Any issues will also be fixed by ai agents.
Patching over the architectural nightmares LLMs pour out is I think the opposite of artisan programming.
Re: The End of Programming
#46This is a strong article with a distracting headline. Challenge for commenters: can you discuss the content without getting caught up in the headline? My favorite paragraph: > The fact that AI wrote 1M LOC and then refined it over the course of the next couple of months to produce a reliable piece of software that is currently running on millions of developer machines is absolutely mind blowing. And you can say, “wel…
Simon - I hope this is not a rude question, but do you work with other engineers?
Yes, why do you ask?
Re: The End of Programming
#47The article gives the example of Bun's successful Zig to Rust of why this is the end of programming. I think that rewrite is a perfect example of why it's NOT the end of software engineering. A non-programmer could not have prompted AI to do that rewrite, and in fact a non-programmer would not have even conceived of the idea of doing that rewrite in the first place. Somebody is still needed to 1. come up with the ide…
Source code transpilers were a thing since forever.
We'd guess that LLMs probably make them cheaper, but there's no real world data on this.
Re: The End of Programming
#48The article gives the example of Bun's successful Zig to Rust of why this is the end of programming. I think that rewrite is a perfect example of why it's NOT the end of software engineering. A non-programmer could not have prompted AI to do that rewrite, and in fact a non-programmer would not have even conceived of the idea of doing that rewrite in the first place. Somebody is still needed to 1. come up with the ide…
Yes but those are all semantic tasks which can be done and understood in time by the next iteration of models training at that meta-level of architectural analysis.
AI deeply understands what Bun, Zig and Rust are, how they work, can conceive of the before and after architecture (probably the hard step here), can conceive of the goal of the rewrite, and can verify (using Lean and machine-checked proofs of the before and after expected states) the final result.
They just needed us to ask. Build a sufficiently general research program that can find and iterate on ideas, and it will do the asking itself.
Re: The End of Programming
#49This is a strong article with a distracting headline. Challenge for commenters: can you discuss the content without getting caught up in the headline? My favorite paragraph: > The fact that AI wrote 1M LOC and then refined it over the course of the next couple of months to produce a reliable piece of software that is currently running on millions of developer machines is absolutely mind blowing. And you can say, “wel…
This is a terrible, shallow article, that is about what you'd come to expect. > If you can build a verification system and give proper direction, That's called programming. The Bun tests and oracle are the result of years of programming. If you have to spend years programming an oracle before, programming is not ended. This is not just the headline claim. They are also making the claim in the article. `What I mean by…
> That's called programming. The Bun tests and oracle are the result of years of programming.
I completely agree. That's why I warned about getting distracted by the headline.
Re: The End of Programming
#50I don't know if this is the end of programming, but i can clearly observe the gradual end of expertise in my company - people slowly forgetting architecture, principles, and how stuff works in general, in favor of code delivery speed. And without expertise you end up asking stupid things to a token producer machine, however godlike it can be. It's hard not to extrapolate...
I guess in most industries speed was always the primary concern. Things like architecture and principles were there only to prevent things slowing down to a crawl. A way to protect that speed
There's zero evidence to support the notion that LLMs help deliver software quicker.