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In a leaked recording, AWS CEO tells most developers could stop coding soon

businessinsider.com

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Re: In a leaked recording, AWS CEO tells most developers could stop coding soon

#2

Post by al_borland »

So many bad takes in that article. It will be interesting to look back in 5+ years to see how things play out vs this unlimited optimism.

> "everyone is a programmer now"

I’ve heard this about so many things. Various tool they make everyone a programmer, or everyone a DBA. Nice dreams, that never seem to play out.

Being a programmer isn’t about the syntax, it’s about breaking problems down, so they can logically be built back up in code. I have yet to see anyone without an extensive background in programming write good spec for what they want code to do. How many assumptions are we comfortable having AI make?

On my last project I was given 1 sentence of direction, and the people giving the direction truly thought that’s all they needed to say… or it was the extent of their understanding of the topic. It took thousands of lines of code, backed by a bunch of testing and design decisions, informed by 15+ years with the company and the various personalities involved, to make that 1 sentence a reality in a way that would make sense for the organization. Call me a cynic, but I don’t see AI doing a good job with something like that in a world where “everyone is a programmer.”

I did try putting it in Copilot at the start, just to see what it dumped out. It gave me maybe 40 lines of broken code. It was the blog post version of how to do it, not an enterprise solution.

Re: In a leaked recording, AWS CEO tells most developers could stop coding soon

#3

Post by mrinfinitiesx »

al_borland wrote: post #2

So many bad takes in that article. It will be interesting to look back in 5+ years to see how things play out vs this unlimited optimism. > "everyone is a programmer now" I’ve heard this about so many things. Various tool they make everyone a programmer, or everyone a DBA. Nice dreams, that never seem to play out. Being a programmer isn’t about the syntax, it’s about breaking problems down, so they can logically be b…

I think the enterprise stuff is programmers become more tool-assisted, so fewer programmers are needed. A team of two seniors and 6 juniors can just be two seniors. As you said, it's mostly breaking down a problem and knowing what's needed, then telling it what components are needed. 'Make me a function that does this and that' I use it all the time to make things I know I can make but it makes it, if it makes it a weird way I modify the prompt to tell it not to make it that way. Good for frameworks for skeleton code and simple hacking things together at sysadmin level and tinkering with things. Not sure about full fledged program projects though.

Helps devs get 'unstuck' if they get the writers block. It's absolutely changing the game for marketing, bizdev, and programmers now. Intel layoffs ~20,000, IBM ~24,000. Kind of scary.

Smart people with better tools can be a dominant force. So, yeah programmers might be looking for newer skillsets.

Operations and Sysadmins I don't forsee ever changing, especially with AI.

As you said, will be interesting to look back in five years and see.

Re: In a leaked recording, AWS CEO tells most developers could stop coding soon

#6

Post by piperswe »

mrinfinitiesx wrote: post #3
al_borland wrote: post #2

So many bad takes in that article. It will be interesting to look back in 5+ years to see how things play out vs this unlimited optimism. > "everyone is a programmer now" I’ve heard this about so many things. Various tool they make everyone a programmer, or everyone a DBA. Nice dreams, that never seem to play out. Being a programmer isn’t about the syntax, it’s about breaking problems down, so they can logically be b…

I think the enterprise stuff is programmers become more tool-assisted, so fewer programmers are needed. A team of two seniors and 6 juniors can just be two seniors. As you said, it's mostly breaking down a problem and knowing what's needed, then telling it what components are needed. 'Make me a function that does this and that' I use it all the time to make things I know I can make but it makes it, if it makes it a w…

If we're replacing 2 seniors and 6 juniors with just 2 seniors, where are you gonna get more seniors when the 2 retire?

Re: In a leaked recording, AWS CEO tells most developers could stop coding soon

#8

Post by fragmede »

mrinfinitiesx wrote: post #3
al_borland wrote: post #2

So many bad takes in that article. It will be interesting to look back in 5+ years to see how things play out vs this unlimited optimism. > "everyone is a programmer now" I’ve heard this about so many things. Various tool they make everyone a programmer, or everyone a DBA. Nice dreams, that never seem to play out. Being a programmer isn’t about the syntax, it’s about breaking problems down, so they can logically be b…

I think the enterprise stuff is programmers become more tool-assisted, so fewer programmers are needed. A team of two seniors and 6 juniors can just be two seniors. As you said, it's mostly breaking down a problem and knowing what's needed, then telling it what components are needed. 'Make me a function that does this and that' I use it all the time to make things I know I can make but it makes it, if it makes it a w…

try https://github.com/OpenInterpreter/open-interpreter. sysadmining stuff just got a whole lot easier. I've been admining Linux systems for over two decades, but I give LLMs a shot at dealing with some stupid Unix shit so I don't have to. it won't get 100% of the problems, but I can ask it to fix the mess made of, say, my system SSL certificate authorities, and it won't judge me for saying SSL and not TLS and it'll go off and try the first couple of fixes it basically the same way I would, saving me time while I work on something else.

Re: In a leaked recording, AWS CEO tells most developers could stop coding soon

#9

Post by al_borland »

mrinfinitiesx wrote: post #3
al_borland wrote: post #2

So many bad takes in that article. It will be interesting to look back in 5+ years to see how things play out vs this unlimited optimism. > "everyone is a programmer now" I’ve heard this about so many things. Various tool they make everyone a programmer, or everyone a DBA. Nice dreams, that never seem to play out. Being a programmer isn’t about the syntax, it’s about breaking problems down, so they can logically be b…

I think the enterprise stuff is programmers become more tool-assisted, so fewer programmers are needed. A team of two seniors and 6 juniors can just be two seniors. As you said, it's mostly breaking down a problem and knowing what's needed, then telling it what components are needed. 'Make me a function that does this and that' I use it all the time to make things I know I can make but it makes it, if it makes it a w…

I did see a take from someone (it may have been Alan Kay, but I could be misremembering) who said no one should layoff programmers due to AI. If AI makes programmers more productive, and everyone is getting it, they will need everyone to keep up with the competition.

2 seniors + AI may be able to have the same output at the 2 seniors + 6 juniors you mention. But if their competitors keep all those people and add AI, will they accelerate past the company when the layoffs by moving faster? Cost savings aren’t so great if they are at the expensive of remaining competitive in the market and retaining customers.

This is the perspective I hope takes hold. I think the layoffs you mentioned from Intel and IBM were very premature, if AI was the only basis for them.

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