In fact, in my opinion, one of the benefits of AI tools that is often overlooked is "psychological support". When you are stuck at work, it will give you a push. Even if it is not completely right, it is enough to get you moving. The feeling of "no longer fighting alone at work" is actually more important than many people think.
Now might be the best time to learn software development
131–140 of 375 posts
Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development
#132"Great news, boss! We invented this new tool that allows nontechnical people to write code in English! Now anyone can deploy applications, and we don't have to hire all those expensive developers!" "Wow, show it to me!" "OK here it is. We call it COBOL."
You're joking but it's true. I'm sure you know that. SQL had similar claims... Declarative, say what you need and the computer will do for you. Also written in English.
Or QBE, "Query By Exemple", that was another try by IBM to make a query language directly usable by anyone.
Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development
#133The farming quote is interesting, but one of the Jevons paradox requirements is a highly elastic demand curve, and food is inelastic . The open questions right now are how much of a demand is there for more software, and where do AI capabilities plateau.
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Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development
#134Hi all - I write a lot for myself but typically don't share, hence the stream-of-consciousness style. But I thought this might be worth blogifying just for the sake of adding some counter-narrative to the doomerism I see a lot regarding the value of software developers. Feel free to tear it apart :)
I clicked only because I disagreed with the title. What a joy of an essay!
Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Early on, programming was considered secretarial work.
> Early on, programming was considered secretarial work. Incorrect. Encoding a program was considered secretarial work, not the act of programming itself. Over time, "encoding" was shortened to "coding." This is why the industry term "coder" is a pejorative descriptor.
> This is why the industry term "coder" is a pejorative descriptor.
It is not.
Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslator) was another "AI" project in "automatic programming": "Before 1954, almost all programming was done in machine language or assembly language. Programmers rightly regarded their work as a complex, creative art that required human inventiveness to produce an efficient program." -John Backus, "The History of Fortran I, II, and III", https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/800025.1198345 "The IBM Mathe…
Fortran promised to eliminate debugging. In 2015, I taught React is a functional programming way to create very fast, bug free apps and the project manager found ways to push us to the hair-on-fire status quo. "FORTRAN should virtually eliminate coding and debugging" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3970011
SQL had similar promises.
But it still has been immensely useful and a durable paradigm, even though usage hasn't been exactly as thought.
Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
What you can achieve with the standard SQL is taught on universities. The whole package. I’ve never met a developer, who struggled with that. When you use ORMs you need to follow SQL’s logic anyway. People use ORMs to avoid painful data conversions. Not to avoid the logic. Data engineers, DBAs, analysts, etc excel in specific databases, not in “SQL”.
Ive worked in BI and data engineering my whole career and I’ve met plenty of programmers who struggled immensely with SQL once it went further than select and group by. And don’t get me started about their database design skills. It’s way too often a disaster hidden behind “it works for the software so good enough”. Im more surprised by software engineers who do know these things than by the ones who don’t.
I’ve worked with gameplay programmers who can’t do simple 3D math, c++ programmers who fundamentally don’t understand pointers, backend developers who didn’t understand globals were shared state and cause race conditions, etc.
It’s not that SQL is hard, it’s that for any discipline the vast majority of people don’t have a solid grasp of the tools they’re using. Ask most tradespeople about the underlying thing they’re working with and you’ll have the same problem.
Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development
#138Now really feels like a good time to start learning how to code. I used to get completely lost reading documentation, but with Copilot, I just type a few lines and it helps fill in the logic. It feels like having a more experienced person sitting next to me.
That said, I still try to figure out the logic myself first, then let AI help polish or improve it. It is a bit slower, but when something breaks, at least I know why.
AI has definitely lowered the barrier. But whether you can actually walk through the door still depends on you.
Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a developer and: - I hate ORMs, they are the source for a lot of obscure errors behind layers and layers of abstractions. - I prefer analytical APIs for technical reasons, not just the language. Reasons: - I can compose queries, which in turn makes them easier to decompose - It's easier to spot errors - I avoid parsing SQL strings - It's easier to interact with the rest of the code, both functions and objects If…
Well, the problem in ORM is the O. Objection-orientation is just a worse way to organise your data and logic than relational algebra. It's just a shame that many languages don't support relational algebra well. We had relations as a datatype and all the relevant operations over them (like join) in a project I was working on. It was great! Very useful for expressing business logic.
The problem in ORM is the M, the mapping is always lossy and a leaky abstraction.
Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development
#140> And like mechanized farm equipment, LLMs are cheap, plentiful, getting smaller every day, and- most importantly- require no training to operate.
I... assume that was meant sarcastically, but it's not at all clear from context I think.