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Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated

stevekrouse.com

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Re: Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated

#221

Post by sathish316 »

Some of the good quotes or analogies in this article:

1 - “It seems like 99% of society has agreed that code is dead. …It's the same as thinking storytelling is dead at the invention of the printing press. No you dummies, code is just getting started. AI is going to be such a boon for coding.“

2 - Another one comparing writing and coding, and explaining how Code is both a means and an end to manage complexity:

“we're confused because we (incorrectly) think that code is only for the software it produces. It's only partly about that. The code itself is also a centrally important artifact… I think this is a lot clearer if you make an analogy to writing. Isn't it fucking telling that nobody is talking about "vibe writing"?”

Re: Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated

#222

Post by scorpioxy »

foxglacier wrote: post #219
ehsanu1 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Business problems are essentially neverending. And humans have a broader type of intelligence that LLMs lack but are needed to solve many novel problems. I wouldn't worry.

Unless you're one of the bulk of 1x programmers who aren't doing anything novel. I think it will be like most industries that got very helpful technology - the survivors have to do more sophisticated work and the less capable people are excluded. Then we need more education to supply those sophisticated workers but the existing education burden on professionals is already huge and costly. Will they be spending 10 yea…

To add, just keeping up in this industry was already a problem. I don't know of many professions[1] with such demands on time outside of a work day to keep your skills updated. It was perhaps an acceptable compromise when the market was hot and the salaries high. But I am hearing from more and more people who are just leaving the field entirely labeling it as "not worth it anymore".

[1] Medicine may be one example of an industry with poor work-life balance for some, specifically specialists. But job security there is unmatched and compensation is eye-watering.

Re: Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated

#223

Post by i_love_retros »

Waterluvian wrote: post #210

I feel pretty strongly about a set of somewhat at-odds thoughts: - in a non-hobby setting, code is a liability - I want to solve problems, not write code - I love writing code as a hobby. - being paid to do my hobby professionally is amazing. - I love the idea of the Star Trek Ship’s Computer. To just ask for things and for it to do the work. It sometimes feels like we’re very close .

Star trek is the polar opposite of what we are close to in every single way.

Re: Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated

#224

Post by komali2 »

ehsanu1 wrote: post #189
g9yuayon wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lattner found nothing innovative in the code generated by AI I don't think the replacement is binary. Instead, it’s a spectrum. The real concern for many software engineers is whether AI reduces demand enough to leave the field oversupplied. And that should be a question of economy: are we going to have enough new business problems to solve? If we do, AI will help us but will not replace us. If not, well, we are go…

Business problems are essentially neverending. And humans have a broader type of intelligence that LLMs lack but are needed to solve many novel problems. I wouldn't worry.

> Business problems are essentially neverending

That feels overly optimistic. LLMs seems on track to automate out basically any "email job" or "spreadsheet job," in which case we'll be looking at higher unemployment numbers than the great depression for at least some period of time. Combine with increased automation...

There are a LOT of people in the world and already a not insignificant portion can't find work despite wanting to. Seems the most likely thing is that the value of most labor is reduced to pennies.

Re: Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated

#225

Post by yabutlivnWoods »

lateforwork wrote: post #71

Chris Lattner, inventor of the Swift programming language recently took a look at a compiler entirely written by Claude AI. Lattner found nothing innovative in the code generated by AI [1]. And this is why humans will be needed to advance the state of the art. AI tends to accept conventional wisdom. Because of this, it struggles with genuine critical thinking and cannot independently advance the state of the art. AI…

The innovation isn't the output but the provenance.

We don't necessarily need a Chris Lattner to make a compiler now.

End of the day Chris Lattner is a single individual, not a magic being. A single individual posting submarine ads for his cleverness in the knowledge work subfield of language compilers. Of course he is going to drag the competition.

Languages are abstraction over memory addresses to provide something friendlier for human consumption. It's a field that's decades old and repeats itself constantly being it revolves around the same old; development of a compression technique to deduplicate and transpile to machine code the languages more verbose syntax.

Building a compiler is itself just programming. None of this is truly novel nor has it been since the 60s-70s. All that's changing is the user interface; the syntax.

Intelligence gives rise to our language capacity. The languages themselves are merely visual art that fits the preferences of the language creator. They arbitrarily decided nesting the dolls their way makes the most sense.

Currently have agents iterating on "prompt to binary". Reversing a headless Debian system into a model and optimizing to output tailored images. Opcodes, power use in system all tucked into a model to spit back out just the functions needed to achieve the electromagnetic geometry desired[1]

[1] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/2987/1/...

Re: Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated

#226

Post by mlboss »

lateforwork wrote: post #71

Chris Lattner, inventor of the Swift programming language recently took a look at a compiler entirely written by Claude AI. Lattner found nothing innovative in the code generated by AI [1]. And this is why humans will be needed to advance the state of the art. AI tends to accept conventional wisdom. Because of this, it struggles with genuine critical thinking and cannot independently advance the state of the art. AI…

Humans have the advantange of millions of year of training baked in their genes. There is nothing magical about being a human. Once algorithms have ability to collect data from real world(robotics), ability to do experiments in real world and ability to mimic nature all these advantages will fall away.

The rate of change is accelerating. I worry we don't have much time left unless we get serious about merging with machines.

Re: Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated

#227

Post by [deleted] »

i_love_retros wrote: post #223
Waterluvian wrote: post #210

I feel pretty strongly about a set of somewhat at-odds thoughts: - in a non-hobby setting, code is a liability - I want to solve problems, not write code - I love writing code as a hobby. - being paid to do my hobby professionally is amazing. - I love the idea of the Star Trek Ship’s Computer. To just ask for things and for it to do the work. It sometimes feels like we’re very close .

Star trek is the polar opposite of what we are close to in every single way.

[deleted]

Re: Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated

#228

Post by patrickmay »

bluGill wrote: post #103

A week ago there was an artical about Donald Knuth asking an ai to prove something then unproved and it found the proof. I suppose it is possible that the great Knuth didn't know how to find this existing truth - but there is a reason we all doubted it (including me when I mentioned it there) i have never written a c compiler yet I would bet money if you paid me to write one (it would take a few years at least) it wo…

I'd bet if you read the Dragon book (yes, I'm dating myself) you'd have something working in less than three months. More importantly, you would understand every bit of it.

Re: Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated

#229

Post by patrickmay »

idopmstuff wrote: post #20
deadbabe wrote: post #4

My problem is that while I know “code” isn’t going away, everyone seems to believe it is, and that’s influencing how we work. I have not really found anything that shakes these people down to their core. Any argument or example is handwaved away by claims that better use of agents or advanced models will solve these “temporary” setbacks. How do you crack them? Especially upper management.

As a former PM, I will say that if you want to stop something from happening at your company, the best route is to come off very positive about it initially. This is critical because it gives you credibility. After my first few years of PMing, I developed a reflex that any time I heard a deeply stupid proposal, I would enthusiastically ask if I could take the lead on scoping it out. I would do the initial research/pl…

As a (sometime) TPM, you are the kind of PM I've been looking for.

Re: Reports of code's death are greatly exaggerated

#230

Post by chongli »

fasterik wrote: post #107
thesz wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...generate answers near the center of existing thought. This is right in the Wikipedia's article on universal approximation theorem [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_approximation_theore... "n the field of machine learning, the universal approximation theorems (UATs) state that neural networks with a certain structure can, in principle, approximate any continuous function to any desired degree of ac…

It has been proven that recurrent neural networks are Turing complete [0]. So for every computable function, there is a neural network that computes it. That doesn't say anything about size or efficiency, but in principle this allows neural networks to simulate a wide range of intelligent and creative behavior, including the kind of extrapolation you're talking about. [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article…

So for every computable function, there is a neural network that computes it. That doesn't say anything about size or efficiency

It also doesn't say anything about finding the desired function, rather than a different function which approximates it closely on some compact set but diverges from it outside that set. That's the trouble with extrapolation: you don't know how to compute the function you're looking for because you don't know anything about its behaviour outside of your sample.

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