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Coding after coders: The end of computer programming as we know it?

nytimes.com

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Re: Coding after coders: The end of computer programming as we know it?

#241

Post by beepbooptheory »

swader999 wrote: post #176
rjh29 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two types of coder argument seems strong to me. Coders who love the art of programming (optimisation for the sake of it, beautiful designs, data structures...) and builders. The former are in for a rough time. The latter are massively enabled and no longer have to worry about smashing together libs by hand to make crud apps.

Yes this is the state of it. But just wait a few months, maybe years, the builders aren't safe either. It just won't be cost effective to let humans build in a matter of time.

Yall's blood-diamond-ass mommy bots are going to replace bullshit with bullshit and call it a win. The last datacenter will run out of coal and water and we'll be asking: "but how in the world am I going to make this Todo app?"

Re: Coding after coders: The end of computer programming as we know it?

#242

Post by sobjornstad »

zazibar wrote: post #144
comrade1234 wrote: post #48

Having an AI is like having a dedicated assistant or junior programmer that sometimes has senior-level insights. I use it to do tedious tasks where I don't care about the code - like today I used it to generate a static web page that let me experiment with the spring-ai chat bot code I was writing - basic. But yesterday it was able to track down the cause of a very obscure bug having to do with a pom.xml loading two…

>I think though that the day is coming where I can trust the code it produces and at that point I'll just by writing specs. It's not there yet though. Must be nice to still have that choice. At the company I work for they've just announced they're cancelling all subscriptions to JetBrains, Visual Studio, Windsurf, etc. and forcing every engineer to use Claude Code as a cost-saving measure. We've been told we should b…

This is completely insane, and that's coming from someone who does 95% of edits in Claude Code now.

Re: Coding after coders: The end of computer programming as we know it?

#243

Post by someprick »

caseyf wrote: post #145
dsQTbR7Y5mRHnZv wrote: post #96

> in coding, L.L.M.s take away the drudgery and leave the human, soulful parts to you. I've always hated solving puzzles with my deterministic toolbox, learning along the way and producing something of value at the end. Glad that's finally over so I can focus on the soulful art of micromanaging chatbots with markdown instead.

+1024. what the FUCK, Anil. We solved coding-is-for-everyone by throwing up our hands. please crush my body under the heaviest layer of abstraction yet and have the llm read my eulogy because who could possibly know me better than the code I spend all day talking to as if it were a human

Lurked for >10y here. Created an account just to say, "+1 well said."

Re: Coding after coders: The end of computer programming as we know it?

#244

Post by AstroBen »

EagnaIonat wrote: post #146
bikelang wrote: post #89

If coding truly becomes effortless to produce - and by that extension a product becomes near free to produce - then I find it quite odd that the executive class thinks their businesses won’t be completely up ended by a raging sea of competition.

All run of the mill software is gone or on borrowed time. Why pay a subscription for a product that I can get something Claude to build it for me. Before I was building tools, now I am building full applications in less time than I did before for tools. What will be around for a while is where you need an expert in the loop to drive the AI. For example enterprise applications. You simply can't hand that off to an AI…

Can we see the applications?

Re: Coding after coders: The end of computer programming as we know it?

#245

Post by some_random »

bikelang wrote: post #89

If coding truly becomes effortless to produce - and by that extension a product becomes near free to produce - then I find it quite odd that the executive class thinks their businesses won’t be completely up ended by a raging sea of competition.

No, that's exactly what at least some of them think and it's why the market has been so volatile lately.

Re: Coding after coders: The end of computer programming as we know it?

#246

Post by GeoAtreides »

motbus3 wrote: post #138
coldtea wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If managers can't understand why this isn't a brag, then your job is hardly safe.

Managers jobs are more at risk than senior engineers. My company, and few others I know reduced the number of managers by 90% or more.

you're not responding to op's point, unless you're insinuating there won't be any managers ever, which won't happen. As long as there is one manager left, OP's point remains.

Re: Coding after coders: The end of computer programming as we know it?

#248

Post by deadbabe »

zazibar wrote: post #144
comrade1234 wrote: post #48

Having an AI is like having a dedicated assistant or junior programmer that sometimes has senior-level insights. I use it to do tedious tasks where I don't care about the code - like today I used it to generate a static web page that let me experiment with the spring-ai chat bot code I was writing - basic. But yesterday it was able to track down the cause of a very obscure bug having to do with a pom.xml loading two…

>I think though that the day is coming where I can trust the code it produces and at that point I'll just by writing specs. It's not there yet though. Must be nice to still have that choice. At the company I work for they've just announced they're cancelling all subscriptions to JetBrains, Visual Studio, Windsurf, etc. and forcing every engineer to use Claude Code as a cost-saving measure. We've been told we should b…

I hope they are prepared to pay the $500/month per head when subsidies expire.

Re: Coding after coders: The end of computer programming as we know it?

#249

Post by GeoAtreides »

gf000 wrote: post #141
allreduce wrote: post #124

I'm starting to find the naive techno-optimism here annoying. If you don't have capital or can do something else you will be homeless.

Well, there are so many more lower hanging fruits that LLMs can actually replace before they get to developers -- basically every middle manager, and a significant chunk of all white collar jobs. I'm not convinced software developers will be replaced - probably less will be needed and the exact work will be transformed a bit, but an expert human still has to be in the loop, otherwise all you get is a bunch of nonsens…

you know, natural attrition is still attrition.

Re: Coding after coders: The end of computer programming as we know it?

#250

Post by ch4s3 »

mexicocitinluez wrote: post #207
leptons wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All that stuff would take me about 5 minutes without AI. Those are things with 10,000 examples all over the web. AI is good at distilling the known solutions. But anything even slightly out of the ordinary, it fails miserably. I'd much rather write that code myself instead of spend an hour convincing an AI to do it for me.

> All that stuff would take me about 5 minutes without AI. There isn't a single person on this planet (detractor or not) that would believe this statement. If you're argument rests on an insane amount of hyperbole (that immediately comes off as just lying), then maybe it's not a great argument. > I'd much rather write that code myself instead of spend an hour convincing an AI to do it for me. You're not suggesting th…

> There isn't a single person on this planet (detractor or not) that would believe this statement.

It's so galling to see people say shit like this. It's like the old build slack in a weekend trope.

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