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Now might be the best time to learn software development

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Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#271

Post by atomicnumber3 »

noworriesnate wrote: post #25
ako wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And compared to what we had before SQL, it is much easier to use, and a lot more people are able to use it.

But software developers often struggle to use sql and prefer using ORMs or analytical APIs like polars; the people who excel at sql are typically not programmers, they’re data engineers, DBAs, analysts, etc. Maybe a similar bifurcation will arise where there are vibe coders who use LLMs to write everything, and there are real engineers who avoid LLMs. Maybe we’re seeing the beginning of that with the whole bifurcatio…

Aren't data engineers programmers? That is to say, a data engineer is-a software engineer?

I share your sentiment though - I'm a data engineer (8 years) turned product engineer (3 years) and it astounds me how little SQL "normal" programmers know. It honestly changed my opinion on ORMs - it's not like the SQL people would write exceeds the basic select/filter/count patterns that is the most that non-data people know.

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#272

Post by 9rx »

dmkolobov wrote: post #124
9rx wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is that really because of the English-esque syntax Well, what we had before SQL[1] was QUEL, which is effectively the same as Alpha[2], except in "English". Given the previous assertion about what came before SQL, clearly not. I expect SQL garnered favour because it is tablational instead of relational, which is the quality that makes it easier to understand for those not heavy in the math. [1] Originally known as…

Do you have any advice for understanding the difference between "relational" and "tablational"? I remember hearing something about how SQL is not really relational from my college professor, but we never really explored that statement.

Quite simply: A relation is a set of tuples, while a table is a list/multiset of tuples.

The Alpha/QUEL linage chose relations, while SQL went with tables. Notably, a set has no ordering or duplicates — which I suggest is in contrast to how the layman tends to think about the world, and thus finds it to be an impediment when choosing between technology options. There are strong benefits to choosing relations over tables, as Codd wrote about at length, but they tend to not show up until you get into a bit more complexity. By the time your work reaches that point, the choice of technology is apt to already be made.

With care, SQL enables mimicking relations to a reasonable degree when needed, which arguably offers the best of all worlds. That said, virtually all of the SQL bugs I see in the real world come as a result of someone not putting in enough care in that area. When complexity grows, it becomes easy to overlook the fine details. Relational algebra and calculus would help by enforcing it. But, tradeoffs, as always.

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#273

Post by sfn42 »

hippari2 wrote: post #258
jdmoreira wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are discussing with a llm? Never happened to me and I use llms all the time. Why would you need to discuss if you know best? Just tell it what to do and course correct it. It's not rocket science. PS: Both humans and llms are hard to align. But I do have to discuss with humans and I find that exhausting. llms I just nudge or tell what to do

I find it exhausting in a yes-man kind of way where it does whatever you told but just somehow wrong. I think your human case is the reverse.

Just like a person would. If you want it done right you have to do it yourself. Or you have to tell the LLM exactly how to do it.

Often I find it easier to just do it myself rather than list out a bunch of changes. I'll give the LLM a vague task, it does it and then I go through it. If it's completely off I give it new instructions, if it's almost right I just fix the details myself.

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#274

Post by neuronexmachina »

jdmoreira wrote: post #243
bgwalter wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To each his own. I'm completely drained after 30 min of "discussing" with an LLM, which is essentially an overconfident idiot. Pushes never come from the LLM, which can be easily seen by feeding the output of two LLMs into each other. The conversation collapses completely. Using Google while ignoring the obnoxious and often wrong LLM summaries at the top gives you access to the websites of real human experts, who oft…

You are discussing with a llm? Never happened to me and I use llms all the time. Why would you need to discuss if you know best? Just tell it what to do and course correct it. It's not rocket science. PS: Both humans and llms are hard to align. But I do have to discuss with humans and I find that exhausting. llms I just nudge or tell what to do

> You are discussing with a llm? Never happened to me and I use llms all the time. Why would you need to discuss if you know best? Just tell it what to do and course correct it. It's not rocket science.

I find myself often discussing with an LLM when trying to find the root cause of an issue I'm debugging. For example, when trying to track down a race condition I'll give it a bunch of relevant logs and source code, and the investigation tends to be pretty interactive. For example, it'll pose a number of possible explanations/causes, and I'll tell it which one to investigate further, or recommendations for what new logging would help.

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#275

Post by tempodox »

psunavy03 wrote: post #14

"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."

But a sycophant with a hopeless case of Dunning-Kruger (a.k.a. LLM) is so much more entertaining!

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#276

Post by ta988 »

endymion-light wrote: post #256
Jensson wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone uses an individualized version of Google, not just your history its even different by country of origin etc. So no, they are not using the same version of Google.

Well my individualized version of google is filled with medium articles and useless bull, i'd pay good money to switch to this magic working search engine

It is called Kagi

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#277

Post by somenameforme »

dakiol wrote: post #160
pyman wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked my students to write a joke about AI. Sometimes humor is the best way to get people to talk about their fears without filters. One of them wrote: "I went to work early that day and noticed my monitor was on, and code was being written without anyone pressing any keys. Something had logged into my machine and was writting code. I ran to my boss and told him my computer had been hacked. He looked at me, concern…

Why do we assume that Prompt Engineering is going to pay less money? As usual, what one brings to the company is value, and if AI-generated code needs to be prompted first and reviewed later, I don’t see how prompters in the future could earn less than software engineers now. Prompt engineering is like singing: sure thing everyone can physically sing… now whether it’s pleasant listening to them is another topic.

People aren't paid by value brought to companies, they're paid by the scarcity of their skill. Your analog is actually perfect for this. There's a reason saying you want to be a professional singer is generally something only a child would say. It's about as reliable a career as winning the lottery, simply because everybody can sing, lots of them quite decently. And so singer, as a career, mostly isn't a thing - it's a hobby with some distant hope of going Oliver Anthony at some point.

Software development has a huge barrier to entry which keeps the labor pool relatively small, which keeps wages relatively high. There's going to be a way larger pool of people capable of 'prompt engineering' which is going to send wages proportionally way down.

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#278

Post by trod1234 »

dakiol wrote: post #160
pyman wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked my students to write a joke about AI. Sometimes humor is the best way to get people to talk about their fears without filters. One of them wrote: "I went to work early that day and noticed my monitor was on, and code was being written without anyone pressing any keys. Something had logged into my machine and was writting code. I ran to my boss and told him my computer had been hacked. He looked at me, concern…

Why do we assume that Prompt Engineering is going to pay less money? As usual, what one brings to the company is value, and if AI-generated code needs to be prompted first and reviewed later, I don’t see how prompters in the future could earn less than software engineers now. Prompt engineering is like singing: sure thing everyone can physically sing… now whether it’s pleasant listening to them is another topic.

> Why do we assume that Prompt Engineering is going to pay less money.

I supposed because every new job title that has come out in the last 20+ years has followed the same approach of initially the same or slightly more money, followed by significant reductions in workforce activities shortly thereafter, followed by coordinated mass layoffs and no work after that.

When 70% of the economy is taken over by a machine that can work without needing food, where can anyone go to find jobs to feed themselves let alone their children.

The underlying issues have been purposefully ignored by the people who are pushing these changes because these are problems for next quarter, and money printing through non-fraction reserve banking decouples the need to act.

Its all a problem for next quarter, which just gets kicked repeatedly until food security becomes a national security issue.

Politician's already don't listen to what people have to say, what makes you think they'll be able to do anything once organized violence starts happening because food is no longer available, because jobs are no longer available.

The idiots and political violence we see right now is nothing compared to what comes when people can't get food, when their mindset changes from we can work within the system to there is no out only through. When existential survival depends on removing the people responsible by any means, these things happen, and when the environment is ripe for it; they have friends everywhere.

UBI doesn't work because non-market socialism fails. You basically have a raging fire that will eventually reach every single person and burn them all alive, and it was started by evil blind idiots that wanted to replace human agency.

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#279

Post by amanaplanacanal »

dijksterhuis wrote: post #207
lupire wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to be that guy, but would to prefer if your computer and phone each cost $5000?

> The solution isn't "let's stop online flight bookings sites and protect travel agents" because that's an inefficient system this is akin to the self-checkout aisles in supermarkets, some of which have been rolled back to add back in more human checkout staff. why? people liked interacting with the inefficient humans. turns out efficiency isn’t ideal in all cases . i wasn’t trying to argue that everything should be…

I know someone who will never use self-check, because he isn't getting paid to scan his own groceries.

I, on the other hand, will use whichever gets me out of the store faster. I don't view shopping for groceries as a social occasion.

I guess it takes all types.

Re: Now might be the best time to learn software development

#280

Post by ramesh31 »

jaza wrote: post #191
temporallobe wrote: post #50

Essentially it’s the same as it always was. Back in the day, Low-code or No-code solutions implemented by non-technical people have always resulted in engineers having to come in behind them to clean up their mess. I’ve had quite the lucrative career doing just that.

Hahaha... so ChatGPT-generated Node / React apps is the new Excel with VBA macros!

>Hahaha... so ChatGPT-generated Node / React apps is the new Excel with VBA macros!

Maybe, but also "Excel with VBA macros" has generated an unimaginable amount of value for businesses in that time as well. There's going to be room for both.

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