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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?

#281

Post by throwaway27448 »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #254
rikroots wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I do seem to spent a fair amount of my developer time swearing at my laptop screen. And then there's that time I spend just prior to writing code just staring at the wall while I figure out what sort of code I want to write - if I can repackage that wall-staring time into "time spent consulting with AI about approaches and architecture decisions" I'm sure my engineering manager will think more kindly of me ...

I'm puzzled why they don't speak aloud. Isn't it more natural AI interface? How difficult it is to connect a microphone to speech to text engine and connect that to AI? And then speak aloud. Your manager will be happy to hear you work.

It's easier to fake humanity through toneless text with narrow context and low expectstions, I think. A chatbot you type to is of course going to impress easier

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

#282

Post by bluefirebrand »

DennisP wrote: post #259
bluefirebrand wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ask yourself if there are tasks you have to do which you would rather just have done? Yeah. My laundry, my dishes, my cooking... You know. Chores. Not my software, I actually enjoy building that

I enjoy solving interesting problems in software. But when I was doing it for a living, the majority of my work was pretty tedious. I'd have been thrilled to turn over that part to AI and spend all my time doing the interesting stuff.

This is a fools errand

We are paid to do the tedious stuff because it is tedious. If we actually ever succeed in automating away the tedious stuff, we're out of work

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

#283

Post by DennisP »

swader999 wrote: post #178
zazibar wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 didn't renew Jet Brains this month. Been a loyal customer and would have quit jobs from 2008 onwards without it.

Fwiw, IntelliJ at least has an MCP server so coding agents can use the refactoring tools. Don't know about the other JetBrains IDEs.

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

#284

Post by ramesh31 »

hn_acc1 wrote: post #46
ramesh31 wrote: post #5

Because we love tech? I'm absolutely terrified about the future of employment in this field, but I wouldn't give up this insane leap of science fiction technology for anything.

A really good pattern-matching engine is an "insane leap of science fiction"? It saves me a bit of typing here and there with some good pattern matching. Trying to get it to do anything more than a few lines gives me gibberish, or an infinite loop of "Oh, you're right, I need to do X, not Y", over and over - and that's Opus 4.5 or whatever the recent one is. Would you give it access to your bank account, your 401k, t…

>A really good pattern-matching engine is an "insane leap of science fiction"?

Yes, literally. The ship computer voice interface in Star Trek was complete science fiction until 2022. Now its ability to understand speech and respond seem quaint in comparison to current AI.

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

#285

Post by flux3125 »

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…

> probably less will be needed and the exact work will be transformed a bit

My guess is the opposite: they'll throw 5–10x more work at developers and expect 10x more output, while the marginal cost is basically just a Claude subscription per dev.

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

#286

Post by DennisP »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #282
DennisP wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoy solving interesting problems in software. But when I was doing it for a living, the majority of my work was pretty tedious. I'd have been thrilled to turn over that part to AI and spend all my time doing the interesting stuff.

This is a fools errand We are paid to do the tedious stuff because it is tedious. If we actually ever succeed in automating away the tedious stuff, we're out of work

There definitely is economic value in solving the more challenging problems. Junior devs who can only do the tedious parts have lower salaries.

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

#287

Post by apsurd »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #255
IanCal wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To read it in a kinder way, I can focus on a complex logic problem, a flow, an architecture or micro optimisation. I can have an llm setup the test harnesses. I improved test speed which was fun, I had an llm write a nice analysis front end to the test timing which would have taken time but just wasn’t interesting or hard. Ask yourself if there are tasks you have to do which you would rather just have done? You’d ins…

> Ask yourself if there are tasks you have to do which you would rather just have done? Yeah. My laundry, my dishes, my cooking... You know. Chores. Not my software, I actually enjoy building that

interesting comparison to cooking. cooking is a chore and takes effort and people enjoy cooking.

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

#289

Post by GorbachevyChase »

flux3125 wrote: post #277

> You can’t just tell an agent, Build me the code for a successful start-up. The agents work best when they’re being asked to perform one step at a time That's also true for humans. If you sit down with an LLM and take the time to understand the problem you're trying to solve, it can perfectly guide you through it step by step. Even a non-technical person could build surprisingly solid software if, instead of immedia…

I appreciate this sober take. If you hired a remote developer and the only thing you said to that person was “build a program that does this. Make no mistakes” would you expect that to be successful? Are you certain you would get what you wanted?

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

#290

Post by allenu »

johnisgood wrote: post #174
allenu wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking about that recently. Maybe decades from now people will look at things like the Linux kernel or Doom and be shocked that mere humans were able to program large codebases by hand.

Hmm, can you think of anything that we could do decades ago but cannot do it now, today?

I was being a little facetious, but there are things that most people would find tedious today that we would put up with in the past. Writing anything long by hand (letters, essays), doing accounting without a spreadsheet, writing a game in only assembly language, using punch cards, typesetting newspapers and books manually...
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