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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?

#301

Post by kjkjadksj »

qudat wrote: post #234
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…

That’s going to give you all a ton of job security in a year when we realize that prompt first yields terrible results for maintainability.

Or they fire the existing staff who prompted this mess and bring in mkinsey to glue the mess together

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

#302

Post by 0xcafefood »

logicchains wrote: post #291
0xcafefood wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYT has it out for digital advertisers, who directly compete with them. I do sense some schadenfreude here that the tech nerds who work at these places might be in trouble. "Silicon Valley panjandrums spent the 2010s lecturing American workers in dying industries that they needed to “learn to code." To copywriters at the NYT, LLMs are far better at stringing together natural language prose than large amounts of valid…

LLMs are much better at coding now than at writing prose that doesn't sound like slop.

The code is also recognizable as slop to those who know how. Not the tropey "Not X, but Y" kind that's super easy to spot. But tons of repetition, deeply nested code, etc.

A counterpoint is that (maybe) nobody cares if the code is understandable, clean and maintainable. But NYT is explicitly in the business of selling ads surrounded by cheap copy just good enough to attract eyeballs. I suspect getting LLMs to write that is going to be far easier than getting LLMs to maintain large code bases autonomously.

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

#303

Post by kjkjadksj »

kusokurae wrote: post #225
d4rkp4ttern wrote: post #180

I see lots of discussions about humans no longer writing code but the elephant in the room is the rapid extinction of human-review of AI-made code. I expect this will lead to a massive hangover. In the meantime we try to mitigate this by ensuring the structure of code remains AI-friendly. I also expect some new types of tools to emerge that will help with this “cognitive debt”.

My impression is that people who think that LLMs will completely release reviewing or writing code have never really worked on anything safety critical. I'm not looking forward to the next wave of pacemaker glitches.

You act like we live in a world where companies are held sufficiently liable.

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

#304

Post by negromcnig »

gnz11 wrote: post #167
dboreham wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you read is in service of someone's business model.

What’s your point? Journalists have jobs?

journalists are like our own simon willinson: they need to put food on their plate by networking with powerful entities that fly them out to conferences

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

#305

Post by glaslong »

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.

They're going to have a fast and ruthless testing of whether their product senses and abilities to attract and trap customers were actually skill or lucky positioning, as competition explodes from every direction, including from within customer and user bases.

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

#306

Post by kjkjadksj »

ipnon wrote: post #139
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.

But you only $200/month for the productivity of what used to cost monthly salary for 10 software engineers. Doesn't this democratize software construction?

Did ms word usher in a surge of novel writing? Not really apparent.

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

#307

Post by staplers »

barnabee wrote: post #265
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.

I like designing data, algorithms, and systems. I like picking the right tools for the job. I like making architectural and user interface (CLI, configuration format, GUI, whatever) decisions. Actually typing code is pretty dull. To the extent that I rarely do it full time (basically only when prototyping or making very simple scripts etc.), even though I love making things. So for me, personally, LLMs are great. I'm…

The assembly line has been mass producing ready-made products for over 100 years and yet product quality, material stability, aesthetic trends, and function design still dominate the purchasing decisions of the general public.

Being tapped into fickle human preference and changing utility landscape will be necessary for a long time still. It may get faster and easier to build, but tastemakers and craftsmen still have heavy sway over markets than can mass-produce vanilla products.

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

#308

Post by mech422 »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #162
mech422 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off the top of my head, I can think of the following during my career: 1. COBOL (we actually did still use it back in the 80s) 2.AI back in the 80s (Dr. Dobbs was all concerned about it ...) 3. RAD 4. No-Code 5. Off-shoring 6. Web 2.0 7. Web 3.0 8. possibly the ADA/provably correct push depending on your area of programming TBH - I think the AI's are nice tools, but they got a long way to go before it's the 'end of c…

OK, those are all ones that didn't change programming as we know it, but some came closer than others right? I definitely considered some of those in my list of failed revolutions. My one completely successful revolution is moving from punch card programming.

Oh yeah - thats a good one...

Maybe the move from teletype to CRT's as well ?

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

#309

Post by [deleted] »

DennisP wrote: post #286
bluefirebrand wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#310

Post by sph »

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

Don’t you get it? Machine do the tedious work, all we get to do now is the fun part and we can just relax the rest of the day.

I am producing 5x as before, my boss is paying me the same salary just for two hours of actual work per day. I have so much more time to pursue my passions.

Isn’t the future great?

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