This is a business culture problem not a tech problem.
If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?
321–330 of 719 posts
Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?
#322You can build software fast, but the more time you take the more you can be confident about it being correct. This was true already before AI code generation, but AI code generation means the definition of “fast” has shifted like crazy. An experienced engineer can now build in an hour what would have taken them a week. But it (right now) does nothing for the confidence about being correct - you still have to put in t…
> An experienced engineer can now build in an hour what would have taken them a week.
From what I've seen, I don't think so if we're talking about like-for-like quality. Maybe as an absolute best case scenario, but more typically it's more like you can build in an hour with AI whereas without AI it might take you 2 or 3.
Even thats highly task dependant, and doesn't scale as you'd expect (eg 1 hour == 2 hours, but 1 month =/= 2 months), and at times even using AI can slow things down, at its worst case more severely than at it'd speed you up at it's best.
Now if you're willing to throw like-for-like out the window, that 1h==1w could be achieved easily, maybe even more. But then again, I feel like I could do a lot more in an hour if I didn't care about quality either, not as fast as AI but much faster than I am currently.
Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?
#323Taken literally, this question just misunderstands what the point of coding is for most companies. The point was never to maximize quality of software, but to make the most money. Coding being "solved" implies it was a problem, and for companies using this framing, the problem wasn't "my software isn't good enough", but "it takes too much time and/or money for me to make software". Viewed through this lens, the "solution" of removing as much need for expensive humans to make the software is almost entirely unrelated to the quality of the output; if companies with this mindset could have released software cheaper or faster at a reduced quality before AI, they almost certainly would have.
None of this is to say that I think this is a good thing, or even that it's necessarily an accurate viewpoint. Considering who decides how much to spend on LLM products in companies that are potential customers for the ones saying "coding has been solved", I do genuinely think this is what they mean though. It's of course nonsense to actual developers, but we're not the ones who they're talking to when they say this.
Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?
#324> We’ve reached a point where an update to macOS — or to any app I rely on, really — is a source of dread rather than excitement. I now expect the new version to be worse. I actually relate to that. It used to be cool and exciting to update to see what new things are coming for free. I was just looking up what Fedora Workstation 45 might bring. Updates on phones, TV's, cars and non-Linux operating systems on PC's/lap…
> was to bundle all changes in "required security updates." Kind of...Cumulative Security Updates on Patch Tuesday still do not contain new OS features, and on pro editions of windows you can at least, last time I used Windows (maybe this changed?), still skip quality updates & feature updates. What Windows does do is tie all the "connected experiences" crap to out of band updates via the store/AppX packages which ba…
Not exactly the same, but Microsoft shipped the "Backup" or some similar name software that is actually just a OneDrive client in a Windows 10 LTSC update. LTSC is specifically for not getting such feature updates. They also changed the folder icons in the graphical shell at some point.
Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You know what software doesn't fill me with dread to update? FOSS. speak for your clearly non-pulseaudio-using self (:
And also clearly not a GNOME user...
It's no coincidence that PulseAudio and Gnome are Pottering-authored/Pottering-adjacent software.
Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?
#326> We’ve reached a point where an update to macOS — or to any app I rely on, really — is a source of dread rather than excitement. I now expect the new version to be worse. I actually relate to that. It used to be cool and exciting to update to see what new things are coming for free. I was just looking up what Fedora Workstation 45 might bring. Updates on phones, TV's, cars and non-Linux operating systems on PC's/lap…
> > We’ve reached a point where an update to macOS — or to any app I rely on, really — is a source of dread rather than excitement. I now expect the new version to be worse. You know what software doesn't fill me with dread to update? FOSS. Proprietary software isn't built for users anymore. But (some) FOSS still is.
> You know what software doesn't fill me with dread to update? FOSS.
As someone who's been burnt several times with CachyOS (Arch) updates, I don't think this is true.
Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?
#327Software quality is tied to the market incentives and always has been. AI isn’t going to make someone care about writing robust software and that is why we don’t see better software all of a sudden. The market doesn’t rewards apps that don’t break on every update, it doesn’t reward cobbling together multiple independent solutions, as opposed to using Microsoft as a one stop shop. If people could have gotten away with…
So what's our (literal or metaphorical) breaking point here? How much more does things need to break before people just say "enough" and stop consuming into the declining quality?
Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
KDE has a much older and richer history than windows 7. It’s been trying to be a safe harbor for Windows users to land in Linux for a long time.
What they really meant is it's like Windows if Windows didn't enshittify. I don't understand the plasma desktop though. Why can't I just drag a shortcut to the desktop.
Maybe because the start menu equivalent and the task bar are their own modules. They just come precondition, but you can use lots of alternatives. But I'm just guessing.
Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
What they really meant is it's like Windows if Windows didn't enshittify. I don't understand the plasma desktop though. Why can't I just drag a shortcut to the desktop.
Maybe because the start menu equivalent and the task bar are their own modules. They just come precondition, but you can use lots of alternatives. But I'm just guessing.
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Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?
#330LLMs can't parse the entire codebase at once, understand it, and then make decisions based on that understanding.
The hard part of programming almost is never how ONE function or ONE class works. It's how they all interact in a much larger picture. You can try to mitigate this, but it's a pretty fundamental concept that software is big and just too large for an LLM context window.
Until that's solved, coding has not been 'solved' by '''AI'''. They're useful for greenfield stuff, but new software was always easier to smash out quickly than working on older code.
Plus, it's not like they're building understanding like a person does regardless, even if the context window was somehow enormous.