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Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

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Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

#391

Post by colechristensen »

eru wrote: post #349
zmmmmm wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found this as well. In some cases we aren't fully authorised to use the AI tools for actual coding but even just asking "how would you make this change" or "where would you look to resolve this bug" or "give me an overview of how this process works" is amazingly helpful.

> In some cases we aren't fully authorised to use the AI tools for actual coding but even just asking "how would you make this change" [...] Isn't the logical endpoint of this equivalent to printing out a Stackoverflow answer and manually typing it into your computer instead of copy-and-pasting? Nitpicks aside, I agree that contemporary AIs can be great for quickly getting up to speed with a code base. Both a new lib…

>not reliable enough to use blindly

I've been building things with Claude while looking at say less than 5% of the code it produces. What I've built are tools I want to use myself and... well they work. So somebody can say that I can't do it, but on the other hand I've wanted to build several kinds of ducks and what I've built look like ducks and quack like ducks so...

I've found it's a lot better at evaluating code than producing it so what you do is tell it to write some code, then tell it to give you the top 10 things wrong with the code, then tell it to fix the five of them that are valid and important. That is a much different flow than going on an expedition to find a SO solution to an obscure problem.

A good quality metric of your code is to ask an LLM to find the ten worst things about it and if all of those are all stupid then your code is pretty good. I did this recently on a codebase and it's number 1 complaint was that the name I had chosen was stupid and confusing (which it was, I'm not explaining the joke to a computer) and that was my sign that it was done finding problems and time to move on.

Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

#392

Post by jordanbeiber »

eru wrote: post #349
zmmmmm wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found this as well. In some cases we aren't fully authorised to use the AI tools for actual coding but even just asking "how would you make this change" or "where would you look to resolve this bug" or "give me an overview of how this process works" is amazingly helpful.

> In some cases we aren't fully authorised to use the AI tools for actual coding but even just asking "how would you make this change" [...] Isn't the logical endpoint of this equivalent to printing out a Stackoverflow answer and manually typing it into your computer instead of copy-and-pasting? Nitpicks aside, I agree that contemporary AIs can be great for quickly getting up to speed with a code base. Both a new lib…

The problem is most likely not writing the actual code, but rather understanding an old, fairly large codebase and how it’s stitched together.

SO is (was?) great when you where thinking about how nice a recursive reduce function could replace the mess you’ve just cobbled together, but language x just didn’t yet flow naturally for you.

Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

#393

Post by seinecle »

To nick pick, it is more about 800% gain in productivity. Cost actually increased.

I refer here to my experience as a solo developer.

With AI assistance I don't spend less hours coding, but more.

There is the thrill of shipping relevant features that were sleeping in my drawers for ages, quicker. Each hour of coding delivers just 8 x more features and bug solving.

Also, whereas I spent a few dozen dollars per month on server costs, I now also spend an equivalent amount on subscriptions and API calls to LLM services for this AI assisted coding. Worth every penny.

So while productivity increased manifold, absolute cost actually increased as well for me.

Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

#395

Post by thingortwo »

chasd00 wrote: post #39
tonyarkles wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: if a small part of the process is getting tweaked, how responsive can the team responsible for these apps be? That’s the killer feature of spreadsheets for business processes: the accountants can change the accounting spreadsheets, the shipping and receiving people can change theirs, and there’s no team in the way to act as a bottleneck. That’s also the reason that so-called “Shadow IT” exists. Teams wi…

i've seen many attempts to turn a widely used spreadsheet into a webapp. Eventually, it becomes an attempt to re-implement spreadsheets. The first time something changes and the user says "well in Excel i would just do this..." the dev team is off chasing existing features of excel for eternity and the users are pissed because it takes so long and is buggy, meanwhile, excel is right there ready and waiting.

I always see this point mentioned in "App VS Spreadsheet" but no one gives a concrete example. The whole point of using a "purpose" build app is to give some structure and consistency to the problem. If people are replicating spreadsheet feature then they needed "excel" to begin with since that is a purpose built tool for generalizing a lot of problems. It's like I can say well my notebook and pen is already in front of me, I can use this why would I ever bother opening an app? well because the app provides some additional value.

Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

#396

Post by 112233 »

From the article:

"I've had Claude Code write an entire unit/integration test suite in a few hours (300+ tests) for a fairly complex internal tool"

Did you catch what the author didn't mention? Are the tests any good? Are they even tests? I'm playing with Opus now (best entertainment for a coder), it is excellent at writing fake code and fabricating results. It wrote me a test that validates an extremely complex utility, and the test passed!

What was the test? Call utility with invalid parameters and check that there is an error.

Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

#397

Post by realusername »

interstice wrote: post #298
simonw wrote: post #158

The cost of writing simple code has dropped 90%. If you can reduce a problem to a point where it can be solved by simple code you can get the rest of the solution very quickly. Reducing a problem to a point where it can be solved with simple code takes a lot of skill and experience and is generally still quite a time-consuming process.

While I would love for this to be true for financial and egotistical reasons, I have a growing feeling that this might not be true for long unless progress really starts to stall.

Progress has stalled already, I didn't see much improvement in the past year for my real world tasks

Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

#398

Post by foobarbecue »

skydhash wrote: post #234
ed_elliott_asc wrote: post #220

Im really liking it for writing boring code. As an example I wanted a plugin for visual studio. In the past I would have spent hours on it or just not bothered but I used Claude code to write it, it isn’t beautiful or interesting code, it lacks tests but it works and saves me time. It isn’t worth anything, won’t ever be deployed into production, I’ll likely share it but won’t try to monetise it, it is boring ugly cod…

A plugin that does what exactly? A lot of comments here and under other posts are just declaring things with the following template: "I wanted to do X, but before it would took me N amount of hours, but now with LLM tool L, it has taken me way less time. I can't share anything about X, but LLM tool L is very useful. Just trust me, bro"

My favorite is this advert I keep getting that says "Imagine being able to build an app with your name on it!" I'm like... if you're struggling with the part where you put your name on it... and that's the priority.. I don't know what to tell you.

Ah, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FEWLvKztD0

Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

#399

Post by heavyset_go »

almosthere wrote: post #226
nine_k wrote: post #35

Had the cost of building custom software dropped 90%, we would be seeing a flurry of low-cost, decent-quality SaaS offering all over the marketplace, possibly undercutting some established players. From where I sit, right now, this does not seem to be the case. This is as if writing down the code is not the biggest problem, or the biggest time sink, of building software.

LLMs, long term, have killed most SaaS. Most SaaS used to be killed by bespoke software engineers that would build some custom thing, and it was integrated perfectly into the legacy system. Then all those people decided to be managers and go on "i dont care" autopilot mode and hired a bunch of teens that still do care, to some extent. But those teens suck at it, and the old guys just don't really care anymore. Now wi…

This is "people will 3D print cars in their garage, manufacturing is over!" level of hype

Re: Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

#400

Post by onehair »

bccdee wrote: post #380
hurturue wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when compiler appeared assembly programmers would complain all day how ugly and inneficient the generated code was if you want to get the productivity gain you need to figure out how to solve the code review problem

Your solution is, "just ship worse code, it's probably fine"? I think it's your standards that have fallen 90%…

No not, worse code. Wrong code. Code filled with bugs. Code filled with lawsuits too. Code that make you look productive this month while you prepare to leave the company, and turn out to be absolute pooopoo the day after you leave.
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