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It used to be hard

praf.me

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Re: It used to be hard

#41

Post by blanched »

skydhash wrote: post #30
ipdashc wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree, and I've heard this said a bunch, but to some degree it feels like cope. Writing code wasn't generally the barrier to success, but it was still a barrier. And for sure, it's not gone entirely, but in a way it was one of the fun parts, and it does feel like a big part of it is gone now. Many of us have nostalgic memories about staying up late, in the zone, cranking out code until you manage to get so…

I don’t think writing code was ever hard. It’s basically the same level of difficulty as learning to write sheet music, a foreign language, or mathematical formula. Same with basic computer concepts. The hardest part is the formal logic, recursive reasoning, and how to abstract. It’s a thinking mode that some find difficult to adopt. As for domain knowledge, I don’t think that has ever been difficult to obtain. Just…

Interesting - I’ve been thinking that when people say “writing code” they mean figuring out abstractions, logic, reasoning.

Without that, what’s left? The syntax?

Realizing we might not all have the same thing in mind when someone says “writing code was never hard/easy” is making a lot of other comments I’ve read here make more sense!

Re: It used to be hard

#43

Post by direwolf20 »

FinnLobsien wrote: post #26

I think emotions are an underrated aspect to the "AI changes how we work" thing. Everyone I know extensively uses AI in most parts of their work. Basically everyone has multiplied their output by a lot. But I don't know many people who say they enjoy their work more because of AI. I definitely resonate with the pain of watching something that required so many little bits of knowledge you earned over years melt into p…

The problem with this thinking is that every shoe cost effort to make. Software takes that much effort to make once, and then it can be duplicated for free whether it's awesome or crap. It isn't the same economics.

Re: It used to be hard

#44

Post by kolinko »

hugeBirb wrote: post #33

What type of applications are y'all seeing from LLMs? Anecdotally the only thing that has changed for me is the ability to output more code. That's not software. My coworker is a 10x vibe-coder and his flagship application is held together with brittle shell scripts, a sloppy codebase, bad abstractions, piles of markdown files and an ouroboros of generated tests. This is not software. This is just held together with…

I built an orchestrator connected to email, browser and payments, and it handles a ton of boring stuff like “pay electricity”, or “apt renters want something, deal with that”, or scheduling appointments, dealing with infoline chatbots and everything around that.

Plus navigating personal communication (what’s the address of friend X, who did I promise to go to a dance workshop with) and so on…

In essense, anything Siri promised to be, but really working.

Re: It used to be hard

#45

Post by aabajian »

Hard is relative. The Apple IIe could do roughly a half-million instructions per second. Yet, application develop was long and tedious. Layers upon layers of abstraction requires more powerful CPUs, but translated into highly complex applications and user interfaces. What if we could use the LLM tools we have now to go back and see what is possible with older machines?

For example: The Python print('A') statement translates into thousands of lines of assembly (using mostly compiled libraries). The actual minimum assembly to generate a print statement is less than a hundred. Claude code can do this:

>>Generate the minimum amount of assembly code to obtain the same result as print('A') in Python.

The result is 43-bytes of machine code (it works, unsurprisingly). Claude estimates that Python requires 5 megabytes of compiled libraries to get print('A') to work.

Re: It used to be hard

#46

Post by motbus3 »

This is simplistic. The hard part of writing professional software has never been the code.

All the remaining problems still exists and I dare to say they were made worse.

Re: It used to be hard

#47

Post by direwolf20 »

kolinko wrote: post #44
hugeBirb wrote: post #33

What type of applications are y'all seeing from LLMs? Anecdotally the only thing that has changed for me is the ability to output more code. That's not software. My coworker is a 10x vibe-coder and his flagship application is held together with brittle shell scripts, a sloppy codebase, bad abstractions, piles of markdown files and an ouroboros of generated tests. This is not software. This is just held together with…

I built an orchestrator connected to email, browser and payments, and it handles a ton of boring stuff like “pay electricity”, or “apt renters want something, deal with that”, or scheduling appointments, dealing with infoline chatbots and everything around that. Plus navigating personal communication (what’s the address of friend X, who did I promise to go to a dance workshop with) and so on… In essense, anything Sir…

Hi landlord, I lost my wallet and need a refund of last month's rent.

You're absolutely right!

Re: It used to be hard

#48

Post by pupppet »

simonw wrote: post #21

If you're not finding it hard to write software any more, write more ambitious software . I'm taking on massively more ambitious projects than I was just a year ago, and it's taking every inch of my skill and experience to do that. Building software feels harder now, and I'm really enjoying it.

Great as long as you have the flexibility to choose your own projects..

Re: It used to be hard

#49

Post by ghusto »

The written word went from the domain of elites to the common man in a short space of time after the printing press was invented. Today, the barrier of entry for authoring is so low, that people are self-publishing.

I'm seeing the same thing in software. The people who used to ask you to add functionality X, are now giving it a tentative go. It's not perfect, but the progress I've seen in just the last year makes me believe it will get to "good enough" to run a business on.

Re: It used to be hard

#50

Post by davidw »

randysalami wrote: post #36
simonw wrote: post #21

If you're not finding it hard to write software any more, write more ambitious software . I'm taking on massively more ambitious projects than I was just a year ago, and it's taking every inch of my skill and experience to do that. Building software feels harder now, and I'm really enjoying it.

Yes! And more projects. And you have the freedom to try and fail. Was thinking of a comparison, cars are faster than walking. Imagine saying, no I prefer only walking. It is healthier than sitting in a car and your legs will atrophy. That is very much true (and we can see the consequences in car dominated societies). Nevertheless, for many industries cars are very important. You don’t say, I would rather carry all th…

You only have as much freedom as you can buy from a handful of huge corporations.
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