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The future of software development is software developers

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Re: The future of software development is software developers

#441

Post by dawnerd »

snickerer wrote: post #198

After working with agent-LLMs for some years now, I can confirm that they are completely useless for real programming. They never helped me solve complex problems with low-level libraries. They can not find nontrivial bugs. They don't get the logic of interwoven layers of abstractions. LLMs pretend to do this with big confidence and fail miserably. For every problem I need to turn my brain to ON MODE and wake up, the…

The idea they're good for development is propped up a lot by people able to have a react + tailwind site spun up fast. You know what also used to be able to scaffold projects quickly? The old init scripts and generators!

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#442

Post by aprilthird2021 »

lelanthran wrote: post #223
aprilthird2021 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well no, you'd be the horse driver who becomes a car driver

> Well no, you'd be the horse driver who becomes a car driver Well, that's the crux of the argument. The pro-AI devs are making the claim that devs are the horse-drivers, the anti-AI is making the claim that devs are the horses themselves. There is no objective way to verify who is right in this case, we just have to see it play out.

I don't really understand what you are saying... Anyways glad you got what I am saying at least

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#443

Post by andrekandre »

llmslave2 wrote: post #106
hansmayer wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said "planted", that is your own assumption, albeit a wrong one. I do respect it though, as it is at least a product of a human mind. But you don't have to be "planted" to champion an idea, you are clearly championing it out of some kind of conviction, many seem to do. I was just giving you a bit of reality check. If you want to show me how to "guess where things are heading" / I am actually one of the early…

This is such a fantastic response. And outsiders should very well be made aware what kind of plane they are stepping into. No offence to the aviation enthusiasts in your example but I will do everything in my power to avoid getting on their plane, in the same way I will do everything in my power to avoid using AI coded software that does anything important or critical...

  > but I will do everything in my power to avoid getting on their plane
speaking of airplanes... considering how much llm usage is being pushed top-down in many places, i wonder how long until some news drops of some catastrophic one-liner got through via llm generated code...

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#444

Post by Havoc »

This is the usual „but they can’t do the hard stuff“ argument. It’s not the right lens - at least not for employment.

If you need three programmers to deliver a project, one doing boilerplate, one intermediate and one doing hard task. And the AI can’t do the hard task then you’ve still got two unemployed dudes.

So yeah you can make the technically correct argument that it still needs a programmer but it glosses over the coming storm in real world job market.

The only other option to square that circle is to assume that A) we suddenly need 3x as much projects and B) boilerplate guy can somehow graduate to hard tasks

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#445

Post by andrekandre »

threethirtytwo wrote: post #302
leptons wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last big release from OpenAI was a big giant billion-dollar flop. Its lackluster update was written about far and wide, even here on HN. But maybe you're living in an alternate reality?

I use Claude code. My experience comes from the fact that after over a decade of working as a swe I no longer write code. It’s not some alternate reality thing or reading headlines. It’s my daily life that has changed.

  > I no longer write code
do you review it before checking it in?

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#446

Post by hansmayer »

threethirtytwo wrote: post #425
hansmayer wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He/she is probably one of those poor souls working for an AI-wrapper-startup who received a ton of compensation in "equity", which will be worth nothing when their founders get acquihired, Windsurf style ;) But until then, they get to threaten us all with the impending doom, because hey, they are looking into the eye of the storm, writing Very Complex Queries against the AI API or whatever...

Isn’t this the same type of emotional response he’s getting accused for? You’re speculating that he will be “punished” just as he speculated for you. There’s emotions on both sides and the goal is to call it out, throw it to the side and cut through into the substance. The attitude should be: Which one of us is actually right? Rather than: I’m right and you’re a fucking idiot attitude I see everywhere.

Mate, I could not care less if he/her got "punished" or not. I was just assuming what might be driving someone to go and try and answer each and every one of my posts with very low quality comments, reeking of desperation and "elon-style" humour (cheap, cringe puns). You are assuming too much here.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#447

Post by andrekandre »

davnicwil wrote: post #37
63stack wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reads like shilling/advertisement.. Coding AIs are struggling for anything remotely complex, make up crap and present it as research, write tests that are just "return true", and won't ever question a decision you make. Those twenty engineers must not have produced much.

I would say while LLMs do improve productivity sometimes, I have to say I flatly cannot believe a claim (at least without direct demonstration or evidence) that one person is doing the work of 20 with them in december 2025 at least. I mean from the off, people were claiming 10x probably mostly because it's a nice round number, but those claims quickly fell out of the mainstream as people realised it's just not that b…

  > one person is doing the work of 20 with them in december 2025 at least
it reminds me of oop hype from the 90's, but maybe indeed it will eventually be true this time...?

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#448

Post by doxeddaily »

dawnerd wrote: post #438
Mongoose wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always liken it to using Uber in ~2012. It was fun to get around major metro areas for dirt cheap. But then prices rose dramatically over the next decade+ as the company was forced to wean itself off of VC subsidies.

Same with Airbnb. Oh and Moviepass. Those were the days.

I watched a friend of mine minmax Moviepass so hard. They were so doomed.

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#449

Post by andrekandre »

theshrike79 wrote: post #347
mattmanser wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, if you're a senior dev, have you 'caught' it yet? Ask it a question about something you know well, and it'll give you garbage code that it's obviously copied from an answer on SO from 10 years ago. When you ask it for research, it's still giving you garbage out of date information it copied from SO 10 years ago, you just don't know it's garbage.

That's why you dont use LLMs as a knowledge source without giving them tools. "Agents use tools in a loop to achieve a goal." If you don't give any tools, you get hallucinations and half-truths. But you give one a tool to do, say, web searches and it's going to be a lot smarter. That's where 90% of the innovation with "AI" today is coming from. The raw models aren't gettin that much smarter anymore, but the scaffoldi…

  > The raw models aren't gettin that much smarter anymore, but the scaffolding and frameworks around them are.
yes, that is my understanding as well, though it gets me thinking if that is true, then what real value is the llm on the server compared to doing that locally + tools?

Re: The future of software development is software developers

#450

Post by andrekandre »

bloppe wrote: post #154
photios wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, let's say the 20 devs claim is false [1]. What if it's 2? I'd still learn and use the tech. Wouldn't you? [1] I actually think it might be true for certain kinds of jobs.

It's not 20 and it's not 2. It's not a person. It's a tool. It can make a person 100x more effective at certain specific things. It can make them 50% less effective at other things. I think, for most people and most things, it might be like a 25% performance boost, amortized over all (impactful) projects and time, but nobody can hope to quantify that with any degree of credibility yet.

  > but nobody can hope to quantify that with any degree of credibility yet
i'd like to think if it was really good, we would see product quality improve over time; iow less reported bugs, less support incidents, increased sign-ups etc, that could easily be quantified no?
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