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Will AI take web developer jobs?

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Re: Will AI take web developer jobs?

#61

Post by JustExAWS »

akomtu wrote: post #38

It doesn't need to completely replace software devs. Rather, AI will make a $25k/year software dev as good as a $250k/year software dev, and the 25k one won't even need to speak English. The real question is: will AI enable the now jobless 250k software dev do something that's so valuable that the US companies will need his services at this price?

While I wouldn’t go as far $25K vs $250K, the main difference between the $125K developer and the $250K developer is the latter was willing to memorize enough leetCode to get into BigTech.

Re: Will AI take web developer jobs?

#62

Post by mbil »

akomtu wrote: post #38

It doesn't need to completely replace software devs. Rather, AI will make a $25k/year software dev as good as a $250k/year software dev, and the 25k one won't even need to speak English. The real question is: will AI enable the now jobless 250k software dev do something that's so valuable that the US companies will need his services at this price?

IMO, if the company knows how to leverage them, yes. They’ll be the ones bringing online fleets of “junior dev” software agents, connecting them to telemetry and evaluation systems, maintaining subsystems in various states of modernity, interfacing between stakeholders and systems, and being a responsible party for the bosses. A lot of that isn’t too different from the role today, except they’ll be more impactful, produce more value, and have more time for the deep reflection that generates insight and invention.

Re: Will AI take web developer jobs?

#63

Post by zx8080 »

Ekaros wrote: post #47
rvz wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's perfect for replacing web developers. In fact, web developers are the first for AI to completely replace them as it is best trained on the javascript and typescript ecosystem(s) and that was all done by themselves due to it's high popularity and the lowest of all barriers in this industry. It will take time for the other sectors, but web developers are the first to be completely displaced.

So is the AI finally a working low code solution?

For some, mccoffee is a solution. So it does depend on expectations.

When there's no budget for hiring a human professional, then any AI output seemingly resembling what is needed would be a solution. Because, how to properly verify it?

Re: Will AI take web developer jobs?

#64

Post by hagbard_c »

dkersten wrote: post #21
dlcarrier wrote: post #15

AI creates bloated, sometimes nonsensical output that often straight-up doesn't work. It's perfect for replacing web developers. It can make mobile apps, too.

Just wait, soon there will be a JavaScript framework: by AI, for AI.

Followed by an AI model executing through Javascript, followed by one executing through WASM, followed by an AI model running natively in the browser which will be sold as the 'lean' version which no longer needs Javascript. You'll just have an AI model in the browser interpret data sent by the AI-driven server, 'content' tailor-generated for the user.

Also imagine the compression factor made possible by such a system. Instead of sending a few dozens of megabytes over the line the AI-server will tell the AI-renderer to:

X-PAGE-PROMPT = generate a page showing a number of cats engaged in play with a fluffy toy, make sure to have product placement for products $A, $B and $C, have a catalogue for the furniture used in the scene lie open op the table and make sure that the brand and vendor names are clearly visible

Re: Will AI take web developer jobs?

#65

Post by sarchertech »

ripped_britches wrote: post #44
MyOutfitIsVague wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company has had a backlog thousands of developer-hours long for years. Maybe eventually somebody will get fired because we're not needed, but the LLM would have to actually 10x our productivity for us to get through the backlog in a year.

That backlog almost certainly is just stuff you care about and not related to revenue Or someone would have been added to headcount to work on it

No one knows what will bring in revenue. It’s all just a guess and at most bigcos there are far more people who can create tickets than there are people who can close them.

Every PM I’ve ever worked with had 10x more things they wanted to add than they had devs to add them.

Re: Will AI take web developer jobs?

#66

Post by codr7 »

simonw wrote: post #59
codr7 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, define productive. Because I suspect that comes with learning a lot less in the process and lower quality output.

My own usage of LLMs to help me code has resulted in me learning more and producing higher quality output. You have to use them diligently, but it's definitely possible to avoid the obvious downsides of working in this way.

And what kind of experience do you have?

Because I suspect it depends a lot on skill level.

Re: Will AI take web developer jobs?

#67

Post by codr7 »

simonw wrote: post #60
codr7 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the time? What kind of code are you writing, if I may ask; and how long have you been doing it? I sometimes ask whatever AI open ended questions on subjects I know very little about, and sometimes I find some kind of starting point for less random research using better tools. Beyond that, and whatever fancy autocomplete my IDE forces down my throat, nope. If if was gone tomorrow I would barely notice.

I've been leaning hard on LLMs to help me write code for just over two years now. I mainly work in Python and JavaScript, which are both languages that LLMs are extremely good at, but I also use them for languages I hardly know at all like jq and Bash and AppleScript and Go. I've published a ton of notes on this here: https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai-assisted-programming/ and https://simonwillison.net/series/using-l…

And what kind of experience do you have using these languages?

Re: Will AI take web developer jobs?

#69

Post by simonw »

codr7 wrote: post #66
simonw wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My own usage of LLMs to help me code has resulted in me learning more and producing higher quality output. You have to use them diligently, but it's definitely possible to avoid the obvious downsides of working in this way.

And what kind of experience do you have? Because I suspect it depends a lot on skill level.

25+ years getting paid money to write software.

Re: Will AI take web developer jobs?

#70

Post by simonw »

codr7 wrote: post #67
simonw wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been leaning hard on LLMs to help me write code for just over two years now. I mainly work in Python and JavaScript, which are both languages that LLMs are extremely good at, but I also use them for languages I hardly know at all like jq and Bash and AppleScript and Go. I've published a ton of notes on this here: https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai-assisted-programming/ and https://simonwillison.net/series/using-l…

And what kind of experience do you have using these languages?

I co-created Django. I've been writing about JavaScript since 2002. https://simonwillison.net/tags/javascript/
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