Saying AI writes code is like saying your clarinet plays music.
The Post-Developer Era
61–70 of 71 posts
Re: The Post-Developer Era
#62Big part of coding is understanding the code and making decisions on what needs to be added/removed/changed. LLMs can code, even if they generate perfect code every single time, someone still needs to read the code and make decisions. Others speak about understanding business logic, interfacing with clients and stakeholders,etc... I get that, but even without that, someone will always need to decide how things should…
It's funny how we'd like to chop off the head of that junior developer who's behind that pull request of a perfectly working but not enough clean code, but we happily welcome spaghetti and buggy LLM code because sisterhood and brotherhood claim it's trendy. Herd mentality.
Well I, for one, have infinitely more patience for my juniors than whatever nonsense an LLM spits out. Far more pleasant to teach a person something new than to fix autocomplete output.
Re: The Post-Developer Era
#63Anyone who thinks AI will replace programmers isn’t doing much AI assisted coding. AI is at best very helpful. It’s a very very long way from making programmers obsolete.
The developer is not going to become obsolete. However, LLMs might already be good enough to replace teams of 10 software developers with a domain expert and an expert developer armed with good LLMs. That's enough for a fundamental, very violent change to the software industry.
They definitely are not for projects of any serious complexity
Re: The Post-Developer Era
#64Americans inexplicably re-elected a wildly incompetent conman to be president In fact, this was totally and easily explicable after the dominant political party tried to convince Americans that their current leader was not suffering from severe cognitive decline and was "sharp as a tack" (a Biden admin talking point) and that NPCs lying to Americans about Trump being "easy to beat" by Kamala and also lying to them ab…
You guys are so triggered by that "fine people" line lmao
Re: The Post-Developer Era
#65This whole post-developer idea is a red herring fueled by investor optics. The reality is AI will change how software is built, but it's still just a tool that requires the same type of precise thinking that software developers do. You can remove all need to understand syntax, but the need for translating vague desires from laypeople into a precise specification will remain—there's nothing on the AI horizon that will…
> the need for translating vague desires from laypeople into a precise specification will remain What makes you think LLMs will never be able to do that? Have you tried any of the various DeepResearch products? The workflow is that you make a request for a research project; and then it asks various clarifying questions to narrow down the specific question, acceptable sources, etc.; and only then does it do all the re…
> ... you make a request ...
Sounds like the work of mustering up instructions... like programming...
So how do these LLM's completely remove us from having to do this work of mustering up instructions? Seems to me someone still has to instruct LLMs on what to do, and that the only way this reality will cease to exist entirely, is if humanity stopped desiring computers to do what it is they want. I don't think that's happening anytime soon.
However, maybe fewer programmers will be needed, but then again, the same was said of Fortran and COBOL and look at where we are today, more programmers than ever...
Re: The Post-Developer Era
#66The client sends the new menu as a word document. Select all > copy > post this wall of text into llm > please proofread > please turn into semantic html > please translate into German, French and Italian. That takes the 3 minutes a Developer needs to formulate a prompt that will get a result with only 2 bugs.
Know if it actually is your tool.
Re: The Post-Developer Era
#67The other day I was reviewing the work of a peer on a relatively easy task (using a SDK to manage some remote resources given a static configuration). At several times I was like « why did you do that this way? This is so contrived ». And I should have known better but of course the answer started with « … I know but Copilot did this or that… ». Of course no test to validate properly the implementation. The sentiment…
Stack overflow was never a good excuse for crappy work and neither is AI. Your real problem is a people problem: hiring, management, feedback, etc.
Problem is, big corporations top level management think GenAI will turn crappy developers into superstars.
Happy to be an independant and not an employee to not put up with this crap
Re: The Post-Developer Era
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the need for translating vague desires from laypeople into a precise specification will remain What makes you think LLMs will never be able to do that? Have you tried any of the various DeepResearch products? The workflow is that you make a request for a research project; and then it asks various clarifying questions to narrow down the specific question, acceptable sources, etc.; and only then does it do all the re…
> ... you make a request ... Sounds like the work of mustering up instructions... like programming... So how do these LLM's completely remove us from having to do this work of mustering up instructions? Seems to me someone still has to instruct LLMs on what to do, and that the only way this reality will cease to exist entirely, is if humanity stopped desiring computers to do what it is they want. I don't think that's…
> > ... you make a request ...
> Sounds like the work of mustering up instructions... like programming...
Again, try Deep Research. You make a vague request, and it works with you to make it specific enough that it can deliver a product with some confidence that it will meet your requirements. Like a product manager, business analyst, requirements engineer, or whatever they call it these days.
Re: The Post-Developer Era
#69The other day I was reviewing the work of a peer on a relatively easy task (using a SDK to manage some remote resources given a static configuration). At several times I was like « why did you do that this way? This is so contrived ». And I should have known better but of course the answer started with « … I know but Copilot did this or that… ». Of course no test to validate properly the implementation. The sentiment…
what's funny is that I have had good experience using the opposite workflow as said coworker Do implementation with minimal (not none, tbf) AI support, ask copilot if there are any obvious issues with and otherwise check my work. This workflow has helped me catch quite a few gotchas I would have otherwise missed. Coding assistants are really helpful for validating output, I've had much more mixed results trying to us…
That’s because it’s pretty safe to safe you have experience and have seend havoc in the past.
Less experienced developers are the primary vector of propagation for this « low quality » output, with seniors trying to educate and review the mess (if time permits)
Re: The Post-Developer Era
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
You actually believe that not a single woodworker said to himself, there are only so many wealthy people, I might do better if I make some chairs from cheap wood in a hurry, not doing so much polishing or ornamentaion, and I can make twice as many and sell to the not-so-rich people? You really don't think that existed?
One of the reasons of the downfall of Florence was that they didn't enter the low quality textile market and remained on the high end stuff.
the fact that low-quality goods/markets existed, whether textiles or chairs, contradicts the OP's original comment and solidifies mine: "the only way to get a chair... an amazing, life-long chair with no flaws"