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AI code and software craft

alexwennerberg.com

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Re: AI code and software craft

#61

Post by trollbridge »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #36
slotrans wrote: post #11

The AI code takeover will not free engineers up to do craftsmanship. It will annihilate the last vestiges of craftsmanship forever.

New technology does not eliminate old technology or craftsmanship. It just shifts who uses it and what for. - Power tools didn't annihilate the craftsmanship of hand-tool woodworking. Fine woodworkers are still around and making money using hand tools, as well as hobbyists. But contractors universally switched to power tools because they help them make more money with less labor/cost/time. - A friend of mine still kn…

The examples given are using tools to do well-defined, repeatable processes. So far, despite many attempts by upper management to make software the same way, it hasn't happened, and AI doesn't appear to be any different.

I don't see a huge difference between people writing in a high-level language and people writing complex prompts.

Re: AI code and software craft

#62

Post by trollbridge »

fartfeatures wrote: post #46
nielsbot wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not in one prompt, but instead an orchestration of planning, implementing, validating, and reviewing Lots of times I could just write it myself and be done with it

Sure and lots of times I can walk places. That doesn't mean bikes, cars, trains and planes aren't incredibly useful. They let me achieve things I can't in other ways for example transporting cargo without a team of people to help me. Just like AI coding.

Yet replacing walking with cars is often cited as one of the reasons for many of society's ills.

Re: AI code and software craft

#63

Post by Ronsenshi »

hackyhacky wrote: post #51
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New technology does not eliminate old technology or craftsmanship. It just shifts who uses it and what for. - Power tools didn't annihilate the craftsmanship of hand-tool woodworking. Fine woodworkers are still around and making money using hand tools, as well as hobbyists. But contractors universally switched to power tools because they help them make more money with less labor/cost/time. - A friend of mine still kn…

You give examples where crafts based on pre-industrial technology still exist. You're right, but you're proving the GP's point. 200 years ago, being a blacksmith was a viable career path. Now it's not. The use of hand tools, hand knitting, and hand forging is limited to niche, exotic, or hobbyist areas. The same could be said of making clothes by hand or developing film photographs. Coding will be relegated to the sa…

> Effectively all software will be made by AI. Students will not study coding, the knowledge of our generation will be lost.

Given the echo chamber of HN when it comes to AI that certainly seems inevitable. The question is - who would work on novel things or further AI model improvements if it so happens that knowledge of writing software by hand disappears?

Re: AI code and software craft

#64

Post by [deleted] »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #40
skybrian wrote: post #2

Enterprise software tends to particularly bad because it's being sold to managers who won't use it themselves. Consumer software tends to be more user-friendly (or it won't sell), but popular software isn't always what you want. When writing software for yourself, there is a bias towards implementing just the features you want and never mind the rest. Sometimes the result can be pretty sloppy, but it works. However,…

Enterprise software is also particularly bad because many of the customers get to demand that things work the way they want. Leading to a million weird functions, toggles, configurability because some manager in charge of making a big purchase demanded that first it must do X, many of these features left with not even a single user after the original requester leaves. While consumer software the individual consumers…

[deleted]

Re: AI code and software craft

#65

Post by trollbridge »

gbear605 wrote: post #14
convolvatron wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think it's the same at all. when weaving was displaced, yes some people were pissed about losing their livelihood, but the quality of the cloth didn't diminish. when CNC came for machining, no one really bitched, because the computers were just removing the time consuming effort of moving screws by hand. when computers write code, or screenplays, the quality right now is objectively much worse. that might chan…

Cloth absolutely has gotten worse over the last two hundred years since industrialization. It's also orders of magnitude cheaper, making it worth it, and certainly new types of cloth are available that weren't before, but we're not better off in every possible way.

We're definitely worse off when fabric now is mostly synthetic fabrics that flood the environment with microplastics, and last a much shorter amount of time. Of course, that's good for the fashion industry since it means they can sell more often.

Re: AI code and software craft

#66

Post by fwip »

Terr_ wrote: post #27
fwip wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The available quality of cloth did, in fact, diminish.

Hold up, why it changed matters to parent-poster's argument. Consider the difference between: 1. "The technology's capability was inferior to what humans were creating, therefore the quality of the output dropped." 2. "The costs of employing humans created a floor to the price/quality you could offer and still make a profit. Without the human labor, a lower-quality product became possible to offer." The first is a qu…

Some of both.

The fabric and clothes were worse, and cheaper. This put many traditional workers out of business, making actually good clothes scarcer, and eventually, more expensive than they previously were.

Re: AI code and software craft

#67

Post by trollbridge »

ekianjo wrote: post #60
fwip wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The available quality of cloth did, in fact, diminish.

Not really. Polymers in clothes are everywhere and they have very désirable properties compared to pure cotton. Untreated cotton had many problems.

Materials other than cotton (like wool and leather) existed.

Re: AI code and software craft

#68

Post by trollbridge »

jumploops wrote: post #6

> People have said that software engineering at large tech companies resembles "plumbing" > AI code [..] may also free up a space for engineers seeking to restore a genuine sense of craft and creative expression This resonates with me, as someone who joined the industry circa 2013, and discovered that most of the big tech jobs were essentially glorified plumbers. In the 2000s, the web felt more fun, more unique, more…

Er... we sit in prefab homes? Trailers are generally considered to be the worst possible quality of home construction and actually lose value instead of the normal appreciation real estate has.

Re: AI code and software craft

#69

Post by Ronsenshi »

Herring wrote: post #30
lkey wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sighs pulling out this quote again: "Luddites were not opposed to the use of machines per se (many were skilled operators in the textile industry); they attacked manufacturers who were trying to >>circumvent standard labor practices Luckily, the brave government's troops, show trials and making '"machine breaking" (i.e. industrial sabotage) a capital crime"' solved the crisis of these awful, entitled workers' demands…

Ordinarily yes I’d love to overthrow the bourgeoisie (check my history, I live in flagged threads), but this time I think this thread is really just about the evolution of the profession.

This evolution comes at a cost - if one senior suddenly can do their work and plus work of 5 juniors - why would company keep these juniors? It won't - the moment C-suite realizes they don't need extra people, they will be gone. But at some point senior engineers will retire or find new better paying jobs and said company would need to find a replacement. In the past this replacement could come from one of the juniors that worked in that company for a while and mentored by the senior. Not so much when there's no more juniors thanks to AI.

Not so much evolution here, I'm afraid. Just a plain redistribution of wealth upwards thanks to new tools that made large chunk of workforce obsolete. How this will affect industry in 15 years - nobody seem to think about that.

Re: AI code and software craft

#70

Post by mh2266 »

gbear605 wrote: post #14
convolvatron wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think it's the same at all. when weaving was displaced, yes some people were pissed about losing their livelihood, but the quality of the cloth didn't diminish. when CNC came for machining, no one really bitched, because the computers were just removing the time consuming effort of moving screws by hand. when computers write code, or screenplays, the quality right now is objectively much worse. that might chan…

Cloth absolutely has gotten worse over the last two hundred years since industrialization. It's also orders of magnitude cheaper, making it worth it, and certainly new types of cloth are available that weren't before, but we're not better off in every possible way.

Is there any type of clothing that existed in the 1800s that you could actually not buy or have custom made today?

On the other hand, you could not buy a Gore-Tex Pro shell or an ultralight down jacket for any price in 1800.

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