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Re: You Are Here

#91

Post by vagab0nd »

ossa-ma wrote: post #2

With all due respect to the author, this is a lot of words for not much substance. Rehashing the same thoughts everyone already thinks but not being bold enough to make a concrete prediction. This is the time for bold predictions, you’ve just told us we’re in a crucible moment yet you end the article passively….

I have a theory: I think the recent advance in coding agent has shocked everyone. It's something of such unheard-of novelty that everyone thinks they've discovered something profound. Naturally, they all think they are the only ones in on it and feel the need to share. But in reality, it's already public knowledge, so they add no value. I've been in this trap many times in the last couple years.

Re: You Are Here

#92

Post by YZF »

jdub wrote: post #83
YZF wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true the big company products have been terrible but they also enjoyed a moat that made it harder for competitors to enter. With this moat reduced I think you'll find this approach doesn't work any more. The smaller companies will also hire the good sales people away.

History suggests otherwise, and there's nothing particularly special about this moment. Microsoft survived (and even, for a little while, dominated) after missing the web. Netscape didn't eat its lunch. Then Google broke out on a completely different front. Now there's billions of dollars of investment in "AI", hoping to break out like the next Google... while competing directly with Google. (This is why we should be…

Well, I made my predictions. Let's come back in a few years.

Netscape didn't attack Microsoft's business software, operating systems or other pieces of their offerings.

Google also didn't seriously attack Microsoft's business.

And neither had the capability to build large software very fast.

Google is both a software company and an infrastructure company as is Microsoft today. Their software is going to become more of a commodity but their data centers still have value (even perhaps more value since all this new software needs a place to run). It's true that if you're in the business of hosting software and selling SaaS you have an advantage over a competitor who does not host their own software.

Re: You Are Here

#93

Post by jdub »

YZF wrote: post #92
jdub wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History suggests otherwise, and there's nothing particularly special about this moment. Microsoft survived (and even, for a little while, dominated) after missing the web. Netscape didn't eat its lunch. Then Google broke out on a completely different front. Now there's billions of dollars of investment in "AI", hoping to break out like the next Google... while competing directly with Google. (This is why we should be…

Well, I made my predictions. Let's come back in a few years. Netscape didn't attack Microsoft's business software, operating systems or other pieces of their offerings. Google also didn't seriously attack Microsoft's business. And neither had the capability to build large software very fast. Google is both a software company and an infrastructure company as is Microsoft today. Their software is going to become more o…

> Netscape didn't attack Microsoft's business software, operating systems or other pieces of their offerings.

That's not how it was interpreted at the time: Netscape threatened to route around the desktop operating system (Win32) to deliver applications via the browser. "Over the top" as they say in television land.

Netscape didn't succeed, but that's precisely what happened (along with the separate incursion of mobile platforms, spearheaded by Apple... followed quickly by Google, who realised they had to follow suit very quickly).

> And neither had the capability to build large software very fast.

Internet Explorer. Android. Gemini.

Re: You Are Here

#94

Post by pointlessone »

mohsen1 wrote: post #6

I am thinking about this a lot right now. Pretty existential stuff. I think builders are gonna be fine. The type of programmer were people would put up with just because they could really go in their cave for a few days and come out with a bug fix that nobody else on the team could figure out is going to have a hard time. Interestingly AI coding is really good at that sort of thing and less good at fully grasping use…

I’m not convinced. That sort of thing usually depends on some very specific arcana or weird interaction between systems that is not in the code. It usually requires either external knowledge or deep investigation and compilation of evidence from multiple sources. I haven’t seen AI do that much.

Look at recent examples of browsers and matrix servers. AI can’t even follow extremely detailed specs with extensive test suites.

If anything, nice and friendly but mediocre devs are in more immediate danger than rough but extremely competent devs.

But we’ve seen C-suits losing institutional knowledge at a drop of a hat for decades so who knows? Maybe knowledge and skill are not that valued.

Re: You Are Here

#95

Post by AIorNot »

jdjdndbdhsjsb wrote: post #41
AIorNot wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, its a bit of a hellscape in tech right now as thousands of people with deep domain knowledge and people knowledge and business knowledge (ie experienced engineers managers and product owners), were laid off by C Suites desperate to keep the AI funded mandates going Do you know how hard it to make a successful company or even make money? Its like saying any actor can goto hollywood and be a star VCs wont…

Yes it is. But I am an optimist for human nature. I personally believe smaller companies doing different things is the future... Scaling as they need. It is a hellscape but people can and will adapt. > Do you know how hard it to make a successful company or even make money? Yes I have failed to do it before. I get this. > VCs wont fund everyone And? Do you need VCs? Economics mean that scale matters but what if we do…

I’d like to say its possible

But heres the reality from me- I’m in my 50s and I don't have it in me to grind at the level of 20 year olds to achieve some level of security in an untried business model - and this is someone who has launched 2 AI startups in the past 2 years

In one we got VC funding but I left after setting up their agent platform and tons of AI assisted coding only to not meet impossible deadlines and over-promised AI value to enterprise customers - I was literally working 20 hr days at stretch for 170k salary competing and half benefits against 25 year olds out of stamford with no lives- far lower than the 250+ with stock and benefits I got in my EM role at a big company which now evaporated - I was edged out of that startup role for not delivering “on time”

My second AI startup I cofounded with friends and trusted colleagues its bootstrapped (all of us are over 40) - so we have more experience and better deadlines now but its up to the business gods on how well it will do- crossing my fingers

But its a lot of pressure for sure and I currently have no health insurance and my wife was laid off in December and we lost her benefits

So I wouldn’t call myself optimistic in the end stage capitalistic hellwhole that is modern “middle class” America

I hope a better work model can be found - but having some any salary and medical benefit security would be nice

I went to an AI meetup last week and it was filled with gray hairs - i could sense the desperation as many people I met told me they were laid off recently and trying to dive in

Ironically looking at them it reminded me of those interviews they used to do in Appalachia or something when a town was out of work and advisors came in and said “learn to code instead of mining” (ok I may be exaggerating somewhat but I even know a ex Microsoft manager who had to resort to a go-fundme to keep his family afloat)

Re: You Are Here

#96

Post by KronisLV »

stephenlf wrote: post #3

> The cost of turning written business logic into code has dropped to zero Didn’t realize this was science fiction.

> Didn’t realize this was science fiction.

Compared to my salary, the current cost of the models and tokens to do the work I normally would, is around 10%-25% of it.

Obviously, you still need someone to prevent the models from going insane and messing everything up, but in my experience (webdev projects, DevOps stuff, local software, well known domains), it is very much a force multiplier, as long as you acknowledge that you really need tests and various prebuild scripts.

So I predict one of two things happening:

  A) de-valuation of software development work in well-explored domains (and perhaps some changes in regards to outsourcing, as long as cultural and communication differences can be compensated for); with the implications for those learning programming now
  B) the squeeze coming in the other direction, making inference 3-5x more expensive, though maybe not with how every big org out there is trying to be a loss leader
Either way, it's an interesting direction - instead of ever becoming "proper" engineering (outside of RFCs and foundational stuff), we went from React/Vue/Angular/Svelte/Express.js/Laravel/Django/Rails/ASP.NET/Spring wild west and frameworks of the day (never being able to nail down what "good practices" are and stick to them for decades, but chasing the new thing forevermore), to even closer to producing non-deterministic slop, except that the slop kinda sorta works. Wild times.

Re: You Are Here

#97

Post by eddyg »

dt3ft wrote: post #34
heliumtera wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it is true, the cost is effectively zero. There will be, for a long time, free models available and any one of them will give you code back, always! They never refuse. Worst case scenario the good models ask for clarification. The cost for producing code is zero and code producers are in a really bad spot.

I beg to differ. Let's say you're right. Code producers should turn to agriculture and let their managers and product owners prompt AI to produce code. How about code maintainers? Ever heard the mantra "You build it, you run it"? Lets say that AI can build it. Can it run it though? All alone, safely, securely and reliably? No. It can't. We can keep dreaming though, and when will AI code production services turn profi…

There are already agents doing this in SRE roles.

Agents are monitoring metrics and logs. A bug is introduced into the system. Error rates go up and the agents notify diagnostic agents. These agents look at recent commits and figure out the problem. They instruct another agent about how to fix the issue and deploy the change. The problem is fixed before an engineer even has time to start looking at logs.

If you aren’t seeing this, you’re not keeping up with what others are already doing. It’s not just people vibe coding ToDo apps.

Re: You Are Here

#98

Post by ratrace »

mohsen1 wrote: post #6

I am thinking about this a lot right now. Pretty existential stuff. I think builders are gonna be fine. The type of programmer were people would put up with just because they could really go in their cave for a few days and come out with a bug fix that nobody else on the team could figure out is going to have a hard time. Interestingly AI coding is really good at that sort of thing and less good at fully grasping use…

> The type of programmer were people would put up with just because they could really go in their cave for a few days and come out with a bug fix that nobody else on the team could figure out is going to have a hard time.

This is the exact type of programmer that isn't going to have any issues - ones who actually know what they're doing and aren't just going to vibecode react slop.

Re: You Are Here

#99

Post by [deleted] »

hippo22 wrote: post #72
ausbah wrote: post #53

blogs like this seem like they’re in the right direction with LLMs being “here to stay” and a near indispensable part of people’s daily toolkit, but the near certainty that programming as a job or skillset is dead in the water seems just wrong? like ok the cost for anyone to generate almost always working code has dropped to zero but how does a lay person verify the code satisfies business logic? asking the same set…

I think you’re ignoring the growth trajectory. Surex AI generates almost always working code now, but what till it generate in 1-5 years?

[deleted]

Re: You Are Here

#100

Post by AIorNot »

AIorNot wrote: post #95
jdjdndbdhsjsb wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is. But I am an optimist for human nature. I personally believe smaller companies doing different things is the future... Scaling as they need. It is a hellscape but people can and will adapt. > Do you know how hard it to make a successful company or even make money? Yes I have failed to do it before. I get this. > VCs wont fund everyone And? Do you need VCs? Economics mean that scale matters but what if we do…

I’d like to say its possible But heres the reality from me- I’m in my 50s and I don't have it in me to grind at the level of 20 year olds to achieve some level of security in an untried business model - and this is someone who has launched 2 AI startups in the past 2 years In one we got VC funding but I left after setting up their agent platform and tons of AI assisted coding only to not meet impossible deadlines and…

update: this reddit thread is somewhat amusing satirical post on this topic

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1qzj9ve/67_no_f...

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