If AI Writes All the Code, What Do the Programmers Do?
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If AI Writes All the Code, What Do the Programmers Do?
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Re: If AI Writes All the Code, What Do the Programmers Do?
#2[flagged]
Re: If AI Writes All the Code, What Do the Programmers Do?
#3Edge cases you never think to test: that's where AI output breaks. I deal with this daily in document processing.
Re: If AI Writes All the Code, What Do the Programmers Do?
#4Interesting question. I work on AI for document processing, and I have found the same dynamic: generating a first pass is easy, but the real engineering goes into the verification layer.
Re: If AI Writes All the Code, What Do the Programmers Do?
#5Debugging. Lots of debugging. It will be interesting when the researchers look back in 5-10 years to determine which was easier/better - trying to understand generated code vs generating code one understands.
If a functional reasoning layer is added to the current lookup level, “do you want fries with that?” might be in their “doing”. If this doesn’t appear in a timely fashion, de-slopping code will be their lot.
Re: If AI Writes All the Code, What Do the Programmers Do?
#6Compilers also write code (they write machine code based on high level langs)… yet nobody asked the same question about them (or did they?)
AI needs to be instructed and then some kind of verification of the output is needed. Programmers do that
Re: If AI Writes All the Code, What Do the Programmers Do?
#7Design. And redesign.
Re: If AI Writes All the Code, What Do the Programmers Do?
#8Design. And redesign.
and specs, and tests, and smoke tests, and more specs, and updated specs.
And don't forget processes!
Re: If AI Writes All the Code, What Do the Programmers Do?
#9Compilers also write code (they write machine code based on high level langs)… yet nobody asked the same question about them (or did they?) AI needs to be instructed and then some kind of verification of the output is needed. Programmers do that
Bad analogy. Compilers don't reason, they don't hallucinate. They take the language as given and "compile" it to the equivalent binary based on strict definitions in the language. It's reproducible and consistent. Saying they write code is factually wrong, at best they translate it.
AI will do the same thing in multiple ways or veer of course and do it another way based on spoken language with no strict syntax. It will make logical leaps, it will guess, it will assume etc.
These things are not equivalent at all.
Re: If AI Writes All the Code, What Do the Programmers Do?
#10It really depends on th SDLC of the codebase. I've sat in the park with a pad and pen and wrote down ideas for a small-ish utility that had both a DB and some low level systems interaction. I designed all the interfaces, control flow, and user facing ui. A decade ago I was designing class diagrams with public and private methods, then coding it up. Today I can articulate it with loose words and have it come to life.
The secrete ingredient here is... Im an experienced programmer, I know what to ask and what to look out for. I know sockets and how devices work under the hood and which knobs are available for me to turn. Juniors just don't have enough experience. The question should really be "what do inspiring programmers do?"