> But my hunch is that most of the economic value of code is contingent on there being a set of human beings familiar with the code in a manner that requires writing having written it directly.

This reminds me of a software engineering axiom:

  When making software, remember that it is a snapshot of 
  your understanding of the problem.  It states to all, 
  including your future-self, your approach, clarity, and 
  appropriateness of the solution for the problem at hand.

▲ wiz21c 7 days ago | parent [-]

Yes! But there's code and code. Not to disrespect anyone, but there is writing a new algorithm, say for optimizing the gradient descent and code to display a simple web form.

The first one is usually short and requires a very deep understanding of one or two profound, new ideas. The second is usually very big and requires a shallow understanding of many not-so-new ideas (which are usually a reflection of the oroganisation that produced the code).

My feeling is that, provided a sufficiently long context window, an LLM will be able to go through the second kind project very easily. It will also be very good at showing that the first kind of project is not so new after all, destroying all people who can't find really new ideas.

In both case, it'll pressure institutions to have less IT specialists...

As someone who trained specifically in computer sciences, I'm a bit scared :-/

	▲	dimitri-vs 7 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		As someone that has used coding agents extensively for the past year, the problem is they "move fast and break things" a little too well. Turns out that the act of writing code makes you think through your requirements carefully and understand the full scope of the problem you are trying to solve. It's created the problem that it's a little too easy to ask the AI agent to refactor your backend and migrate to a different platform at any time and have it wipe out months of hard learned business logic that it deems "obsolete".
	▲	hdjdbdvsjsbs 7 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Remember that before computers became machines, they were people!! This will just open up new frontiers ... You just need to find them ...
	▲	AdieuToLogic 7 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> My feeling is that, provided a sufficiently long context window, an LLM will be able to go through the second kind project very easily. It will also be very good at showing that the first kind of project is not so new after all, destroying all people who can't find really new ideas. My perspective is that value is had in understanding what and why a system needs to do what it does in order to satisfy a defined need, be it algorithmic and/or business. If the need is a use-case where a web form is used, an LLM can no more replace the knowledge of why it is there than someone fulfilling a "fiver contract" could. Both might be able to complete a specific deliverable, but neither have the ability to provide value to an organization beyond the assets they produce.