I quit. The clankers won.

I don't see any proof that software development is not dead. Software engineering is not, and it's much more than writing code, and it can be fun. But writing code is dead, there is no point of doing it if an LLM can output the same code 100x faster. Of course, architecture and operations stays in our hands (for now?).

Initially I was very sceptic, first versions of ChatGPT or Claude were rather bad. I kept holding to a thought that it cannot get good. Then I've spend a few months evaluating them, if you know how to code, there is no point of coding anymore, just instruct an LLM to do something, verify, merge, repeat. It's an editor of some sorts, an editor where you enter a thought and get code as an output. Changes the whole scene.

I think it’s really context dependent. I haven’t found LLMs to increase my productivity in coding in my field because the quality of the output matters much more than the quantity. I don’t think it’s the same across the board though, and there are plenty of domains where code generation is a force multiplier. Sometimes you need a chainsaw and sometimes you need a scalpel and in my own experience I have found that using coding agents as scalpels is not a very efficient use of my time. shrug

i think these are great for people who already are senior developers with years of coding experience. I can use claudecode and then walk through the output and spot fix small mistakes or notice when it's going in the wrong direction and prompt it to fix. I think people without years of development experience using these tools can really screw themselves. The problem is every new grad is going to use claudecode right from the start without a decade of hand coding to develop that wisdom.

on the other hand, i can't help but think about ASM coders lamenting C and especially C++. Also, god help you if you tell an embedded developer you use micropython instead of C. Maybe a current chapter is closing and a new one is beginning and my part was in the last chapter just like them.

i'll end with saying i really like using AI for code, it's got me excited about technology again. So many projects that were out of reach due to time ( i have a family + stressful career ) are now back on the table like when i was in college with nothing but time on my hands.

LLM's don't really output the same code quality as a human, even on the smallest scale. It's not even close. Maybe you can guide them to refactor their slop up to human-written quality, but then you're still coding. You're just doing it by asking the computer to write something, instead of physically typing the whole thing out with a keyboard.

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Useful tool, and if you're just scratching a small itch it's great.

For any serious system you still need to understand and guide the code, and unless you do some of the coding.. You won't. It's just novelty right now is skewing our reasoning.