And people say AI isn't taking SWE jobs...

wccrawford 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

While I mostly agree with you, this is the kind of thing that might not have been done if the AI couldn't do the heavy lifting.

They had previously chosen React Native because it was easier for programmers to keep it updated, since it was really just 1 codebase. With AI, those same programmers can do the more difficult version, keeping the native apps updated separately.

So did it kill a job, or did it make it possible for the existing programmers to do it better?

It's the kind of thing that is really hard to determine in general, but here, it really does sound like they only made the change because it became possible with existing resources. They would not have done it otherwise.

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mattm 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is a type of project that likely wouldn't have been done before AI

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eleventen 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Of course it would. Supply and demand. Some companies would decide not to bother. Others would decide it was worthwhile. The limited pool of supply (app developers) would be distributed across demand.

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enraged_camel 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>> Some companies would decide not to bother. Others would decide it was worthwhile.

The parent's point is that AI lowers the cost/benefit ratio drastically, by reducing the cost. So companies that would have shied away from projects like this pre-AI are now pulling the trigger without much hesitation.

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spiderice 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Some companies would decide not to bother

Sounds like you agree

	▲	eleventen 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I agree that AI is suppressing developer wage growth and taking real jobs. The opposite argument is being made elsewhere in the thread, and I think that argument is wrong.

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dlisboa 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The optimistic outlook:

Just like this has made Web devs into Mobile devs, so could Mobile devs leverage AI to work in Web shops.

I'm not an optimist but there could be an increase of available apps being created which would still keep people employed. Theoretically the cost of creating an iOS app for a company without an engineering team dropped from several hundreds of thousand to a few thousand or hundreds, which could be paid out to a freelancer with AI. More people would go into freelancing for industries which were not contemplated before due to cost.

But I'm not an optimist.

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lnrd 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This app has 15/20 screens, an app this small wouldn't employ many people to begin with. Before there was one guy (op) maintaining it in react native and now he maintains it native. I don't see much change tbh.

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augment_me 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is an incredibly boring task. Nothing new, just rewrite everything to just see it all rewritten again in 1 year. Perfect for LLMs and something humans shouldn't do.

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cheema33 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> This is an incredibly boring task.

We all want super exciting jobs. But plenty have boring jobs like this. Between not having a job or having a boring job that pays well, the choice is obvious for many of us.

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boringg 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

While I agree with that statement -- that is also a lot of jobs. We have a lot of humans -- not every single developer sits in the innovation seat. The fewer the jobs available the less employable humans.

I think that rewrite - if AI enabled - owes its thanks to the legion of individuals who put their code up on the internet in the first place.

Weird times.

	▲	doc_ick 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Unfortunately theres no thanks to the suppliers of training data. US courts made sure there’s no recompense for them, and likely never will be. Seems similar to eminent domain, but without limitations.

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5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]

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6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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exe34 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It ported overnight. I don't think it would create from scratch without a lot of hand holding.

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greenowl 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Previous company I worked for would have (and did) hire dedicated swift/java mobile developers to build and maintain ios and android native versions (largely porting functionality from an existing web application)

Not anymore.

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atonse 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

What's more likely (as others have said) is that the other thousand companies that can't afford to have dedicated staff would've just used React Native. So no jobs were lost, they weren't there in the first place. The places that have dedicated Swift/Java devs can now be more ambitious in what they build.

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organsnyder 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That's fairly rare. Most companies would use a compatibility layer instead.

	▲	josephg 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Really? I’ve worked with plenty of companies that had separate native iOS & Android teams. I don’t know any that use a compatibility layer. Unless by compatibility layer, you mean a web view.