| ▲ | geraldwhen 12 hours ago |
| It's over. LLMs can produce any algorithm, any tech stack, any concept in seconds, minutes, or hours. Writing code is like trying to build a house without powertools. Could you do it? Sure. But no one ever will, for most values of no one. |
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| ▲ | physicallyIllfr 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| I repeat for the millionth time, not everything is web dev. |
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| ▲ | jesse_ash 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Even with web projects, the issues of LLM coding tendencies and its lack of product 'taste' or whatever you want to call it are apparent. Janky UX, poor information transmission, bloated modules... it's just easier to sell web-based AI output because it's visual and interactive, and we are easily impressed by bright colours smooth animations. I won't argue that the web is more 'capturable' by LLMs, though. It was maybe slightly out of reach by a large cohort of developers who wouldn't have considered themselves "UI people" (or who scoffed at it for various reasons), but now is well within vibe-territory. | |
| ▲ | duckqlz 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This comment literally forced coffee through my nasal passageway as laughter erupted from my mouth. Thank you. | |
| ▲ | lensecat 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Indeed, there are many other more varied domains. | |
| ▲ | adithyassekhar 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Are no one using these models outside web? | | |
| ▲ | lensecat 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | Of course they are, but the quote "LLMs can produce any algorithm, any tech stack, any concept in seconds, minutes, or hours" is more true there than in other domains. "Any concept" is the most laughable. | | |
| ▲ | theblazehen 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | There's many fields where LLMs perform better than webdev. Personal examples including embedded development and reverse engineering |
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| ▲ | tankenmate 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Indeed, the OP's point seems very focused on programmers enjoying programming. And that's a perfectly laudable goal, but obviously this then means that the goal is programmer enjoyment, satisfaction, etc. If the goal is code that allows the user to benefit while also being correct and secure, then that drastically changes the economics and hence potential solutions of what parts of the work should be done by a LLM agent and what parts of the work should be done by a human agent. Economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources to satisfy human wants; so what you want from code determines a great deal of how to get there with the greatest benefit and the least cost. |
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| ▲ | alfanick 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This comment highly resonates with me. I strongly believe coding by hand (defined as an act of writing computer code in some programming language) is moreless obsolete. I.e. my skill to implement dijkstra or quicksort in 10 minutes at 1am in 10 different languages while being hangover/drunk is absolutely worthless now.
Software Engineering itself is more than just coding, the creative (and well engineering) part is still there. |
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| ▲ | lolakutty 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| >Writing code is like trying to build a house without powertools. You know, it is called "soft" for a reason... |
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| ▲ | bigstrat2003 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Writing code is like trying to build a house without powertools. Could you do it? Sure. But no one ever will, for most values of no one. If LLMs could be relied upon to produce a good result every time, then they would be like power tools. But they can't, so they aren't. Nobody would use a cordless drill that has a 10% chance of the drill bit suddenly moving several inches to the left of where you were aiming. |
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| ▲ | mycocola 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I think it’s more analogous to view LLMs as taking steroids while not going to the gym. |
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| ▲ | 112233 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| it can not not? moreover, it can totally ruin existing invariants, introduce dead code, falsify tests and sabotage further work by poisoning comments and documentation in a few hours. Power tools cannot "produce any house in hours" |
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| ▲ | na1026 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | Don't concede the "power tools" analogy. LLM are not capable of building maintainable software. |
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| ▲ | bluefirebrand 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| So what are people like me, who fall into "some values of no one" supposed to do? I guess just blow my brains out? Just.. Thanks for trying man, but you picked the wrong thing to specialize in, now you're completely redundant and worthless to society. Here's your cyanide pill? God damn I'm so bitter about all of this. I was doing so well for a bit now I feel like I've completely wasted my life. |
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| ▲ | tchalla 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I remember the conversations a few years ago when tech automated many other fields and they asked the same question. What did they do? You could ask them. | |
| ▲ | adrianN 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | There is plenty of historical precedent for machines replacing professions. You could read what those people did and how well it worked. | | |
| ▲ | bluefirebrand 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure it never worked out great for many of those people regardless of what they did. | | |
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| ▲ | dosisking 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Alternatively, you can listen to Jimmy Buffett's A Pirate Looks At Forty | |
| ▲ | Ma8ee 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Society is for people, people like you. Not the other way around. And your value to society is definitely not measured in what stockholder value you can produce for an employer. | | |
| ▲ | unified101 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | > value to society is definitely not measured in what stockholder value you can produce This is exactly the value of a person in all capitalistic systems. If we want to change this we need widespread socialism / UBI. Maybe Georgism. The fact that you're a good friend or partner to someone definitely has value, but not something anyone cares about. |
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| ▲ | reeredfdfdf 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This is why societies should make it as easy as possible for people to retrain / re-educate themselves. I highly doubt most white collar workers graduating today will be able to do what they trained for until retirement age. Programmers may be among first to see serious reduction in employment, but other office workers will follow. | | |
| ▲ | bluefirebrand 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | If I knew what to retrain into I would sign up immediately. Right now I'm just at a loss. I've never wanted to be anything other than a programmer before. |
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| ▲ | quikoa 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | LLMs can produce some incredible bloated and convoluted pieces of code if one isn't careful. Even to the point LLMs become useless. Blindly using these 'powertools' is a recipe for disaster. We'll already see the hype to start cooling down. If you're okay with cleaning up messes you need not be so pessimistic. | | |
| ▲ | Leonard_of_Q 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yes, well, so can humans given the "right" circumstances, e.g. "enterprise" software: https://github.com/enterprisequalitycoding/fizzbuzzenterpris... Assuming the code is produced to serve human needs there will be humans in the loop somewhere. Not nearly as many as before and not in the same roles but they will be there The advent of the Spinning Jenny, water frame and power loom (etc.) changed textile manufacturing for good and made the end result so cheap that it is now seen as disposable. There are still some people in the loop controlling the machines but not nearly as many as before and also not really the same people since it takes a different skill set to keep a textile production line running than it takes to spin and weave. The same is true for the advent of the phototypesetting machine (Linotype etc.) and the offset press which irreversibly changed print production. There are still people in the loop but not nearly as many and with a different skill set. Now what about the "Coding Johnny"? Generative models are now doing the same to coders, irreversibly changing the software production process. There will be far fewer people involved and those people will have a different skill set. Software will become disposable, more like RNA then DNA, if the specifications change the Coding Johnny will churn out a new version. | | |
| ▲ | quikoa 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Yes, well, so can humans given the "right" circumstances, e.g. "enterprise" software The difference is scale. Letting LLMs go out of hand is like the movie Fantasia. Sure people can make a mess on their own but with LLMs can do so much worse in such a short amount of time. > Generative models are now doing the same to coders Programming involves quite a bit more than just typing. However, typing the code does help with understanding. Once we stop understanding code because it's just generated AI slop good luck fixing the mess. Now that even Anthropic and OpenAI called for slowing down. It's obvious that we're past peak hype and realization of the cost of LLMs will set in. |
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