Coding After Coders: The End of Computer Programming as We Know It (www.nytimes.com)
from NomNom@feddit.uk to programming@programming.dev on 13 Mar 10:40
https://feddit.uk/post/45768710

#programming

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sacredfire@programming.dev on 13 Mar 12:23 next collapse

That was an interesting read… The company I currently work for doesn’t allow AI tools to be fully integrated into our code base. I tinker around with them on my own time, but I’m left wondering what the profession is turning into for other people.

Here on lemmy, we are definitely in the naysayers camp, but this article is trying to paint the picture that the reality is that almost everyone in tech is all on board and convinced these tools are the way. That writing code by hand is something of the past. The author certainly went to great lengths to recount many interviews with people who seem to share this opinion - many who I will note, have a vested interest in AI. Yet they didn’t really ask anyone who specifically held the opposing viewpoint. Only tangentially mentioning that there were opponents and dismissing them as perhaps diluted.

I did appreciate that they touched on the difference between greenfield projects and brownfield projects and reported that Google only saw about a 10% increase in productivity with this kind of AI workflow.

Still I wonder what the future holds and suppose it’s still too early to know how this will all turn out. I will admit that I’m more in the naysayers camp, but perhaps that’s from a fear of losing my livelihood? Am I predisposed to see how these tools are lacking? Have I not given them a fair chance?

jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works on 13 Mar 14:33 collapse

Still I wonder what the future holds and suppose it’s still too early to know how this will all turn out. I will admit that I’m more in the naysayers camp, but perhaps that’s from a fear of losing my livelihood?

It’s all just conjecture at this point. I vividly remember how “the cloud” was allegedly going to help organizations eliminate the IT department, dramatically lower operating costs, and basically put every system admin out of a job.

It succeeded at none of those things. It did help some organizations shift costs from CapEx to OpEx. But it also effectively made data centers available to organizations (and individuals) who didn’t have access to that kind of technology before. It didn’t live up to the hype but it has had a major impact.

Personally, I figure a lot of these “AI” companies are going to fold. There’s just not any value in cramming LLM’s into every product. Not to mention we’ve spent the better part of 30+ years trying to get away from users having to type when they want the computer to do something. Moving back away from a “point- and-click” interface, which has hardly reached its general best state, could be a steep uphill battle.

Again, all conjecture.

luciole@beehaw.org on 13 Mar 12:29 next collapse

Nice advertisement. Classic unavoidable single path of progress bit. I hope NYT charged Anthropic for it at least.

jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works on 13 Mar 12:29 next collapse

“We’re talking 10 to 20 — to even 100 — times as productive as I’ve ever been in my career,” Steve Yegge, a veteran coder who built his own tool for running swarms of coding agents, told me. “It’s like we’ve been walking our whole lives,” he says, but now they have been given a ride, “and it’s fast as [expletive].” Like many of his peers, though, Yegge can’t quite figure out what it means for the future of his profession. For decades, being a software developer meant mastering coding languages, but now a language technology itself is upending the very nature of the job.

Hate to tell them this but if the LLM’s available today are really somehow making you 10 x as productive, then you suck at your job. I suppose the opinion tracks though. I have worked with way too many devs who can pump out lines of bug filled, poor performing code at a rapid pace while seeming to have no idea how it works or how to fix it. These are the same people who are now gleefully hacking together a bunch of LLM generated code that they still don’t know how to read.

You still have to understand the complexities and nuances of the tools that your using because the LLM you’re generating code with does not and it will come back to bite you in the ass.

itkovian@lemmy.world on 13 Mar 13:17 collapse

How about celebrating the end of coders when LLMs are actually good at software development?

Edit: The article reads like a AI fanfic than an article with something objective to report.

gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works on 13 Mar 13:29 collapse

I mean… it’s NYT