There’s Never Been a Better Time to Study Computer Science
(www.theatlantic.com)
from cm0002@lemy.lol to programming@programming.dev on 24 May 03:05
https://lemy.lol/post/66032922
from cm0002@lemy.lol to programming@programming.dev on 24 May 03:05
https://lemy.lol/post/66032922
#programming
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Is that meant to say reviewing? Either way, I can’t see how this would lead to good results, even with a comprehensive test suite. Security? Scalability? Maintainability?
So software development by magic - makes sense.
Not even reading code? 🤣
A vibe coding class then?
There was a post on here awhile back about a Japanese kids program teaching CS principles without a computer, using real-world examples. Maybe its something like that?
That’s dangerously close to apologia, and at the very least hopefully naive, all due respect, fellow poor. 🙏🏼
I use LLMs to automate boring tasks or generate starting points, but in my experience, i can’t trust them to generate code that I’d be proud to share. If I use the code they spit out, I’m always adapting or rewriting it to meet my standards. I find they better at explaining code than generating it… Anyway…
How will these students evaluate if the code they have generated is up to scratch?
You kind of have to have been a good coder to know what good code looks like.
I know, I know, another AI will be used to review the code…
Something feels a bit off here to me.
I’m sure I will be flamed.
i’d say 2000-2002 pre and right after com bubble was a better time
Oh I was pissed when the bubble burst right before I graduated from high school
‘Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.’
Study computer science if you like it, it’s never been about making good ‘coders’ or software engineers.
I don’t think the number of software engineers will ever drop to zero, but the days of ‘learn to code’ to get a high paying job guaranteed are definitely over.
LMAO. Are you a CEO? “Programming is unnecessary, AI will do everything”.
I don’t know how to break this to people but the vast majority of coding is boilerplate projects to solve trivial problems. Those jobs are disappearing (and have for years), what still exists is applying rigourous methods of computer science to solve specialised problems.
I’ve been writing code as a primary hobby and then as a profession for 26 years. The boilerplate has never been the bulk of any of my work, and we’ve had excellent tooling to eliminate the actual boilerplate for decades.
The work has always been the specialized parts, and the fun part of software dev work is that so much of it is bespoke and creative and unique beyond the grasp of the stochastic parrots.
I didn’t say programming is unecessary, and I’m a proffesional software engineer with a degree in computer science. When I say ‘learn to code’ is over I mean the pressure for anyone and everyone to learn to code because there are so many well paying software engineer jobs.
This era is over undoubtedly, because all the people who never really cared about software engineering and are just there to collect a paycheck are going to be replaced - but the profession of software engineering will still be necessary, and the abstract maths of computer science isn’t going anywhere as a field of research.
I’m confused about it.
Like we’re in the age of automation, where we’re trying to automate all other fields. I think we’re very far from telling AI to walk outside and take a construction line man job. So why does it feel like there are not jobs in writing code? Well the people in hiring probably weren’t doing R&D for how to automate the hard areas of their business, they have low paid employees that work those jobs.
I’ve seen what I think are Claude projects showing up in submissions to app stores, or as libs on crates.io. And I haven’t paid or tried to use it, but my impression is that Claude can be successful at writing simple ideas that are highly replicated by developers in the same way that image generators can make beautiful (but maybe lacking in the intricate) paintings. but, I know personally that most of the of chatbots I’ve used are very bad, and fail horribly at very simple and mundane tasks like map the type for RGBA from Vulkan to the type for RGBA in Pipewire while being perfectly capable at submitting a the solution to a complex and hard dynamic programming problem in under 10 seconds to Leetcode.
What it’s good at makes me feel very jaded. Like I feel like the public perception of programmers is rapidly dropping, with people treating the profession as unimportant and uninteresting. Like my contributions to open source only have worth in training chat bots to copy my code and sell it on malus.sh.
They’re not over yet but they definitely have an uncertain future.
The jobs will just become (even more) horrible amagamations of fullstack development mixed with customer service. Meaning you’ll be forced to sit on “urgent” live support lines and incident bridge calls, management will expect you to magically be able to answer any question about all facets of every integration and table the stupid thing touches, at the drop of a hat, including the vibecode garbage some other team just deployed yesterday, and you’ll also have to do tier 1 type of tickets where you walk some illiterate fucktard through how to click the single sign-on button.
It is good to have those students. They can fill roles in sales and customer relations and be the link to the actual software. These students won’t be writing too much software besides some small, internal tools.
Even if AI will turn out to be great method for programming, it will replace humans in programming. There will be no place left for human programmers.
Otherwise, and when AI turn out to be a massive hype, it will lead to huge bubble burst which will take lots of tech companies with it. There will be no demand for software for a while, as we did not need much in the first place.
Either way, programming as a career is fucked.
If the AI bubble bursts, it will take everything with it, because the global economy is currently single-handedly kept afloat by financial bullshit and ponzi scheme circular investments into AI.
So when (not if) the AI bubble bursts, we are all gonna be fucked anyways. I guess the best advice would be to learn how to live with less (learn how to cook, don’t order food or use precooked meals, stop buying your stupid AI tokens, buy used etc.) and either study what you interested in (even if it is computer science) or if you aren’t interested in studying or can’t afford it, find another job (ideally one, that fullfills you and can keep you afloat).
There is no “ideal” job, that will guarantee you a stable future, so the best strategy is to just do what you are interested in.
If AI can’t improve itself then humans are needed to improve it. If AI can improve itself we have reached a technological singularity and mankind will end in a matter of years
“Tell me you don’t develop software professionally without telling me you don’t develop software professionally.”
/me Someone that has leveraged Opus 4.7 way more than most
Imho only true if you can gain some sort of sovereignty by coding shit yourself, self-host, etc.
But that’s is like saying it has never been a better time to learn to cook.
Sure it won’t get you significant monies (except extremely lucky), but it’s a life skill.
But yeah, companies in need of devs def think this is the best time to get more cheap labour to the field, how hard can it be to prompt what a mid/project manager (also AI) tells you to.