Fast Software: More Programmers, Not Fewer (www.yegor256.com)
from stan_stanminson@lemmy.dbzer0.com to programming@programming.dev on 13 Mar 01:29
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/65260085

Just like fast fashion replaced tailors with factory workers and machine operators, fast software will replace programmers with AI operators. And the market will demand many of them. Many more than large software companies employ today.

The new world will need more programmers (AI operators) than it needs now. Because the demand for custom software will soon start growing. Everyone will want their own Photoshop. Every developer will want their own IDE and their own Linux. And they will throw them away without hesitation. Just like I throw away my shoes every year and get new ones.

I share this here to see what are your thoughts on this.

#programming

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litchralee@sh.itjust.works on 13 Mar 01:40 next collapse

Just like fast fashion replaced tailors with factory workers

I’m not sure this is right. If I wanted cheap clothes in the 1980s, I would go to a thrift store, not a tailor. If I wanted to hem up some pants I bought, I go to a tailor. In the 2020s, the former might have changed to online fast fashion behemoths, but there’s no replacement for a tailor to do up some pants.

If I generously assume “tailors” is shorthand for a fashion designer that can also sew their own designs from fabric, then it’s still wrong because fast fashion has never been about enabling designers that have no hand-sewing skills. Instead, it’s about churning out mind-boggling amounts of product, irrespective of demand. Post-scarcity capitalism theory says that any product will sell at the right price, and the price for fast fashion is rock bottom.

fast software will replace programmers with AI operators

If “fast software” is going to mean shoddy software that’s churned out just for the sake of it, then this is the only apt comparison to fast fashion. Even without AI, I don’t think most modern software engineering or programming is comparable to tailoring or even fashion design.

When the opening comparison is so deeply flawed, I’m not exactly keen on reading the rest of the article.

Solumbran@lemmy.world on 13 Mar 02:14 next collapse

Comparing software that can be copied for free, with physical items, is stupid.

“Just like books cost more ink with a big font, webpages cost more data with a big font”

Nope, that doesn’t work, it’s absurd. Which is not surprising from a stupid article trying to argue that slop software is the future.

Pricklesthemagicfish@reddthat.com on 13 Mar 02:45 collapse

Now explain ebooks

Solumbran@lemmy.world on 13 Mar 05:06 collapse

What about them?

TehPers@beehaw.org on 13 Mar 08:42 collapse

I think the post (well, this translation anyway) is best read as a fantasy rather than associated with reality. It’s predicated on a lot of assumptions, including the assumption that AI has the ability to develop large software almost entirely autonomously, that large brands have no means to lock users within an ecosystem, that people will be able to articulate exactly the software they need and how it should be designed, and so on.

The future being described by this post is the elimination of all roles of software and product development, spanning from developers to designers to even product managers.

As a thought experiment, it’s interesting. It shouldn’t be confused as reality, though.