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yes and each new tool or helpful framework reduces the total number of developers needed. Just because we have yet to meet the demand for developers, doesn't m

yes and each new tool or helpful framework reduces the total number of developers needed. Just because we have yet to meet the demand for developers, doesn't mean that that demand is not decreasing over time. software development is quite a young industry, so its growth can easily outpace the efficiency gains resulting in more developers, until it doesnt. Development as an industry will need to maintain stronger growth than efficiency gains through innovation, and i just dont see that happening long term. edit: in my first paragraph i should have said " Just because we have yet to meet the demand for developers, doesn't mean that growth of that demand is not decreasing over time."

collyw 10y ago
And every 6 months you need to learn the latest and greatest new framework if you live in JS land.
michaelmrose 10y ago
You start out with n amount of programmer time demanded from projects a b and c, given that you can do x with y number of programmer hours. So imagine that increased efficiency means you can now do 2x as much fantastic now you only need n/2 right! Not so fast now that you can do more with less d, e, and f are worth doing and n+ are now demanded. Basically simple economics says that decreasing price, the price for a given unit of work going down increases the demand for such. This is not realistically infinite however most of the world has a long way to go to catch up with the developed world and the developed world itself seems to have no end in sight as far as demand for automation and tech. It would strongly look like until it doesn't is so far out on the time horizon that it is hard to predict anything at all on that scale.
- unprepare 10y ago
  >economics says that decreasing price, the price for a given unit of work going down increases the demand for such an AI costs nothing in the long term, so you are agreeing here that demand for AI produced software will rise more sharply than demand for human developers, because they are more expensive. So if you accept that basic law of economics, then you must arrive at the conclusion that human labor will inevitably be outpaced by cheaper labor. the fact that that labor is coding seems to be where people get really stuck here. I dont really understand why this is where people get stuck. the population of the world, and thus its demand for food has very much grown over time, and is still growing. Yet we have fewer people producing food than ever before. The reason for this is that the augmentation of technology outpaced the increase in demand. So we had fewer farmers making more food than ever. similarly with software development, the demand for software will continue to increase over time, but the demand for human developers will inevitably fall, due to augmentations of technology enabling fewer workers to produce vastly more output. So we will have fewer developers working than we have, say, today[1], but those fewer developers will be producing orders of magnitude more[2] software [1]im not actually trying to predict the inflection point of this growth curve as today, i meant this only as an example to make my point easy to understand [2] where more could mean more complex, more efficient, etc.
  - michaelmrose 10y ago
    There is zero reason to believe that software less capable than artificial general intelligence will provide any non trivial software.
    - unprepare 10y ago
      There is zero reason to believe it will not. look i too can make baseless assertions.
      - michaelmrose 10y ago
        I don't need to prove a negative. It seems inevitable that on some time scale AGI will be achieved if we don't commit species suicide or bomb ourselves back to the stone age. It doesn't follow that AI less capable than AGI can produce non trivial software guided by non programmers. This requires proof because it has never been done in human history and thus without any examples it requires if not proof a coherent argument in its favor. The most obvious flaw is that software that is capable of composing/improving software ought to be able to improve itself and with improvements in a finite amount of time ought to BE AGI. This looks like the start of a great tool for people to find example code relevant to the current code. In other words new tools for programmers not a replacement thereof.
        unprepare 10y ago
        can you quote me saying non-programmers would be making software? have you read my comments here? Im talking about tools that enable a single developer to do the work of a great many developers, thus lowering the demand for developers in the marketplace over time. you are talking about non programmers writing software(no clue where you got that from at all?) and you even admit that this looks like a great tool to enable developers to get more work done? Go back and read my comments before you respond please, otherwise im not interesting in having a discussion with someone who isnt even reading my responses.
        10y ago

collyw 10y ago

And every 6 months you need to learn the latest and greatest new framework if you live in JS land.

michaelmrose 10y ago

You start out with n amount of programmer time demanded from projects a b and c, given that you can do x with y number of programmer hours. So imagine that increased efficiency means you can now do 2x as much fantastic now you only need n/2 right! Not so fast now that you can do more with less d, e, and f are worth doing and n+ are now demanded. Basically simple economics says that decreasing price, the price for a given unit of work going down increases the demand for such. This is not realistically infinite however most of the world has a long way to go to catch up with the developed world and the developed world itself seems to have no end in sight as far as demand for automation and tech. It would strongly look like until it doesn't is so far out on the time horizon that it is hard to predict anything at all on that scale.

unprepare 10y ago
>economics says that decreasing price, the price for a given unit of work going down increases the demand for such an AI costs nothing in the long term, so you are agreeing here that demand for AI produced software will rise more sharply than demand for human developers, because they are more expensive. So if you accept that basic law of economics, then you must arrive at the conclusion that human labor will inevitably be outpaced by cheaper labor. the fact that that labor is coding seems to be where people get really stuck here. I dont really understand why this is where people get stuck. the population of the world, and thus its demand for food has very much grown over time, and is still growing. Yet we have fewer people producing food than ever before. The reason for this is that the augmentation of technology outpaced the increase in demand. So we had fewer farmers making more food than ever. similarly with software development, the demand for software will continue to increase over time, but the demand for human developers will inevitably fall, due to augmentations of technology enabling fewer workers to produce vastly more output. So we will have fewer developers working than we have, say, today[1], but those fewer developers will be producing orders of magnitude more[2] software [1]im not actually trying to predict the inflection point of this growth curve as today, i meant this only as an example to make my point easy to understand [2] where more could mean more complex, more efficient, etc.
- michaelmrose 10y ago
  There is zero reason to believe that software less capable than artificial general intelligence will provide any non trivial software.
  - unprepare 10y ago
    There is zero reason to believe it will not. look i too can make baseless assertions.
    - michaelmrose 10y ago
      I don't need to prove a negative. It seems inevitable that on some time scale AGI will be achieved if we don't commit species suicide or bomb ourselves back to the stone age. It doesn't follow that AI less capable than AGI can produce non trivial software guided by non programmers. This requires proof because it has never been done in human history and thus without any examples it requires if not proof a coherent argument in its favor. The most obvious flaw is that software that is capable of composing/improving software ought to be able to improve itself and with improvements in a finite amount of time ought to BE AGI. This looks like the start of a great tool for people to find example code relevant to the current code. In other words new tools for programmers not a replacement thereof.
      - unprepare 10y ago
        can you quote me saying non-programmers would be making software? have you read my comments here? Im talking about tools that enable a single developer to do the work of a great many developers, thus lowering the demand for developers in the marketplace over time. you are talking about non programmers writing software(no clue where you got that from at all?) and you even admit that this looks like a great tool to enable developers to get more work done? Go back and read my comments before you respond please, otherwise im not interesting in having a discussion with someone who isnt even reading my responses.
        10y ago