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yeah, however the coding part was taking substantial amount of time. If one can simply copy paste instructions, specs and API documentation into prompt, what el

yeah, however the coding part was taking substantial amount of time. If one can simply copy paste instructions, specs and API documentation into prompt, what else is there for software engineer to do, and do you really need X of them in the team?

RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
Generating instructions and specs detailed enough to do exactly what you want is programming. Evolving a working programing to do something slightly different is programming. AI will augment software engineers not replace them.
tkiolp4 4y ago
> what else is there for software engineer to do? We’ll do more. If right now it takes a team of seven (3 backend, 2 frontend, plus EM plus PM) 3 months to come up with an MVP that does X, well, with AI tools, the company is not gonna fire those engineers and replace them all with only one “prompt” engineer. No way! The company would instead keep all the engineers but instead of launching 1 MVP in 3 months, it will launch it in 3 day! Or better, it will launch 20 MVPs in 3 months! Once we start applying AI to software engineering, customer demands will sky rocket. Customers will expect nice human-like UX, and rather than waiting months for products and features to come live, they will demand speed. Companies will hire more engineers to fulfill that demand.
- stormfather 4y ago
  The notion that software devs will be replaced reminds me of the inventor of the Gatling gun, who thought that he was saving lives because now fewer soldiers would be needed to fight wars. Didn't quite turn out that way did it?
JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 4y ago
IMHO you described the hardest part of an engineer's job: documentation, instructions, requirements, specifications, etc. To get all this, you need to listen to the client, and understand and negotiate with his unrealistic demands. And even when you have all this information, you'll have to sort it and follow all kind of processes before it's useful. I'll be worried when AI can do this. For now, it seems to be limited to writing Python scripts using a specific API, not something I do for my daily tasks. I'm more worried for people who could have been replaced by a simple script 30 years ago. Also I'm skeptical about whether or not companies will tell all their secrets to this kind of tool (but I could be wrong, Office 365 has all the secrets of the world).
realusername 4y ago
What you describe is starting to look a lot like developing but with a text interface, it's not like non-developers gained that ability.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago

Generating instructions and specs detailed enough to do exactly what you want is programming. Evolving a working programing to do something slightly different is programming. AI will augment software engineers not replace them.

tkiolp4 4y ago

> what else is there for software engineer to do? We’ll do more. If right now it takes a team of seven (3 backend, 2 frontend, plus EM plus PM) 3 months to come up with an MVP that does X, well, with AI tools, the company is not gonna fire those engineers and replace them all with only one “prompt” engineer. No way! The company would instead keep all the engineers but instead of launching 1 MVP in 3 months, it will launch it in 3 day! Or better, it will launch 20 MVPs in 3 months! Once we start applying AI to software engineering, customer demands will sky rocket. Customers will expect nice human-like UX, and rather than waiting months for products and features to come live, they will demand speed. Companies will hire more engineers to fulfill that demand.

stormfather 4y ago
The notion that software devs will be replaced reminds me of the inventor of the Gatling gun, who thought that he was saving lives because now fewer soldiers would be needed to fight wars. Didn't quite turn out that way did it?

JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 4y ago

IMHO you described the hardest part of an engineer's job: documentation, instructions, requirements, specifications, etc. To get all this, you need to listen to the client, and understand and negotiate with his unrealistic demands. And even when you have all this information, you'll have to sort it and follow all kind of processes before it's useful. I'll be worried when AI can do this. For now, it seems to be limited to writing Python scripts using a specific API, not something I do for my daily tasks. I'm more worried for people who could have been replaced by a simple script 30 years ago. Also I'm skeptical about whether or not companies will tell all their secrets to this kind of tool (but I could be wrong, Office 365 has all the secrets of the world).

realusername 4y ago

What you describe is starting to look a lot like developing but with a text interface, it's not like non-developers gained that ability.