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I don't think that analogy works as it isn't about learning languages so much as knowing how to write (but I also can't quite fix the analogy, sadly). A better

by saurik 4y ago

I don't think that analogy works as it isn't about learning languages so much as knowing how to write (but I also can't quite fix the analogy, sadly). A better one (but one which doesn't leave software engineering): as programming languages have gotten easier to use and tooling has gotten better making programmers more effective, more programmers have been needed to write ever more code despite them all having to expend much less effort if they were to merely do the same things... because, and this is key, the tooling now allowance people to tackle ever more complicated problems leading to new things that can be achieved.

croes 4y ago
I think it fits because ChatGPT writes code for you like DeepL and Google Translate translates for you. Easier tooling is more like programms like Duolingo and Babbel. If you totally trust the former you don't need to learn anything, the latter enforces to do something on your own.
- saurik 4y ago
  Google Translate is translating for me, but it isn't reading for me. I think more people bother to both read and write more content of higher importance because of the existence of Google Translate, as it allows people of every language to have a wider audience and to waste less of their effort on translations of their content. And that's where it is a complex analogy for me to use and fix, because I get what you are wanting to point at, and yet it doesn't seem like the relevant thing to measure. I believe that large language models automatically writing code will result in many more programs existing of much higher complexity and I simply do not see how that is going to result in fewer software developers. I do believe it will change how we do this job and the level of scale and abstraction we are dealing with, but if you think that the world of post-AI software is going to involve a bunch of people building stuff that looks as simple as it is today in 2023 just without software developers I think you are going to be surprised, as frankly you don't need a software developer at all to build most marketing websites people need--we solved that problem years ago with WYSIWYG tooling--and yet somehow every marketing website is now more complicated than ever before because the goalposts moved. Imagine when every single thing you interact with is going to be some crazy 3D environment with animated characters providing immersive abuse^Hengagement designed to close the deal. Sure, you could just generate a static website for your project but that's so early 2020s it hurts, right? And yeah: the team that builds that might be doing a ton of development using AIs but it isn't going to be just "outsource it to the AI" until the AI gets smart enough to replace us entirely and at that point we probably only have a few more years of being alive anyway ;P.
  - croes 4y ago
    >I simply do not see how that is going to result in fewer software developers. One simple reason: demand. If software developing is more than a hobby you need to get paid, and ChatGPT will be cheaper than entry level programmers, so it will be hard to get entry level jobs and the experience to reach the next level while getting paid.

by saurik 4y ago

croes 4y ago

I think it fits because ChatGPT writes code for you like DeepL and Google Translate translates for you. Easier tooling is more like programms like Duolingo and Babbel. If you totally trust the former you don't need to learn anything, the latter enforces to do something on your own.

saurik 4y ago
Google Translate is translating for me, but it isn't reading for me. I think more people bother to both read and write more content of higher importance because of the existence of Google Translate, as it allows people of every language to have a wider audience and to waste less of their effort on translations of their content. And that's where it is a complex analogy for me to use and fix, because I get what you are wanting to point at, and yet it doesn't seem like the relevant thing to measure. I believe that large language models automatically writing code will result in many more programs existing of much higher complexity and I simply do not see how that is going to result in fewer software developers. I do believe it will change how we do this job and the level of scale and abstraction we are dealing with, but if you think that the world of post-AI software is going to involve a bunch of people building stuff that looks as simple as it is today in 2023 just without software developers I think you are going to be surprised, as frankly you don't need a software developer at all to build most marketing websites people need--we solved that problem years ago with WYSIWYG tooling--and yet somehow every marketing website is now more complicated than ever before because the goalposts moved. Imagine when every single thing you interact with is going to be some crazy 3D environment with animated characters providing immersive abuse^Hengagement designed to close the deal. Sure, you could just generate a static website for your project but that's so early 2020s it hurts, right? And yeah: the team that builds that might be doing a ton of development using AIs but it isn't going to be just "outsource it to the AI" until the AI gets smart enough to replace us entirely and at that point we probably only have a few more years of being alive anyway ;P.
- croes 4y ago
  >I simply do not see how that is going to result in fewer software developers. One simple reason: demand. If software developing is more than a hobby you need to get paid, and ChatGPT will be cheaper than entry level programmers, so it will be hard to get entry level jobs and the experience to reach the next level while getting paid.