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Coding is also a part of why coders get paid so well. It's certainly true that software developers have other skills too, but how those skills are distributed a

Coding is also a part of why coders get paid so well. It's certainly true that software developers have other skills too, but how those skills are distributed among the general population can't be known so long as coding remains an entry barrier for most people. It's also possible that not all devs have the same qualities, and each one finds the niche that works for what they bring to the table.

908B64B197 4y ago
My experience is that "coding skills" are the intersection of analytical (being able to formulate hypothesis and test them) and language. There's a (small) barrier to entry. That and the lack of any gatekeeping is why we saw the explosion of Coding Bootcamps "become a javascript engineer in 12 weeks". Even tough the great majority of people attending these camps won't be able to write a single line of code at the end of the program, a few will be able to grasp it enough to fill in the blanks on a template for a website or an app. We also had language models that could generate code out of very precise specifications back in the 90's. They were called offshored programmers. Send an email in the evening and get a .zip file in the morning with code. Sometimes it would even compile! Engineering is much more than that. It's about being able to formulate, understand and analyze (conflicting) requirements as well as the ability to gain domain expertize as needed. The best example of that is Carmak and binary space partitioning. [0] To me, what GPT is going to achieve with it's current performance is akin to what compiled and interpreted languages did: You no longer really care about word size, endianness or alignment issues. The compiler takes care of generating the correct assembly for you. Same thing with snippets generated with GPT. [0] https://fabiensanglard.net/quakeSource/quakeSourceRendition.php https://fabiensanglard.net/quakeSource/quakeSourceRendition....

908B64B197 4y ago

My experience is that "coding skills" are the intersection of analytical (being able to formulate hypothesis and test them) and language. There's a (small) barrier to entry. That and the lack of any gatekeeping is why we saw the explosion of Coding Bootcamps "become a javascript engineer in 12 weeks". Even tough the great majority of people attending these camps won't be able to write a single line of code at the end of the program, a few will be able to grasp it enough to fill in the blanks on a template for a website or an app. We also had language models that could generate code out of very precise specifications back in the 90's. They were called offshored programmers. Send an email in the evening and get a .zip file in the morning with code. Sometimes it would even compile! Engineering is much more than that. It's about being able to formulate, understand and analyze (conflicting) requirements as well as the ability to gain domain expertize as needed. The best example of that is Carmak and binary space partitioning. [0] To me, what GPT is going to achieve with it's current performance is akin to what compiled and interpreted languages did: You no longer really care about word size, endianness or alignment issues. The compiler takes care of generating the correct assembly for you. Same thing with snippets generated with GPT. [0] https://fabiensanglard.net/quakeSource/quakeSourceRendition.php https://fabiensanglard.net/quakeSource/quakeSourceRendition....