6 ms·

Oh wow, I'm completely fucked as a front end developer.

by dottjt 3y ago

Tostino 3y ago
Your job will change in fundamental ways at least.
- zarzavat 3y ago
  Job will be okay. Career is over. Maybe we should join the writers on the picket line?
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  The more people say that, the less convincing it is There is no way I would have a UI developer onboarded when I can generate many iterations of layouts in midjourney, copy them into chatgpt4 and get code in NextJS with Typescript instantly non devs will have trouble doing this or thinking of the prompts to ask, but the dev team asking for headcount simply wont ask for headcount, and the engineering manager is going to find the frontend only dev redundant
  - epups 3y ago
    Yeah, I'm also skeptical about the actual value of specialists in the future. To me, AI brings a ton of power to generalists, who now have access to very powerful tools that would have taken them a long time to learn otherwise.
    - braislan 3y ago
      Absolutely, it is the triumph of the generalist. I would even go further and say the generalist gains a powerful tool belt that previously could not have existed. Not enough hours in the day or years in a lifetime.
  - lewhoo 3y ago
    > There is no way I would have a UI developer onboarded when I can generate many iterations of layouts in midjourney I guess we have to face the music and say yeah, that's true. If the work doesn't need copyrights then this seems like the way to go.
  - bamboozled 3y ago
    Will you then use the AI to scale your platform ? Optimise your database ? Improve your test coverage, implement new features, write new backend services, integrate with old difficult but critical systems? At some stage you must realise that you’re still working…
    - yieldcrv 3y ago
      put our two comments into an LLM and ask if it these are even related thoughts because at least it will have actually read my comment
      - bamboozled 3y ago
        I’m going to say you edited or amended you comment because that second paragraph wasn’t there , if it was. I was so underwhelmed with the first I guess I didn’t bother with the second.
        yieldcrv 3y ago
        my comment is over 3 hours old, it is not possible to have edited by the time you wrote yours
    - HDThoreaun 3y ago
      what does any of this have to do with frontend?
  - raincole 3y ago
    > when I can generate many iterations of layouts in midjourney, copy them into chatgpt4 and get code in NextJS with Typescript instantly Have you actually tried this? I did the first step and even that didn't work well. The "iterations of layout in MidJourney" step. If people can make it work, well bless them, but we're not getting rid of our graphic designer now.
    - nmfisher 3y ago
      The best counterargument to “GPT4 is going to replace us all” is actually using it for a couple of weeks. It has a few neat tricks but it’s not reliable and at least half of what it generates is totally unusable, the other half requires heavy intervention and supervision.
    - yieldcrv 3y ago
      I don’t have multimodal access yet
troupo 3y ago
Has AI been able to figure out conflicting and quickly changing product requirements and implement them on top of existing technical debt? You'll be fine.
- kossTKR 3y ago
  But if this development continues AI will surely be able to just parse the entire frontend, then look at the repo, then look at the specifications, then when you ask for a specific feature it will instantly implement it gracefully. I don't see why it wouldn't understand piles of hotfixes on top of each other, or even refactor technical debt in tight coupling with existing or historical specification. Or is there a reason this is not going to happen in a few years?
  - generic92034 3y ago
    It depends. Did you ever work in Development Support? Understanding requests or bug reports from customers is quite challenging, for trained and experienced developers. In my eyes that would require AGI, which we do not know of, if that can be achieved with the current approach.
    - kossTKR 3y ago
      I actually did , and yes it's extremely challenging and can be rather rage inducing; "it doesn't work" --> what doesn't work --> "the thing" --> what thing --> ∞ ... But the thing is conversations like the above ie. both external support and internal feature requests could theoretically be handled by a GPT-like system also ending up in a ai created custom specification that could both be implemented and documented by the ai system instead of humans? I know we're a few versions out, but still.
      - generic92034 3y ago
        If just being persistent and willing to iterate solves the issue, then yes, GPT-like systems could do that. If you have to employ creative thinking to even find out what the customer wants, then check it in the system, debug some processes and derive the desired feature or correction, then we are very far from having such a tool, IMHO.
dimgl 3y ago
If AI continues to get better it won't just be you who's in trouble. However, keep in mind that these are cherry-picked. If someone just took that output and stuck onto a website, it'd be a pretty horrible website. There's always going to be someone who manages the code and actually interacts with the AI, so there will still be some jobs. And your boss isn't going to be doing any coding. I'm pretty sure that role is still loaded and they'll still be managing people rather than coding, and maybe sometimes engaging with an AI. Another prediction: I'm pretty sure specialists are going to be significantly more important as your job will be to identify the AI's deficiencies and improve on it.
qingcharles 3y ago
LOL. I already use it to write half my CSS, and that was before it could see what I was fucking up. I'm looking forward to this.
- moffkalast 3y ago
  Real talk, GPT4 is an underrated CSS god, shaking description accurate animations from its sleeve at ridiculous speed. Reminds me of this (apparently now eight year old) meme: https://i.imgur.com/GcZFBaT.png https://i.imgur.com/GcZFBaT.png This used to be funny, now it's just Tuesday.
  - qingcharles 3y ago
    Here's Thursday: https://chat.openai.com/share/db204acc-7be5-42c1-a0ba-5c5aa732c43e https://chat.openai.com/share/db204acc-7be5-42c1-a0ba-5c5aa7... It says I have to put my favorite fonts in myself, though.
nimithryn 3y ago
I’ve used GPT4 (text) heavily as part of my business, including for front end stuff. The technology is very impressive - but honestly Twitter examples are super cherry picked. Yeah, you can build some very ugly, basic front end web pages and functionality right out of the box. But if you want anything even slightly prettier or more complicated, I’ve found you need a human in the loop (even an outsourced dev is better). I’ve had GPT struggle with even basic back end stuff, or anything even a bit out of distribution. It also tends to give answers that are “correct” but functionally useless (hard to explain what I mean, but if you use it a lot you’ll run into this - basically it will give really generic advice when you want a specific answer. Like, sometimes if you provide it some code to find a bug, it will advise you to “write unit tests” and “log outputs” even if you specifically instruct it to find the bug). Plus, in terms of capabilities, tools like Figma already have design to code functionalities you can use - so I don’t think this is really a change in usable functionality. Of course, the tech will get better over time.
- huytersd 3y ago
  I’ve had good results with “match the style of the webpage/figma”.

Oh wow, I'm completely fucked as a front end developer.

by dottjt 3y ago

Oh wow, I'm completely fucked as a front end developer.

Tostino 3y ago

Your job will change in fundamental ways at least.

zarzavat 3y ago
Job will be okay. Career is over. Maybe we should join the writers on the picket line?
yieldcrv 3y ago
The more people say that, the less convincing it is There is no way I would have a UI developer onboarded when I can generate many iterations of layouts in midjourney, copy them into chatgpt4 and get code in NextJS with Typescript instantly non devs will have trouble doing this or thinking of the prompts to ask, but the dev team asking for headcount simply wont ask for headcount, and the engineering manager is going to find the frontend only dev redundant
- epups 3y ago
  Yeah, I'm also skeptical about the actual value of specialists in the future. To me, AI brings a ton of power to generalists, who now have access to very powerful tools that would have taken them a long time to learn otherwise.
  - braislan 3y ago
    Absolutely, it is the triumph of the generalist. I would even go further and say the generalist gains a powerful tool belt that previously could not have existed. Not enough hours in the day or years in a lifetime.
- lewhoo 3y ago
  > There is no way I would have a UI developer onboarded when I can generate many iterations of layouts in midjourney I guess we have to face the music and say yeah, that's true. If the work doesn't need copyrights then this seems like the way to go.
- bamboozled 3y ago
  Will you then use the AI to scale your platform ? Optimise your database ? Improve your test coverage, implement new features, write new backend services, integrate with old difficult but critical systems? At some stage you must realise that you’re still working…
  - yieldcrv 3y ago
    put our two comments into an LLM and ask if it these are even related thoughts because at least it will have actually read my comment
    - bamboozled 3y ago
      I’m going to say you edited or amended you comment because that second paragraph wasn’t there , if it was. I was so underwhelmed with the first I guess I didn’t bother with the second.
      - yieldcrv 3y ago
        my comment is over 3 hours old, it is not possible to have edited by the time you wrote yours
  - HDThoreaun 3y ago
    what does any of this have to do with frontend?
- raincole 3y ago
  > when I can generate many iterations of layouts in midjourney, copy them into chatgpt4 and get code in NextJS with Typescript instantly Have you actually tried this? I did the first step and even that didn't work well. The "iterations of layout in MidJourney" step. If people can make it work, well bless them, but we're not getting rid of our graphic designer now.
  - nmfisher 3y ago
    The best counterargument to “GPT4 is going to replace us all” is actually using it for a couple of weeks. It has a few neat tricks but it’s not reliable and at least half of what it generates is totally unusable, the other half requires heavy intervention and supervision.
  - yieldcrv 3y ago
    I don’t have multimodal access yet

troupo 3y ago

Has AI been able to figure out conflicting and quickly changing product requirements and implement them on top of existing technical debt? You'll be fine.

kossTKR 3y ago
But if this development continues AI will surely be able to just parse the entire frontend, then look at the repo, then look at the specifications, then when you ask for a specific feature it will instantly implement it gracefully. I don't see why it wouldn't understand piles of hotfixes on top of each other, or even refactor technical debt in tight coupling with existing or historical specification. Or is there a reason this is not going to happen in a few years?
- generic92034 3y ago
  It depends. Did you ever work in Development Support? Understanding requests or bug reports from customers is quite challenging, for trained and experienced developers. In my eyes that would require AGI, which we do not know of, if that can be achieved with the current approach.
  - kossTKR 3y ago
    I actually did , and yes it's extremely challenging and can be rather rage inducing; "it doesn't work" --> what doesn't work --> "the thing" --> what thing --> ∞ ... But the thing is conversations like the above ie. both external support and internal feature requests could theoretically be handled by a GPT-like system also ending up in a ai created custom specification that could both be implemented and documented by the ai system instead of humans? I know we're a few versions out, but still.
    - generic92034 3y ago
      If just being persistent and willing to iterate solves the issue, then yes, GPT-like systems could do that. If you have to employ creative thinking to even find out what the customer wants, then check it in the system, debug some processes and derive the desired feature or correction, then we are very far from having such a tool, IMHO.

dimgl 3y ago

If AI continues to get better it won't just be you who's in trouble. However, keep in mind that these are cherry-picked. If someone just took that output and stuck onto a website, it'd be a pretty horrible website. There's always going to be someone who manages the code and actually interacts with the AI, so there will still be some jobs. And your boss isn't going to be doing any coding. I'm pretty sure that role is still loaded and they'll still be managing people rather than coding, and maybe sometimes engaging with an AI. Another prediction: I'm pretty sure specialists are going to be significantly more important as your job will be to identify the AI's deficiencies and improve on it.

qingcharles 3y ago

LOL. I already use it to write half my CSS, and that was before it could see what I was fucking up. I'm looking forward to this.

moffkalast 3y ago
Real talk, GPT4 is an underrated CSS god, shaking description accurate animations from its sleeve at ridiculous speed. Reminds me of this (apparently now eight year old) meme: https://i.imgur.com/GcZFBaT.png https://i.imgur.com/GcZFBaT.png This used to be funny, now it's just Tuesday.
- qingcharles 3y ago
  Here's Thursday: https://chat.openai.com/share/db204acc-7be5-42c1-a0ba-5c5aa732c43e https://chat.openai.com/share/db204acc-7be5-42c1-a0ba-5c5aa7... It says I have to put my favorite fonts in myself, though.

nimithryn 3y ago

I’ve used GPT4 (text) heavily as part of my business, including for front end stuff. The technology is very impressive - but honestly Twitter examples are super cherry picked. Yeah, you can build some very ugly, basic front end web pages and functionality right out of the box. But if you want anything even slightly prettier or more complicated, I’ve found you need a human in the loop (even an outsourced dev is better). I’ve had GPT struggle with even basic back end stuff, or anything even a bit out of distribution. It also tends to give answers that are “correct” but functionally useless (hard to explain what I mean, but if you use it a lot you’ll run into this - basically it will give really generic advice when you want a specific answer. Like, sometimes if you provide it some code to find a bug, it will advise you to “write unit tests” and “log outputs” even if you specifically instruct it to find the bug). Plus, in terms of capabilities, tools like Figma already have design to code functionalities you can use - so I don’t think this is really a change in usable functionality. Of course, the tech will get better over time.

huytersd 3y ago
I’ve had good results with “match the style of the webpage/figma”.