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Next generation of programmers will be incredible. I don't know if it will make better programmers but there definitely will be more now that there is even less
by famahar 3y ago
Next generation of programmers will be incredible. I don't know if it will make better programmers but there definitely will be more now that there is even less friction to learn. Similar to the big boom in interactive coding tutorials allowing more self learning devs.
- Salgat 3y agoMy biggest fear is what has happened with Gen Z. The UX becomes so user friendly that you end up never needing to learn how it actually works. Great for happy paths, but terrible if you need to dig into edge cases and work under the hood. We all know the classic case of the junior dev who just brute forces stack overflow into their code and prays it works; this is the next iteration of that.
- cm2187 3y agoWill it? I mean there is stack overflow already. All it is is a better UI for stack overflow.
- famahar 3y agoExactly. Stackoverflow can be kind of a mess though. You'll often be sifting through tons of answers or might still be confused and asking follow up questions can take time to get an answer. Now that is all immediate.
- hannofcart 3y agoWell, that may be true but because it's a 'better UI' while also being completely independent of Stack Overflow, it has been hammering SO's traffic recently.
- n4r9 3y agoThe reason stack overflow is such a useful resource is that people actually ask questions on it and receive high quality answers. I wonder, how long until the website becomes obsolete because people are asking LLMs instead, and how long after that do LLMs themselves consequently become less useful?
- manojlds 3y agoBut LLMs are getting the "upvote" as feedback...more the usage, more they improve as well?
- n4r9 3y agoI don't know how LLM upvotes work, but I'm guessing it's typically only the direct user that will upvote or downvote. The value of a public forum voting system is that a pool of experienced users can verify whether an answer is of good quality. If an inexperienced engineer asks for code and the LLM produces something that has sub-par performance, is overly complex, and botches various edge-cases, the engineer may not realise until years later if at all that they could have produced something much better. Combined with the fact that there are plenty of things that mostly only junior engineers will ask about, and I think you have a problem.
- PoignardAzur 3y ago> that people actually ask questions on it and receive high quality answers That really hasn't been my experience with StackOverflow for the last 10 years.
- n4r9 3y agoFair enough. Regardless, as I understand it LLMs can only be as good as their training data. Therefore they are vulnerable to that data losing its freshness.
- famahar 3y agoWouldn't it seem reasonable to assume that any new technology will train an LLM with extensive documentation and tutorials before being released. GPT4 can browse the web now too and open source LLMa can be trained on custom data.
- n4r9 3y agoThat is reasonable and I believe it would greatly help. However, docs and tutorials rarely anticipate all the ways in which people need to use that technology.
- FranzFerdiNaN 3y agoAh yes, Stack Closed. This question needs to be more focused. It is not currently accepting answers. duplicate, deleted Overflow. Such a wonderful site, really useful for a beginner.
- cm2187 3y agoWould be funny if chatgpt starts answering that to certain questions.
- sanitycheck 3y agoI'm not sure about that. Some amount of devils-advocacy in the following but here goes: If you're learning to code now, using an LLM, who's to say that the LLMs won't improve faster than you do? In 10 years will there be a recognisable programming job for most people learning programming now? We're standing on a cliff watching the tide rise, wondering if it'll reach us. People learning programming are down in the sea, trying to climb up out of it. Years ago taxi drivers actually needed to know their way around their local area. Then we got GPS and mapping apps, meaning Uber could exist and any random dude could be a taxi driver instantly. In future* the drivers will be unnecessary and the cars will be the drivers too. [*timeline 5-50 years] In the early 2000s there were plenty of jobs for mediocre developers making websites for small companies. Now we've got Facebook, Squarespace & Shopify, that role is gone. Lots of observations around here recently about how kids are less tech-savvy now, they know how to use appliances - not general purpose computers. Make stuff easy enough that anyone can do it, and nobody will know how it works.
- throwuwu 3y agoWe somehow have more programming jobs now than ever. Those kids learning programming with LLMs may not end up writing code by hand but they will still be building stuff with computers.
- civilitty 3y agoWe shouldn't take for granted that will continue for very long because it’s obviously as unsustainable as infinite economic growth in general. At some point that growth has to stop. Up till now software was mostly an arms race between competitors because of software’s low marginal cost and high utility. Now with ZIRP over and many of parts of the industry consolidating, I fear enshittification is a sign that the good times are over and we will now be milked to make up for all the profit lost the industrialists lost to the plebs.
- poulpy123 3y agoAbsolutely not. There is a point where ease of use decrease the knowledge of the users. Most "digital natives" are worse with technology than Gen X and early millenial, simply because they didn't have to learn how it worked to use it