3 ms·

> LLMs will further amplify the existing winner-take-all, first-mover nature of dev tools This will be true for people who rely on LLMs to code, which I strong

> LLMs will further amplify the existing winner-take-all, first-mover nature of dev tools This will be true for people who rely on LLMs to code, which I strongly suggest is not a great long-term bet for a software engineering career.

jimmaswell 2y ago
I still think it's a perfectly fine productivity multiplier to use as long as you still understand what you're doing.
- alexpetros 2y ago
  There's a very clear skill ceiling on the kind of code for which LLMs can serve as a productivity multiplier.
  - jimmaswell 2y ago
    I don't think so. No matter the code complexity, copilot gives me good enough suggestions that it saves me time. It often simply writes the exact line I had in mind.
MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
Yes. And no matter how good LLMs get at coding there will always be a crowd intentionally doing it themselves, especially in the open source arena, if only just to keep the joy alive.
- steve_adams_86 2y ago
  I fully expect to keep writing code for decades, just like I still use a hand plane and enjoy growing plants to eat. I know other methods are more efficient. But I’m here to experience life. I want to do the hard things. I want to be uncertain, confused, to make mistakes, and to learn. AI is a neat tool in limited scopes. Every time I use it though, I feel like I didn’t get the full experience. I’m acutely aware of all the rabbit holes I missed, or the tiny details I’d notice along the way and helpfully remember 10 years later. For everything it adds, it takes at least as much away from where I’m looking. And I like those parts.
edanm 2y ago
I think ~0% of people will be coding without LLMs in some form in a few years. How many people are still coding in assembler?
- anonzzzies 2y ago
  The LLMs will need to get a lot better though. I see every day on reddit/X a bunch of people saying they downloaded Cursor and built a saas without ever having coded anything in their lives; the resulting code is always terrible, full with really obvious bugs and buckets of trivial security issues. All these things can be prevented, in theory, but current LLMs really don't do that at all (they aren't capable).
  - steve_adams_86 2y ago
    All of these SaaS products are also clones of things people have already made. If it was helping newcomers create novel things from great imaginations and curiosity, I’d be really excited about this. Instead I saw a reminder app, a todo app, a combination of these, and a voice transcription app. All of these have existed in huge numbers for a decade or close to it. This isn’t interesting. It wouldn’t have taken much to do this without AI if these people found motivation through some other means. Nothing notable is happening yet.
    - anonzzzies 2y ago
      > All of these have existed in huge numbers for a decade or close to it That doesn't always matter though; I saw some guy on reddit selling 1000s of subs of a server uptime page they generated with an LLM (Cursor I think it was). Most do it for the money and that is working IF you have the following somewhere.
      - steve_adams_86 2y ago
        Do you have a link to that?
  - robocat 2y ago

jimmaswell 2y ago

I still think it's a perfectly fine productivity multiplier to use as long as you still understand what you're doing.

alexpetros 2y ago
There's a very clear skill ceiling on the kind of code for which LLMs can serve as a productivity multiplier.
- jimmaswell 2y ago
  I don't think so. No matter the code complexity, copilot gives me good enough suggestions that it saves me time. It often simply writes the exact line I had in mind.

MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago

Yes. And no matter how good LLMs get at coding there will always be a crowd intentionally doing it themselves, especially in the open source arena, if only just to keep the joy alive.

steve_adams_86 2y ago
I fully expect to keep writing code for decades, just like I still use a hand plane and enjoy growing plants to eat. I know other methods are more efficient. But I’m here to experience life. I want to do the hard things. I want to be uncertain, confused, to make mistakes, and to learn. AI is a neat tool in limited scopes. Every time I use it though, I feel like I didn’t get the full experience. I’m acutely aware of all the rabbit holes I missed, or the tiny details I’d notice along the way and helpfully remember 10 years later. For everything it adds, it takes at least as much away from where I’m looking. And I like those parts.

edanm 2y ago

I think ~0% of people will be coding without LLMs in some form in a few years. How many people are still coding in assembler?

anonzzzies 2y ago
The LLMs will need to get a lot better though. I see every day on reddit/X a bunch of people saying they downloaded Cursor and built a saas without ever having coded anything in their lives; the resulting code is always terrible, full with really obvious bugs and buckets of trivial security issues. All these things can be prevented, in theory, but current LLMs really don't do that at all (they aren't capable).
- steve_adams_86 2y ago
  All of these SaaS products are also clones of things people have already made. If it was helping newcomers create novel things from great imaginations and curiosity, I’d be really excited about this. Instead I saw a reminder app, a todo app, a combination of these, and a voice transcription app. All of these have existed in huge numbers for a decade or close to it. This isn’t interesting. It wouldn’t have taken much to do this without AI if these people found motivation through some other means. Nothing notable is happening yet.
  - anonzzzies 2y ago
    > All of these have existed in huge numbers for a decade or close to it That doesn't always matter though; I saw some guy on reddit selling 1000s of subs of a server uptime page they generated with an LLM (Cursor I think it was). Most do it for the money and that is working IF you have the following somewhere.
    - steve_adams_86 2y ago
      Do you have a link to that?
- robocat 2y ago