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These are toys but in 2 years they will probably be full projects and 2 years later people will ask "why do i need a software developer?"

simonw 2y ago
I just don't think that's true. If all someone does is write code based on specifications handed over by someone else then yes, they have cause to be worried - but in my career as a software engineer the "typing code into a computer" bit has only ever been 10-20% of the work that I do. The big challenge of software development has always been turning human needs into working software. That requires a great depth of experience in terms of what's possible, what isn't possible, how software works and how to architect and design software to deliver value today while still staying flexible for future development. LLMs can accelerate that process a bit, but I don't think they can replace it. Someone still has to drive the LLMs. I think people with software development skills are best placed to do that.
- harisec 2y ago
  That's a good point and I agree with you. However, would you agree that in a few years we will need far less developers than we need right now?
  - simonw 2y ago
    I had a podcast conversation about this recently: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/ai-tools-for-software-engineers-simon-willison https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/ai-tools-for-soft... I think LLMs mean developers can build stuff faster, which reduces the cost of developing software. My optimistic scenario is that this expands the market for custom software, a lot. Companies that would never have considered developing their own software - because they'd need six developers working for twelve months - can now afford to do so, because they need two developers for three months instead. The result is more jobs for engineers, and engineers become more valuable because they'd can get more done. I'm not an economist so I won't pretend I'm confident this will happen, but it's my optimistic scenario.
    - palata 2y ago
      Not only it has the potential to increase productivity: it has the potential to lower the overall quality of software (by making it more accessible to people who don't really understand how to write good code). I believe that we can already observe that modern tools/languages have made programming a lot more accessible, and that the average quality of software has decreased dramatically (not that all software is bad: just that this new accessibility brought a lot more bad software than good software). Your example is interesting: it says "it's good because people will be able to produce more", not "developers will have more time to focus on fixing bugs and optimizing their code".
chadcmulligan 2y ago
All these sort of statements assume growth is linear without justification, its more likely exponential. ie it took 2 years to get here, so it will take 2 more to get to this point, but in reality it may be 100 years to get to the next point. No one knows, and if in 2 years it is able to write that sort of code then the singularity is very close indeed.
- harisec 2y ago
  Actually, i think it will take less than 2 years. I've been using Aider + Claude 3.5 Sonnet almost daily for a long time and the progress is very fast. We will see.

simonw 2y ago

I just don't think that's true. If all someone does is write code based on specifications handed over by someone else then yes, they have cause to be worried - but in my career as a software engineer the "typing code into a computer" bit has only ever been 10-20% of the work that I do. The big challenge of software development has always been turning human needs into working software. That requires a great depth of experience in terms of what's possible, what isn't possible, how software works and how to architect and design software to deliver value today while still staying flexible for future development. LLMs can accelerate that process a bit, but I don't think they can replace it. Someone still has to drive the LLMs. I think people with software development skills are best placed to do that.

harisec 2y ago
That's a good point and I agree with you. However, would you agree that in a few years we will need far less developers than we need right now?
- simonw 2y ago
  I had a podcast conversation about this recently: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/ai-tools-for-software-engineers-simon-willison https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/ai-tools-for-soft... I think LLMs mean developers can build stuff faster, which reduces the cost of developing software. My optimistic scenario is that this expands the market for custom software, a lot. Companies that would never have considered developing their own software - because they'd need six developers working for twelve months - can now afford to do so, because they need two developers for three months instead. The result is more jobs for engineers, and engineers become more valuable because they'd can get more done. I'm not an economist so I won't pretend I'm confident this will happen, but it's my optimistic scenario.
  - palata 2y ago
    Not only it has the potential to increase productivity: it has the potential to lower the overall quality of software (by making it more accessible to people who don't really understand how to write good code). I believe that we can already observe that modern tools/languages have made programming a lot more accessible, and that the average quality of software has decreased dramatically (not that all software is bad: just that this new accessibility brought a lot more bad software than good software). Your example is interesting: it says "it's good because people will be able to produce more", not "developers will have more time to focus on fixing bugs and optimizing their code".

chadcmulligan 2y ago

All these sort of statements assume growth is linear without justification, its more likely exponential. ie it took 2 years to get here, so it will take 2 more to get to this point, but in reality it may be 100 years to get to the next point. No one knows, and if in 2 years it is able to write that sort of code then the singularity is very close indeed.

harisec 2y ago
Actually, i think it will take less than 2 years. I've been using Aider + Claude 3.5 Sonnet almost daily for a long time and the progress is very fast. We will see.