6 ms·

I am 61, I have been a full time developer since I was about 19. I have lost count of the number of 'next thing to replace developers' many many times. many of

by mianos 2y ago

I am 61, I have been a full time developer since I was about 19. I have lost count of the number of 'next thing to replace developers' many many times. many of them showed promise. Many of them continue to be developed. Frameworks with higher and higher levels of abstraction. I see LLMs as the next higher level of abstraction. Does this mean it will replace me? At the moment the output is so flawed for anything but the most trivial professional tasks, I simply see, as before, it has a long long way to go. Will be put me out of a job? I highly doubt it in my career. I still love it and write stuff for home and work every day of the week. I'm planning on working until I drop dead as it seems I have never lost interest so far. Will it replace developers as we know it? Maybe in the far future. But we'll be the ones using it anyway.

ipnon 2y ago
Yes, and if you look back on the history of the tech industry, each time programmers were supposedly on the verge of replacement was an excellent time to start programming.
- Aeolun 2y ago
  The best time was 20 years ago. The second best time is now :)
  - mianos 2y ago
    It was awesome 20 years before that, and the 10s in the middle. It's great now too.
- fendy3002 2y ago
  What people expect: this will replace programmers What really happened: this is used by programmers to improve their workflow
ido 2y ago
I'm only 41 but that's long enough to have also seen this happen a few times (got my first job as a professional developer at age 18). I've also dabbled in using copilot and chatgpt and I find at most they're a boost to an experienced developer- they're not enough to make a novice a replacement for a senior.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  I think the concern is that they might become good enough for a senior to not need a novice. At that point where to the seniors come from?
  - eru 2y ago
    If developers become more productive (both juniors and seniors), there will be more demand for all of them.
    - mantas 2y ago
      Or few will be productive enough to cover everything. Compare amount of bobcat operators vs ditch diggers.
      - eru 2y ago
        There's an almost unlimited amount of demand for people who can write software or automate things, if you can lower buck-per-bang enough.
  - baq 2y ago
    We’re here already. Nobody wants to hire junior devs anymore. Seniors are still a couple phone calls away from new positions.
    - ido 2y ago
      I got my first job in 2001, it was like that then as well (maybe even worse). It got better when the market picked up again. I’m confident there still won’t be “enough developers” when then happens just like there’s never “enough electricity” despite the fact the power grid keep getting expanded all the time - people fine a use for even more.
  - ido 2y ago
    When the market heats up again companies will bite the bullet and hire juniors when they can’t get enough seniors.
jb_briant 2y ago
I have a decade of experience writing web code professionally, in my experience, LLM is a true waste of time regarding web. On the other side, I'm switching to game dev and it became a very useful companion, outputing well known algorithms. It's more like an universal API rather than a junior assistant. Instead of me taking time to understand the algo in the details then implementing, I use GPT4o to expand the Unreal API with missing parts. It truly expands the scope I'm able to handle and it feels good to save hours that compounds in days and weeks of work. Eg. 1. OOB and SAT https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47866571/simple-oriented-bounding-box-obb-collision-detection-explaining https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47866571/simple-oriented... 2. Making a grid system using lat/long coordinates for a voxel planet.
- Copyrighted 2y ago
  Same here. Really liking it asking it Unreal C++ trivia.
- baq 2y ago
  > I have a decade of experience writing web code professionally, in my experience, LLM is a true waste of time regarding web. As someone who knows web front end development only to the extent I need it for internal tools, it’s been turning day-long fights into single hour dare I say it pleasurable experiences. I tell it to make a row of widgets and it outputs all the div+css soup (or e.g. material components) that only needs some tuning instead of having to google everything. It still takes experience to know when it doesn’t use a component when it should etc., but it’s a force multiplier, not a replacement. For now.
  - Scarblac 2y ago
    That's also my experience, the AI is very helpful for doing common things with languages you're not great at. Makes it easier to pick up a few extra tools to use now and then.
    - mianos 2y ago
      This I agree with. It is awesome when you don't know something. I have being doing some TypeScript recently and it's not something I have used professionally in anger before. But, as I learn it, GPT 4o becomes less and less useful for anything but short questions to fill in gaps. I am already way better than it at anything more than a few pages long. Getting it to do something substantial is pretty much an exercise in frustration.
pandemic_region 2y ago
Hey man, thanks for posting this. There's about ten years between us. I too hope that they will need to pry a keyboard from my cold dead hands.
anonzzzies 2y ago
I have seen this happening since the 70s. My father made a tool to replace programmers. It did not and it disillusioned him greatly. Sold very well though. But this time is different though; I have often said that I thought chatgpt like AI was at least 50 years out still but it's here; it does replace programmers every day. I see many companies inside (I have a troubleshoot company; we get called to fix very urgent stuff and we only do that so we hop around a lot) and many are starting to replace outsourced teams with, for instance, our product (which was a side project for me to see if it can be done, it can). But also just shrinking teams and give them claude or gpt to replace the bad people. It is happening just not at scale yet to really scare people; that will happen though. It is just stupidly cheaper; for the price of one junior you can do so many api requests to claude it's not even funny. Large companies are still thinking about privacy of data etc but all of that will simply not matter in the long run. Good logical thinkers and problemsolvers won't be replaced any time soon, but mediocre or bad programmers are already gone ; a llm is faster, cheaper and doesn't get ill or tired. And there are so many of them, just try someone on upwork or fiverr and you will know.
- zoobab 2y ago
  "Large companies are still thinking about privacy of data etc but all of that will simply not matter in the long run." Privacy is a fundamental right. And companies should care about not leaking trade secrets, including code, but the rest as well. US companies are known to use the cloud to spy on competitors. Companies should have their own private LLM, not rely on cloud instances with a contract that guarantees "privacy".
  - anonzzzies 2y ago
    I know and agree: it's strange how many companies and people just step over and on their privacy. Or export private info to other countries. But what I mean here is that, good or bad, money always wins. Unfortunately also over fundamental rights. That sucks, but still happens and will happen.
- fendy3002 2y ago
  > It is just stupidly cheaper; for the price of one junior you can do so many api requests to claude it's not even funny Idk if the cheap price is really cheap price or promotion price, where after that the enshittification and price increase happen, which is a trend for most tech companies. And agree, llm will weed bad programmers further, though in the future, bad alternatives (like analyst or bad llm users) may emerge
euroderf 2y ago
Let's say we get an AI that can take well-written requirements and cough up an app. I think you have to be a developer to learn how to write those requirements well. And I don't even mean the concepts of data flows and logic flows. I mean, just learning to organise thoughts in a way that they don't fatally contradict themselves or lead to dead ends or otherwise tie themselves in unresolvable knots. I mean like non-lawyers trying to write laws without any understanding of the entire suite of mental furniture.
- mianos 2y ago
  That is exactly what I mean when I said "we'll be the ones using it". I didn't want to expand it, for fear of sounding like an elitist, and you said it better anyway. The same things that make a programmer excellent will be in a much better position to use an even better LLM. Concise thinking and expression. At the moment LLMs will just kinda 'shotgun' scattered ideas based on your input. I expect the better ones will be massively better when fed better input.

by mianos 2y ago

ipnon 2y ago

Yes, and if you look back on the history of the tech industry, each time programmers were supposedly on the verge of replacement was an excellent time to start programming.

Aeolun 2y ago
The best time was 20 years ago. The second best time is now :)
- mianos 2y ago
  It was awesome 20 years before that, and the 10s in the middle. It's great now too.
fendy3002 2y ago
What people expect: this will replace programmers What really happened: this is used by programmers to improve their workflow

ido 2y ago

I'm only 41 but that's long enough to have also seen this happen a few times (got my first job as a professional developer at age 18). I've also dabbled in using copilot and chatgpt and I find at most they're a boost to an experienced developer- they're not enough to make a novice a replacement for a senior.

bee_rider 2y ago
I think the concern is that they might become good enough for a senior to not need a novice. At that point where to the seniors come from?
- eru 2y ago
  If developers become more productive (both juniors and seniors), there will be more demand for all of them.
  - mantas 2y ago
    Or few will be productive enough to cover everything. Compare amount of bobcat operators vs ditch diggers.
    - eru 2y ago
      There's an almost unlimited amount of demand for people who can write software or automate things, if you can lower buck-per-bang enough.
- baq 2y ago
  We’re here already. Nobody wants to hire junior devs anymore. Seniors are still a couple phone calls away from new positions.
  - ido 2y ago
    I got my first job in 2001, it was like that then as well (maybe even worse). It got better when the market picked up again. I’m confident there still won’t be “enough developers” when then happens just like there’s never “enough electricity” despite the fact the power grid keep getting expanded all the time - people fine a use for even more.
- ido 2y ago
  When the market heats up again companies will bite the bullet and hire juniors when they can’t get enough seniors.

jb_briant 2y ago

I have a decade of experience writing web code professionally, in my experience, LLM is a true waste of time regarding web. On the other side, I'm switching to game dev and it became a very useful companion, outputing well known algorithms. It's more like an universal API rather than a junior assistant. Instead of me taking time to understand the algo in the details then implementing, I use GPT4o to expand the Unreal API with missing parts. It truly expands the scope I'm able to handle and it feels good to save hours that compounds in days and weeks of work. Eg. 1. OOB and SAT https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47866571/simple-oriented-bounding-box-obb-collision-detection-explaining https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47866571/simple-oriented... 2. Making a grid system using lat/long coordinates for a voxel planet.

Copyrighted 2y ago
Same here. Really liking it asking it Unreal C++ trivia.
baq 2y ago
> I have a decade of experience writing web code professionally, in my experience, LLM is a true waste of time regarding web. As someone who knows web front end development only to the extent I need it for internal tools, it’s been turning day-long fights into single hour dare I say it pleasurable experiences. I tell it to make a row of widgets and it outputs all the div+css soup (or e.g. material components) that only needs some tuning instead of having to google everything. It still takes experience to know when it doesn’t use a component when it should etc., but it’s a force multiplier, not a replacement. For now.
- Scarblac 2y ago
  That's also my experience, the AI is very helpful for doing common things with languages you're not great at. Makes it easier to pick up a few extra tools to use now and then.
  - mianos 2y ago
    This I agree with. It is awesome when you don't know something. I have being doing some TypeScript recently and it's not something I have used professionally in anger before. But, as I learn it, GPT 4o becomes less and less useful for anything but short questions to fill in gaps. I am already way better than it at anything more than a few pages long. Getting it to do something substantial is pretty much an exercise in frustration.

pandemic_region 2y ago

Hey man, thanks for posting this. There's about ten years between us. I too hope that they will need to pry a keyboard from my cold dead hands.

anonzzzies 2y ago

I have seen this happening since the 70s. My father made a tool to replace programmers. It did not and it disillusioned him greatly. Sold very well though. But this time is different though; I have often said that I thought chatgpt like AI was at least 50 years out still but it's here; it does replace programmers every day. I see many companies inside (I have a troubleshoot company; we get called to fix very urgent stuff and we only do that so we hop around a lot) and many are starting to replace outsourced teams with, for instance, our product (which was a side project for me to see if it can be done, it can). But also just shrinking teams and give them claude or gpt to replace the bad people. It is happening just not at scale yet to really scare people; that will happen though. It is just stupidly cheaper; for the price of one junior you can do so many api requests to claude it's not even funny. Large companies are still thinking about privacy of data etc but all of that will simply not matter in the long run. Good logical thinkers and problemsolvers won't be replaced any time soon, but mediocre or bad programmers are already gone ; a llm is faster, cheaper and doesn't get ill or tired. And there are so many of them, just try someone on upwork or fiverr and you will know.

zoobab 2y ago
"Large companies are still thinking about privacy of data etc but all of that will simply not matter in the long run." Privacy is a fundamental right. And companies should care about not leaking trade secrets, including code, but the rest as well. US companies are known to use the cloud to spy on competitors. Companies should have their own private LLM, not rely on cloud instances with a contract that guarantees "privacy".
- anonzzzies 2y ago
  I know and agree: it's strange how many companies and people just step over and on their privacy. Or export private info to other countries. But what I mean here is that, good or bad, money always wins. Unfortunately also over fundamental rights. That sucks, but still happens and will happen.
fendy3002 2y ago
> It is just stupidly cheaper; for the price of one junior you can do so many api requests to claude it's not even funny Idk if the cheap price is really cheap price or promotion price, where after that the enshittification and price increase happen, which is a trend for most tech companies. And agree, llm will weed bad programmers further, though in the future, bad alternatives (like analyst or bad llm users) may emerge

euroderf 2y ago

Let's say we get an AI that can take well-written requirements and cough up an app. I think you have to be a developer to learn how to write those requirements well. And I don't even mean the concepts of data flows and logic flows. I mean, just learning to organise thoughts in a way that they don't fatally contradict themselves or lead to dead ends or otherwise tie themselves in unresolvable knots. I mean like non-lawyers trying to write laws without any understanding of the entire suite of mental furniture.

mianos 2y ago
That is exactly what I mean when I said "we'll be the ones using it". I didn't want to expand it, for fear of sounding like an elitist, and you said it better anyway. The same things that make a programmer excellent will be in a much better position to use an even better LLM. Concise thinking and expression. At the moment LLMs will just kinda 'shotgun' scattered ideas based on your input. I expect the better ones will be massively better when fed better input.