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I think I pretty directly addressed that point. Yes, it would be more expensive to hire me to do what Claude Code / Aider did, but nobody would be satisfied wit

I think I pretty directly addressed that point. Yes, it would be more expensive to hire me to do what Claude Code / Aider did, but nobody would be satisfied with my work if I stopped where Claude Code / Aider did.

radlad 2y ago
They aren't necessarily saying it can replace you. They're saying that even though it's expensive, it's cheaper than your time (which can be better spent on other tasks, as you point out.)
- codebolt 2y ago
  And with this increase in productivity, your boss needs fewer of you to do the work that would previously require a larger team.
- baq 2y ago
  The first half is correct, but the conclusions shouldn’t be ‘we’re replicating our software engineers with Claude today’, they’re ‘our experienced engineers just 10x their productivity, we’ll never need to hire an intern’
  - bhaney 2y ago
    You mean "our experienced engineers just 10x'd their productivity, so we can fire 90% of them"
    - baq 2y ago
      Nah the value unlock is too great. For now. Don’t quote me next March.
    - risyachka 2y ago
      Productivity gains decrease exponentially after a few weeks as your engineering skills become rusty very fast (yes, they do, in 100% cases) Thats the biggest part everyone misses. It’s all sunshine and rainbows until in a month you realize you start asking llm to think for you and at that point the code becomes shit and degrades fast. Like with everything else “use it or lose it” If you don’t code yourself- you will lose the ability to properly so it very fast, and you won’t realize it until too late
      - MyOutfitIsVague 2y ago
        If you're using the LLM poorly. Many team leads spend very little time programming, and spend a lot of time reviewing code, which is basically what working with LLMs is. If the LLM writes code that you couldn't have written yourself, you aren't qualified to approve it.
    - snowwrestler 2y ago
      Accurate only for companies who think today “I have exactly as much engineering talent as I’ll ever need.” Which is approximately zero companies.
  - cloudbonsai 2y ago
    I'm pondering where this "AI-automated programming" trend is heading. For example: thirty years ago, FX trading was executed by a bunch of human traders. Then, computers arrived on the scene, which made all of them practically obsolete. Nowadays FX trading is executed by a collection of automated algorithms, being monitored by few quants. My question is: is the software development in 2025 basically like what the foreign exchange was in the 2000s?
    - philipswood 2y ago
      My take is something like the following: With industrialisation blacksmiths were replaced by assembly lines. I'm sure that blacksmiths are more flexible and capable in almost any important dimension, but the economics of factories just made more sense. I expect that when the dust settles (assuming that the dust settles), that most software will be an industrial product. The humans involved in its creation will be engineers and not craftsmen. Today we have machinists and industrial engineers - not blacksmiths. Quality and quality assurance processes will become more important, I also expect optimised production processes. I think a lot of the software ecosystem is a baroque set of over-engineered (or over crafted) steps and processes and this will probably be refactored. I expect code quality metrics to be super refined. Craftsmen don't usually produce artifacts to the tolerances that our machines do now - code will be the same. I expect automated correctness proofs, specification languages, enhanced type systems to have a renaissance.
- Suppafly 2y ago
  This, if you hire engineers, you want them doing tasks only engineers can do, not busy work.

radlad 2y ago

They aren't necessarily saying it can replace you. They're saying that even though it's expensive, it's cheaper than your time (which can be better spent on other tasks, as you point out.)

codebolt 2y ago
And with this increase in productivity, your boss needs fewer of you to do the work that would previously require a larger team.
baq 2y ago
The first half is correct, but the conclusions shouldn’t be ‘we’re replicating our software engineers with Claude today’, they’re ‘our experienced engineers just 10x their productivity, we’ll never need to hire an intern’
- bhaney 2y ago
  You mean "our experienced engineers just 10x'd their productivity, so we can fire 90% of them"
  - baq 2y ago
    Nah the value unlock is too great. For now. Don’t quote me next March.
  - risyachka 2y ago
    Productivity gains decrease exponentially after a few weeks as your engineering skills become rusty very fast (yes, they do, in 100% cases) Thats the biggest part everyone misses. It’s all sunshine and rainbows until in a month you realize you start asking llm to think for you and at that point the code becomes shit and degrades fast. Like with everything else “use it or lose it” If you don’t code yourself- you will lose the ability to properly so it very fast, and you won’t realize it until too late
    - MyOutfitIsVague 2y ago
      If you're using the LLM poorly. Many team leads spend very little time programming, and spend a lot of time reviewing code, which is basically what working with LLMs is. If the LLM writes code that you couldn't have written yourself, you aren't qualified to approve it.
  - snowwrestler 2y ago
    Accurate only for companies who think today “I have exactly as much engineering talent as I’ll ever need.” Which is approximately zero companies.
- cloudbonsai 2y ago
  I'm pondering where this "AI-automated programming" trend is heading. For example: thirty years ago, FX trading was executed by a bunch of human traders. Then, computers arrived on the scene, which made all of them practically obsolete. Nowadays FX trading is executed by a collection of automated algorithms, being monitored by few quants. My question is: is the software development in 2025 basically like what the foreign exchange was in the 2000s?
  - philipswood 2y ago
    My take is something like the following: With industrialisation blacksmiths were replaced by assembly lines. I'm sure that blacksmiths are more flexible and capable in almost any important dimension, but the economics of factories just made more sense. I expect that when the dust settles (assuming that the dust settles), that most software will be an industrial product. The humans involved in its creation will be engineers and not craftsmen. Today we have machinists and industrial engineers - not blacksmiths. Quality and quality assurance processes will become more important, I also expect optimised production processes. I think a lot of the software ecosystem is a baroque set of over-engineered (or over crafted) steps and processes and this will probably be refactored. I expect code quality metrics to be super refined. Craftsmen don't usually produce artifacts to the tolerances that our machines do now - code will be the same. I expect automated correctness proofs, specification languages, enhanced type systems to have a renaissance.
Suppafly 2y ago
This, if you hire engineers, you want them doing tasks only engineers can do, not busy work.