7 ms·

The Post-Developer Era

80 points by thm 2y ago

simonw 2y ago
"If you’re passionate about software development, or if you see it as the best opportunity for you to earn a high salary that’ll lift you into the upper middle class, I really hope you won’t let yourself get discouraged by AI hype." +100 to that
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
osigurdson 2y ago
The "AGI is right around the corner" argument is effectively corporate malpractice. No, shareholders don't want you to wait around and do nothing (other than a few layoffs here and there) while you wait for AGI.
- roncesvalles 2y ago
  The layoff mass hysteria that ran through the tech industry established doing less or nothing as a corporate virtue. If the market gave your company a PE ratio of 20+ and you're flush with cash, it is borderline fiduciary negligence to be slashing projects and doing layoffs. Your shareholders didn't invest in you for the capital preservation portfolio-management skills of your finance department.
  - ptero 2y ago
    Not necessarily. Should the market action bump up a company PE very high (hello, Costco at PE 53 today) that's not a reason to splurge on projects. On the contrary, many shareholders would expect the company to behave responsibly, save cash, pause share buybacks and build up war chest for leaner times, where buying a competitor could be way cheaper. My 2c.
    - roncesvalles 2y ago
      If the PE ratio is high enough, the company can raise money by simply issuing more shares. Giving the company a money-printer is the whole point of the stock market. That's what makes you an investor -- you're offering the company the value of your shares by exposing yourself to "inflation" whenever the company needs to raise some money.
      - ptero 2y ago
        On paper. In reality, issuing shares (or debt) takes time and is a complex process, a mere sign of which can dampen share prices. > That's what makes you an investor -- you're offering the company the value of your shares by exposing yourself to "inflation" whenever the company needs to raise some money. I beg to differ. What makes me an investor is buying a share of future company profits, directly via dividends or indirectly via a future sale of shares. Many of the companies I invested in over the last 30 years were (over time) reducing share counts via buybacks, not issuing shares like candy.
        roncesvalles 2y ago
        You're not an "investor" if you aren't actually funding the company. Trading scrips that entitle you to a share of the profit is not "funding" the company. Except that you are -- every time that the company prints shares, they've taken some value from you to fund their operations. If companies weren't allowed to issue shares from thin air, there wouldn't be much point to the stock market.
  - gonzo41 2y ago
    Everything you've said sounds like next quarters problem.
- tobr 2y ago
  ”We’ve become so efficient and are so forward-thinking, we just don’t need all these pesky employees” sounds better than ”We overhired and it turns out money isn’t free anymore”.
killjoywashere 2y ago
Someone kill that muppet that jumps out of the margin halfway down. Please.
- wyclif 2y ago
  Yes, that manages to be both super annoying and condescending at the same time.
- auggierose 2y ago
  The site doesn't work in my browser (Safari), cannot scroll. Now I know why...
wyclif 2y ago
Americans inexplicably re-elected a wildly incompetent conman to be president In fact, this was totally and easily explicable after the dominant political party tried to convince Americans that their current leader was not suffering from severe cognitive decline and was "sharp as a tack" (a Biden admin talking point) and that NPCs lying to Americans about Trump being "easy to beat" by Kamala and also lying to them about Trump calling Charlottesville protestors "very fine people" and thinking that those fake attempts to make Trump look like he was endorsing Nazis wouldn't backfire explosively. So, no, it was not "inexplicable" at all but it was rather Whiplash Effect initiated by media narratives originating in the Democrat ecosystem. And don't forget: Trump, Elon and Rogan are all ex-Democrats. I wonder, too, if the author was one of those people who deluded himself into thinking "Kamala is a great candidate" against all the evidence. So the "Russiagate" hoax failed, "Kamala is awesome" failed, elites orienting themselves around appeasing far left pressure groups failed, smug contempt for middle America failed (astonishingly) and yet it is "inexplicable" why Orange Man Bad won the election!
- tomlockwood 2y ago
  Always bewildering to me when people look at the demographics of conservatives, leaning old and rich, and think that they just fell out of the coconut tree. No. Those people were sometimes "progressives" in their time and later became conservatives. Same as it ever was. No further explanation needed. Not a new phenomenon. ed: "No, it must be the fault of the left." must be a reassuring thought, but let me occams razor that for you: when these people were younger, they were selfish, and as they weren't yet the status quo, they were progressive. When these people got older, they were still selfish, and as they were the status quo, they were conservatives. Simple.
- ysofunny 2y ago
  I consider the relative ease with which many people can imitate him to be the reason he is in office
- queenkjuul 2y ago
  You guys are so triggered by that "fine people" line lmao
rmnclmnt 2y ago
The other day I was reviewing the work of a peer on a relatively easy task (using a SDK to manage some remote resources given a static configuration). At several times I was like « why did you do that this way? This is so contrived ». And I should have known better but of course the answer started with « … I know but Copilot did this or that… ». Of course no test to validate properly the implementation. The sentiment expressed in the article were developers won’t even bother to validate the output of coding assistants is real. And that’s one of the biggest shame to this current hype: quality was already decreasing for the past 10 years, signs indicate this will only go downhill from here
- xkcd1963 2y ago
  Its actually amazing news, worse software quality means more oportunities for hackers and better tools
  - mc3301 2y ago
    Or people just become satisfied with lower quality. Hand-crafted chairs from a woodworker used to be the only way to get a chair. You'd get an amazing, life-long chair with no flaws. Now that chairs are cheaply made in factories, we can have multiple different chairs with many flaws. And just toss them out and go on to the next one when needed. But... those sturdy beautiful fine-wordworker-made chairs are still being built. They are just more rare, expensive, and special than ever before.
    - myaccountonhn 2y ago
      Yeah that's where I think it's going. Quality software will have no space but a niche, and so your customers will be the top 1% that can afford it.
    - listenallyall 2y ago
      You actually believe that not a single woodworker said to himself, there are only so many wealthy people, I might do better if I make some chairs from cheap wood in a hurry, not doing so much polishing or ornamentaion, and I can make twice as many and sell to the not-so-rich people? You really don't think that existed?
dasil003 2y ago
This whole post-developer idea is a red herring fueled by investor optics. The reality is AI will change how software is built, but it's still just a tool that requires the same type of precise thinking that software developers do. You can remove all need to understand syntax, but the need for translating vague desires from laypeople into a precise specification will remain—there's nothing on the AI horizon that will solve for this, and savvy tech leaders know this. So why are we hearing this narrative from tech leaders who should know better? Two reasons: First is that the majority of investor gains in the US stock market have been fueled heavily by AI hype. Every public tech CEO is getting questions from analysts about what their AI strategy, and they have to tell a compelling story. There's very little space or patience for nuance here because no one really knows how it will play out, but in the meantime investors are making decisions based on what is said. It's no surprise that the majority of execs are just jumping on the bandwagon so they have a story to keep their stock price propped up. Second, and perhaps more importantly, regardless of AI, software teams across the industry are just too big. Headcount for tech companies has ballooned over the last couple decades due to the web, smart phone revolution and ZIRP. With this type of environment the FAANGs of the world were hoarding talent just to be ready to capitalize on whatever is next. But the ugly truth is that a lot of the juice has already been squeezed, and the actual business needs don't justify that headcount over the long-term. AI is convenient cover story for RIFs that they would have done anyway, this just ties it with a nice bow for investors.
- khafra 2y ago
  > the need for translating vague desires from laypeople into a precise specification will remain What makes you think LLMs will never be able to do that? Have you tried any of the various DeepResearch products? The workflow is that you make a request for a research project; and then it asks various clarifying questions to narrow down the specific question, acceptable sources, etc.; and only then does it do all the research and collate a report for you.
  - ezst 2y ago
    Not OP, AI may or may not, this is to be seen, but LLMs of today certainly won't.
xnx 2y ago
There used to be a job of a "Typist". Now everyone does their own typing. In the near future we'll probably see a lot more subject matter experts creating their own tools instead of requiring a dedicated person to translate their requirements.
- colesantiago 2y ago
  It's fine, there will be new jobs.
- antod 2y ago
  I'm not sure subject matter experts will still be a thing. I worry that we'll just see expectations gradually lower to the point where kinda shitty is the baseline, and we just trust or accommodate the machine for everything.
andrewstuart 2y ago
Anyone who thinks AI will replace programmers isn’t doing much AI assisted coding. AI is at best very helpful. It’s a very very long way from making programmers obsolete.
- joelthelion 2y ago
  The developer is not going to become obsolete. However, LLMs might already be good enough to replace teams of 10 software developers with a domain expert and an expert developer armed with good LLMs. That's enough for a fundamental, very violent change to the software industry.
  - queenkjuul 2y ago
    They definitely are not for projects of any serious complexity
colesantiago 2y ago
This "AGI" definition is extremely loose depending on who you talk to. Ask "what does AGI mean to you" and sometimes the answer is: 1. Millions of layoffs across industries due to AI with some form of questionable UBI (not sure if this works) 2. 100BN in profits. (Microsoft / OpenAI definition) 3. Abundance in slopware. (VC's definition) 4. Raise more money to reach AGI / ASI. 5. Any job that a human can do which is economically significant. 6. Safe AI (Researchers definition). 7. All the above that AI could possibly do better. I am sure there must be a industry aligned and concrete definition that everyone can agree on rather the goal post moving definitions.
notepad0x90 2y ago
Big part of coding is understanding the code and making decisions on what needs to be added/removed/changed. LLMs can code, even if they generate perfect code every single time, someone still needs to read the code and make decisions. Others speak about understanding business logic, interfacing with clients and stakeholders,etc... I get that, but even without that, someone will always need to decide how things should be done, improved,etc.. LLMs are not going to benchmark your code and they will never understand the developer/client's intent perfectly. Why are LLMs in these context being viewed as more than really powerful auto-complete/intellisense? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't LLMs still years away from auto-generating a complete complex codebase that works without fixing a lot of bugs/assumptions?
- beacon294 2y ago
  > LLMs are not going to benchmark your code If I may focus on this particular line without invalidating the rest of the content -- why aren't they going to benchmark the code?
  - notepad0x90 2y ago
    You hardly need more than a simple script to just run a generic benchmark tool. But to measure performance of your code and figure out what needs to be tuned, I don't think LLMs are there, am I wrong? They can't understand the code they generated well enough to make small adjustments and improve the benchmark score. For a dev to do that on LLM generated code, it would have to understand the codebase as intended by the LLM at least.
    - beacon294 2y ago
      I had them write me performance tests. I guess I could go back to that and ask it to improve the code based on the output. You can feed the output automatically now with Roo Code, Aider, Cline, windsurf, cursor, augment, etc.
- begueradj 2y ago
  It's funny how we'd like to chop off the head of that junior developer who's behind that pull request of a perfectly working but not enough clean code, but we happily welcome spaghetti and buggy LLM code because sisterhood and brotherhood claim it's trendy. Herd mentality.
stana 2y ago
After some experience, starting to use a new programming language is not such a big challenge. Mastering the new language eco system is. AI might help you generate new code faster, but feel like crunching code has not been so much of an issue. Bigger picture system design, something that scales and is maintainable is the challenge.
ern 2y ago
I think the crux of this post is spot-on: we’re nowhere near a “post-developer” era. LLMs are great accelerators, but they still need a competent human in the loop. That said, I do think he understates how much the value of certain developer skills is shifting. For example, pixel-perfect CSS or esoteric algorithmic showmanship used to signal craftsmanship — now they’re rapidly becoming commoditized. With today’s tools, I’d rather paste a screenshot into an LLM and tweak the output than spend hours on handcrafted layouts for a single corporate device.
- sceptic123 2y ago
  Are you suggesting pixel perfect CSS is not needed any more, or that an LLM can fix any CSS problem presented to it?
ZainQasmi 2y ago
Funny how a foreign country got America to compromise on its core value of free speech that we used to lecture Europeans on.
- xyzal 2y ago
  With great worry I observe recent developments in the U.S., but I do not catch what event are you referring to exactly. Would you kindly hint?
  - ZainQasmi 2y ago
    ahh wrong thread. I meant to comment here LOL https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43684536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43684536
intelVISA 2y ago
Truth is we've been post-developer for a while; powerful machines and high level abstractions has made good developers into managers, translating business objectives into software products and managing the outcomes with much less typing of code -- they're still called software engineers for legacy and cultural reasons, of course. Sadly most shops greatly overlook this reality, stuck in 1991, and continue to add redundant layers and staff thinking it makes them 'agile'.
mleroy 2y ago
Over the past 30 years, computers and software have dramatically transformed our world. Yet many sectors remain heavily influenced by their analog history. My understanding is that the HN community has always recognized that the future is already here, just not evenly distributed across work environments, administration, and general processes. Didn't many of us believe that numerous jobs could be replaced by a few lines of code if inputs and outputs were properly standardized? The fact that this hasn't happened or has occurred very slowly due to institutional inertia is another story altogether. Whether software development will become a "bullshit job" or how the world will look in a few years remains unknown. But those who constantly praise their work as software developers while simultaneously acknowledging that other non-physical jobs and processes could be fundamentally overhauled are living in a cognitive bubble—something I wouldn't have expected in this community.
fire_lake 2y ago
The post developer era will be the post white collar era. Surely the level of intellectual difficulty in software engineering is similar to practicing law, medicine, banking… ?
garylkz 2y ago
I thought we were supposed to reach AGI since like, the 1970s. Every time there's an advancement in AI, there's always speculations that "robot gonna take our jobs in 10 years". That said, at least we have reached the phase where AI tools are commercialized, so that's another +1 I guess.
terminatornet 2y ago
> It’s like a tag team wrestling match; when I hit a task that Claude would excel at, I tap out and let him tackle it. Please do not anthropomorphize the AI, it's not a he.
Fruitmaniac 2y ago
Saying AI writes code is like saying your clarinet plays music.
mediumsmart 2y ago
The client sends the new menu as a word document. Select all > copy > post this wall of text into llm > please proofread > please turn into semantic html > please translate into German, French and Italian. That takes the 3 minutes a Developer needs to formulate a prompt that will get a result with only 2 bugs. Know if it actually is your tool.

80 points by thm 2y ago

"If you’re passionate about software development, or if you see it as the best opportunity for you to earn a high salary that’ll lift you into the upper middle class, I really hope you won’t let yourself get discouraged by AI hype." +100 to that

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

osigurdson 2y ago

The "AGI is right around the corner" argument is effectively corporate malpractice. No, shareholders don't want you to wait around and do nothing (other than a few layoffs here and there) while you wait for AGI.

roncesvalles 2y ago
The layoff mass hysteria that ran through the tech industry established doing less or nothing as a corporate virtue. If the market gave your company a PE ratio of 20+ and you're flush with cash, it is borderline fiduciary negligence to be slashing projects and doing layoffs. Your shareholders didn't invest in you for the capital preservation portfolio-management skills of your finance department.
- ptero 2y ago
  Not necessarily. Should the market action bump up a company PE very high (hello, Costco at PE 53 today) that's not a reason to splurge on projects. On the contrary, many shareholders would expect the company to behave responsibly, save cash, pause share buybacks and build up war chest for leaner times, where buying a competitor could be way cheaper. My 2c.
  - roncesvalles 2y ago
    If the PE ratio is high enough, the company can raise money by simply issuing more shares. Giving the company a money-printer is the whole point of the stock market. That's what makes you an investor -- you're offering the company the value of your shares by exposing yourself to "inflation" whenever the company needs to raise some money.
    - ptero 2y ago
      On paper. In reality, issuing shares (or debt) takes time and is a complex process, a mere sign of which can dampen share prices. > That's what makes you an investor -- you're offering the company the value of your shares by exposing yourself to "inflation" whenever the company needs to raise some money. I beg to differ. What makes me an investor is buying a share of future company profits, directly via dividends or indirectly via a future sale of shares. Many of the companies I invested in over the last 30 years were (over time) reducing share counts via buybacks, not issuing shares like candy.
      - roncesvalles 2y ago
        You're not an "investor" if you aren't actually funding the company. Trading scrips that entitle you to a share of the profit is not "funding" the company. Except that you are -- every time that the company prints shares, they've taken some value from you to fund their operations. If companies weren't allowed to issue shares from thin air, there wouldn't be much point to the stock market.
- gonzo41 2y ago
  Everything you've said sounds like next quarters problem.
tobr 2y ago
”We’ve become so efficient and are so forward-thinking, we just don’t need all these pesky employees” sounds better than ”We overhired and it turns out money isn’t free anymore”.

killjoywashere 2y ago

Someone kill that muppet that jumps out of the margin halfway down. Please.

wyclif 2y ago
Yes, that manages to be both super annoying and condescending at the same time.
auggierose 2y ago
The site doesn't work in my browser (Safari), cannot scroll. Now I know why...

wyclif 2y ago

Americans inexplicably re-elected a wildly incompetent conman to be president In fact, this was totally and easily explicable after the dominant political party tried to convince Americans that their current leader was not suffering from severe cognitive decline and was "sharp as a tack" (a Biden admin talking point) and that NPCs lying to Americans about Trump being "easy to beat" by Kamala and also lying to them about Trump calling Charlottesville protestors "very fine people" and thinking that those fake attempts to make Trump look like he was endorsing Nazis wouldn't backfire explosively. So, no, it was not "inexplicable" at all but it was rather Whiplash Effect initiated by media narratives originating in the Democrat ecosystem. And don't forget: Trump, Elon and Rogan are all ex-Democrats. I wonder, too, if the author was one of those people who deluded himself into thinking "Kamala is a great candidate" against all the evidence. So the "Russiagate" hoax failed, "Kamala is awesome" failed, elites orienting themselves around appeasing far left pressure groups failed, smug contempt for middle America failed (astonishingly) and yet it is "inexplicable" why Orange Man Bad won the election!

tomlockwood 2y ago
Always bewildering to me when people look at the demographics of conservatives, leaning old and rich, and think that they just fell out of the coconut tree. No. Those people were sometimes "progressives" in their time and later became conservatives. Same as it ever was. No further explanation needed. Not a new phenomenon. ed: "No, it must be the fault of the left." must be a reassuring thought, but let me occams razor that for you: when these people were younger, they were selfish, and as they weren't yet the status quo, they were progressive. When these people got older, they were still selfish, and as they were the status quo, they were conservatives. Simple.
ysofunny 2y ago
I consider the relative ease with which many people can imitate him to be the reason he is in office
queenkjuul 2y ago
You guys are so triggered by that "fine people" line lmao

rmnclmnt 2y ago

The other day I was reviewing the work of a peer on a relatively easy task (using a SDK to manage some remote resources given a static configuration). At several times I was like « why did you do that this way? This is so contrived ». And I should have known better but of course the answer started with « … I know but Copilot did this or that… ». Of course no test to validate properly the implementation. The sentiment expressed in the article were developers won’t even bother to validate the output of coding assistants is real. And that’s one of the biggest shame to this current hype: quality was already decreasing for the past 10 years, signs indicate this will only go downhill from here

xkcd1963 2y ago
Its actually amazing news, worse software quality means more oportunities for hackers and better tools
- mc3301 2y ago
  Or people just become satisfied with lower quality. Hand-crafted chairs from a woodworker used to be the only way to get a chair. You'd get an amazing, life-long chair with no flaws. Now that chairs are cheaply made in factories, we can have multiple different chairs with many flaws. And just toss them out and go on to the next one when needed. But... those sturdy beautiful fine-wordworker-made chairs are still being built. They are just more rare, expensive, and special than ever before.
  - myaccountonhn 2y ago
    Yeah that's where I think it's going. Quality software will have no space but a niche, and so your customers will be the top 1% that can afford it.
  - listenallyall 2y ago
    You actually believe that not a single woodworker said to himself, there are only so many wealthy people, I might do better if I make some chairs from cheap wood in a hurry, not doing so much polishing or ornamentaion, and I can make twice as many and sell to the not-so-rich people? You really don't think that existed?

dasil003 2y ago

This whole post-developer idea is a red herring fueled by investor optics. The reality is AI will change how software is built, but it's still just a tool that requires the same type of precise thinking that software developers do. You can remove all need to understand syntax, but the need for translating vague desires from laypeople into a precise specification will remain—there's nothing on the AI horizon that will solve for this, and savvy tech leaders know this. So why are we hearing this narrative from tech leaders who should know better? Two reasons: First is that the majority of investor gains in the US stock market have been fueled heavily by AI hype. Every public tech CEO is getting questions from analysts about what their AI strategy, and they have to tell a compelling story. There's very little space or patience for nuance here because no one really knows how it will play out, but in the meantime investors are making decisions based on what is said. It's no surprise that the majority of execs are just jumping on the bandwagon so they have a story to keep their stock price propped up. Second, and perhaps more importantly, regardless of AI, software teams across the industry are just too big. Headcount for tech companies has ballooned over the last couple decades due to the web, smart phone revolution and ZIRP. With this type of environment the FAANGs of the world were hoarding talent just to be ready to capitalize on whatever is next. But the ugly truth is that a lot of the juice has already been squeezed, and the actual business needs don't justify that headcount over the long-term. AI is convenient cover story for RIFs that they would have done anyway, this just ties it with a nice bow for investors.

khafra 2y ago
> the need for translating vague desires from laypeople into a precise specification will remain What makes you think LLMs will never be able to do that? Have you tried any of the various DeepResearch products? The workflow is that you make a request for a research project; and then it asks various clarifying questions to narrow down the specific question, acceptable sources, etc.; and only then does it do all the research and collate a report for you.
- ezst 2y ago
  Not OP, AI may or may not, this is to be seen, but LLMs of today certainly won't.

xnx 2y ago

There used to be a job of a "Typist". Now everyone does their own typing. In the near future we'll probably see a lot more subject matter experts creating their own tools instead of requiring a dedicated person to translate their requirements.

colesantiago 2y ago
It's fine, there will be new jobs.
antod 2y ago
I'm not sure subject matter experts will still be a thing. I worry that we'll just see expectations gradually lower to the point where kinda shitty is the baseline, and we just trust or accommodate the machine for everything.

andrewstuart 2y ago

Anyone who thinks AI will replace programmers isn’t doing much AI assisted coding. AI is at best very helpful. It’s a very very long way from making programmers obsolete.

joelthelion 2y ago
The developer is not going to become obsolete. However, LLMs might already be good enough to replace teams of 10 software developers with a domain expert and an expert developer armed with good LLMs. That's enough for a fundamental, very violent change to the software industry.
- queenkjuul 2y ago
  They definitely are not for projects of any serious complexity

colesantiago 2y ago

This "AGI" definition is extremely loose depending on who you talk to. Ask "what does AGI mean to you" and sometimes the answer is: 1. Millions of layoffs across industries due to AI with some form of questionable UBI (not sure if this works) 2. 100BN in profits. (Microsoft / OpenAI definition) 3. Abundance in slopware. (VC's definition) 4. Raise more money to reach AGI / ASI. 5. Any job that a human can do which is economically significant. 6. Safe AI (Researchers definition). 7. All the above that AI could possibly do better. I am sure there must be a industry aligned and concrete definition that everyone can agree on rather the goal post moving definitions.

notepad0x90 2y ago

Big part of coding is understanding the code and making decisions on what needs to be added/removed/changed. LLMs can code, even if they generate perfect code every single time, someone still needs to read the code and make decisions. Others speak about understanding business logic, interfacing with clients and stakeholders,etc... I get that, but even without that, someone will always need to decide how things should be done, improved,etc.. LLMs are not going to benchmark your code and they will never understand the developer/client's intent perfectly. Why are LLMs in these context being viewed as more than really powerful auto-complete/intellisense? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't LLMs still years away from auto-generating a complete complex codebase that works without fixing a lot of bugs/assumptions?

beacon294 2y ago
> LLMs are not going to benchmark your code If I may focus on this particular line without invalidating the rest of the content -- why aren't they going to benchmark the code?
- notepad0x90 2y ago
  You hardly need more than a simple script to just run a generic benchmark tool. But to measure performance of your code and figure out what needs to be tuned, I don't think LLMs are there, am I wrong? They can't understand the code they generated well enough to make small adjustments and improve the benchmark score. For a dev to do that on LLM generated code, it would have to understand the codebase as intended by the LLM at least.
  - beacon294 2y ago
    I had them write me performance tests. I guess I could go back to that and ask it to improve the code based on the output. You can feed the output automatically now with Roo Code, Aider, Cline, windsurf, cursor, augment, etc.
begueradj 2y ago
It's funny how we'd like to chop off the head of that junior developer who's behind that pull request of a perfectly working but not enough clean code, but we happily welcome spaghetti and buggy LLM code because sisterhood and brotherhood claim it's trendy. Herd mentality.

stana 2y ago

After some experience, starting to use a new programming language is not such a big challenge. Mastering the new language eco system is. AI might help you generate new code faster, but feel like crunching code has not been so much of an issue. Bigger picture system design, something that scales and is maintainable is the challenge.

ern 2y ago

I think the crux of this post is spot-on: we’re nowhere near a “post-developer” era. LLMs are great accelerators, but they still need a competent human in the loop. That said, I do think he understates how much the value of certain developer skills is shifting. For example, pixel-perfect CSS or esoteric algorithmic showmanship used to signal craftsmanship — now they’re rapidly becoming commoditized. With today’s tools, I’d rather paste a screenshot into an LLM and tweak the output than spend hours on handcrafted layouts for a single corporate device.

sceptic123 2y ago
Are you suggesting pixel perfect CSS is not needed any more, or that an LLM can fix any CSS problem presented to it?

ZainQasmi 2y ago

Funny how a foreign country got America to compromise on its core value of free speech that we used to lecture Europeans on.

xyzal 2y ago
With great worry I observe recent developments in the U.S., but I do not catch what event are you referring to exactly. Would you kindly hint?
- ZainQasmi 2y ago
  ahh wrong thread. I meant to comment here LOL https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43684536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43684536

intelVISA 2y ago

Truth is we've been post-developer for a while; powerful machines and high level abstractions has made good developers into managers, translating business objectives into software products and managing the outcomes with much less typing of code -- they're still called software engineers for legacy and cultural reasons, of course. Sadly most shops greatly overlook this reality, stuck in 1991, and continue to add redundant layers and staff thinking it makes them 'agile'.

mleroy 2y ago

Over the past 30 years, computers and software have dramatically transformed our world. Yet many sectors remain heavily influenced by their analog history. My understanding is that the HN community has always recognized that the future is already here, just not evenly distributed across work environments, administration, and general processes. Didn't many of us believe that numerous jobs could be replaced by a few lines of code if inputs and outputs were properly standardized? The fact that this hasn't happened or has occurred very slowly due to institutional inertia is another story altogether. Whether software development will become a "bullshit job" or how the world will look in a few years remains unknown. But those who constantly praise their work as software developers while simultaneously acknowledging that other non-physical jobs and processes could be fundamentally overhauled are living in a cognitive bubble—something I wouldn't have expected in this community.

fire_lake 2y ago

The post developer era will be the post white collar era. Surely the level of intellectual difficulty in software engineering is similar to practicing law, medicine, banking… ?

garylkz 2y ago

I thought we were supposed to reach AGI since like, the 1970s. Every time there's an advancement in AI, there's always speculations that "robot gonna take our jobs in 10 years". That said, at least we have reached the phase where AI tools are commercialized, so that's another +1 I guess.

terminatornet 2y ago

> It’s like a tag team wrestling match; when I hit a task that Claude would excel at, I tap out and let him tackle it. Please do not anthropomorphize the AI, it's not a he.

Fruitmaniac 2y ago

Saying AI writes code is like saying your clarinet plays music.

mediumsmart 2y ago

The client sends the new menu as a word document. Select all > copy > post this wall of text into llm > please proofread > please turn into semantic html > please translate into German, French and Italian. That takes the 3 minutes a Developer needs to formulate a prompt that will get a result with only 2 bugs. Know if it actually is your tool.