4 ms·

The problem seems to be a significant number of software programmers not being confident about what they will be doing to justify drawing a salary.

by roenxi 1y ago

wiseowise 1y ago
I don’t understand the premise: you were hired to do the job, you do the job, tooling improves so you do more job with less resources. It’s a win-win for everyone.
- layer8 1y ago
  Lower-skilled people will be able to “do the job” with the new tooling (on a level that management believes to be good enough), and doing more job with less resources also means with less human resources. There is no win-win, similar to how there is no win-win for artists who in principle can now produce more “art” with less resources.
  - chii 1y ago
    only if the assumption of a static world, with static demand is true. the past has shown that this is not the case.
    - layer8 1y ago
      You aren’t addressing the lower-skill part of the argument. In addition, there are fewer farmers than there used to be, despite demand not having been static.
      - chii 1y ago
        some people who used to have a high-skill job will have their skill be devalued as AI takes over - this is a consequence of technological improvement. It is not a right that society maintains a level of value in an acquired skill. They will have to adapt. As for fewer farmers, that is exactly it - those who would have been farmers would be required to acquire new skills or pursue something other than farming. Bringing this back to AI - artists, writers and programmers who get displaced will need to adapt. In the long term, the massive decrease in costs of production of various "creative" endeavours will produce new industries, new demand and increase overall wealth - even if it is not shared evenly (in the same sense that past technological leaps are also not shared evenly).
        pixl97 1y ago
        >There isn’t a rule of economics that says better technology makes more, better jobs for horses. It sounds shockingly dumb to even say that out loud, but swap horses for humans and suddenly people think it sounds about right.
  - bootsmann 1y ago
    I don’t think this is true at all, its very evident when you see how quickly ai assistants break down if they meet established, complex codebases that do a little more than your average todo list app.
  - Cthulhu_ 1y ago
    That's not new though, the bar for software development has been continuously dropping - at least on paper - since the profession started. I don't know assembly or manual memory management in C, but I do know languages and tools that allow me to do the job. Do I steal jobs from assembly / C developers? Don't get me wrong, I don't like AI either and it's only a matter of time before my day job goes from "rewrite this (web) app from 5-10 years ago" to "rewrite this AI assisted or generated (web) app from 5-10 years ago". But I don't think it's going to cost that many jobs in the long run.
    - autoexec 1y ago
      > it's only a matter of time before my day job goes from "rewrite this (web) app from 5-10 years ago" to "rewrite this AI assisted or generated (web) app from 5-10 years ago". That seems optimistic. It all goes according to plan you won't get to write or rewrite anything anymore. You'll just be QA reviewing AI output. If you find something wrong you don't get to correct it, nobody will pay for coders, you'll just be telling AI about the problem so it can try to correct it until the code passes and the hallucinations are gone. That way they can pay you much less while you help train AI to get better and better at doing your old job.
- adrianN 1y ago
  If tooling makes everybody 20% more efficient you can fire 20% of your employees and increase profit.
  - rienbdj 1y ago
    Companies prefer growing revenue to cutting costs typically. Don’t will depend if there are many projects with a good outlook sitting around.
    - donalhunt 1y ago
      My stance has always been to lean on the available tools to free up time to work on the more interesting problems that deliver value to the organisation / company. Has been a good strategy to date. Sadly, the current environment does not reflect that in my experience. There is a vicious focus on keeping profit margins at a steady rate at all costs while slashing spend on tooling which requires re-work on solved problems. :/ At some point the music is going to stop and it's not going to be pretty I suspect. :(
      - chii 1y ago
        organizations that don't trust their engineers to work towards delivering value (by using better tooling, efficiency increasing automation etc), means that they don't improve and is accepting the current status quo. That's why you need to keep an eye out, and smell whether the management understands it or not. Plan to leave, as your value contribution will not give you back the reward that such contributions deserve in this type of organization.
  - sokoloff 1y ago
    Tooling has made us vastly more efficient since the days of FORTRAN and punch cards, which has caused millions more of us to be able to employed in the field. Few companies could afford websites built with ancient tech, but everyone can afford websites built with recent tech and, as a result, everyone has one. NB: Firing 20% of employees requires a 25% increase in efficiency by the simple math.
  - 1y ago
- guappa 1y ago
  I don't like that my job is now to fix very verbose slop made by noobs.
- butlike 1y ago
  I have a theory you never actually save on resources, they just change; but I digress.
gonzo41 1y ago
There's a lot of make work out there. And AI does help. Just today it got me out a self made jam with sqlalchemy. But it's not the panacea that the entertainment financial reports make it out to be.
maccard 1y ago
That’s not new in the age of AI. I’ve refused code reviews with blatant race conditions, initialisation order problems, even stuff that literally triggers compiler warnings, and been told “it’s not a big deal” in response.
happymellon 1y ago
We've had a similar long running joke about architects. Step 1. Design system that gets push back because a bunch of things appear to be buzzwords Step 2. Force it through politically Step 3. Quit with shiney buzzword on CV Step 4. Narrowly avoid being around when shit hits the fan. I find developers are usually much more concerned about it working well because it ends up being their baby. Not always of course, but more often than architects that don't actually have to do the work.

The problem seems to be a significant number of software programmers not being confident about what they will be doing to justify drawing a salary.

by roenxi 1y ago

The problem seems to be a significant number of software programmers not being confident about what they will be doing to justify drawing a salary.

wiseowise 1y ago

I don’t understand the premise: you were hired to do the job, you do the job, tooling improves so you do more job with less resources. It’s a win-win for everyone.

layer8 1y ago
Lower-skilled people will be able to “do the job” with the new tooling (on a level that management believes to be good enough), and doing more job with less resources also means with less human resources. There is no win-win, similar to how there is no win-win for artists who in principle can now produce more “art” with less resources.
- chii 1y ago
  only if the assumption of a static world, with static demand is true. the past has shown that this is not the case.
  - layer8 1y ago
    You aren’t addressing the lower-skill part of the argument. In addition, there are fewer farmers than there used to be, despite demand not having been static.
    - chii 1y ago
      some people who used to have a high-skill job will have their skill be devalued as AI takes over - this is a consequence of technological improvement. It is not a right that society maintains a level of value in an acquired skill. They will have to adapt. As for fewer farmers, that is exactly it - those who would have been farmers would be required to acquire new skills or pursue something other than farming. Bringing this back to AI - artists, writers and programmers who get displaced will need to adapt. In the long term, the massive decrease in costs of production of various "creative" endeavours will produce new industries, new demand and increase overall wealth - even if it is not shared evenly (in the same sense that past technological leaps are also not shared evenly).
      - pixl97 1y ago
        >There isn’t a rule of economics that says better technology makes more, better jobs for horses. It sounds shockingly dumb to even say that out loud, but swap horses for humans and suddenly people think it sounds about right.
- bootsmann 1y ago
  I don’t think this is true at all, its very evident when you see how quickly ai assistants break down if they meet established, complex codebases that do a little more than your average todo list app.
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  That's not new though, the bar for software development has been continuously dropping - at least on paper - since the profession started. I don't know assembly or manual memory management in C, but I do know languages and tools that allow me to do the job. Do I steal jobs from assembly / C developers? Don't get me wrong, I don't like AI either and it's only a matter of time before my day job goes from "rewrite this (web) app from 5-10 years ago" to "rewrite this AI assisted or generated (web) app from 5-10 years ago". But I don't think it's going to cost that many jobs in the long run.
  - autoexec 1y ago
    > it's only a matter of time before my day job goes from "rewrite this (web) app from 5-10 years ago" to "rewrite this AI assisted or generated (web) app from 5-10 years ago". That seems optimistic. It all goes according to plan you won't get to write or rewrite anything anymore. You'll just be QA reviewing AI output. If you find something wrong you don't get to correct it, nobody will pay for coders, you'll just be telling AI about the problem so it can try to correct it until the code passes and the hallucinations are gone. That way they can pay you much less while you help train AI to get better and better at doing your old job.
adrianN 1y ago
If tooling makes everybody 20% more efficient you can fire 20% of your employees and increase profit.
- rienbdj 1y ago
  Companies prefer growing revenue to cutting costs typically. Don’t will depend if there are many projects with a good outlook sitting around.
  - donalhunt 1y ago
    My stance has always been to lean on the available tools to free up time to work on the more interesting problems that deliver value to the organisation / company. Has been a good strategy to date. Sadly, the current environment does not reflect that in my experience. There is a vicious focus on keeping profit margins at a steady rate at all costs while slashing spend on tooling which requires re-work on solved problems. :/ At some point the music is going to stop and it's not going to be pretty I suspect. :(
    - chii 1y ago
      organizations that don't trust their engineers to work towards delivering value (by using better tooling, efficiency increasing automation etc), means that they don't improve and is accepting the current status quo. That's why you need to keep an eye out, and smell whether the management understands it or not. Plan to leave, as your value contribution will not give you back the reward that such contributions deserve in this type of organization.
- sokoloff 1y ago
  Tooling has made us vastly more efficient since the days of FORTRAN and punch cards, which has caused millions more of us to be able to employed in the field. Few companies could afford websites built with ancient tech, but everyone can afford websites built with recent tech and, as a result, everyone has one. NB: Firing 20% of employees requires a 25% increase in efficiency by the simple math.
- 1y ago
guappa 1y ago
I don't like that my job is now to fix very verbose slop made by noobs.
butlike 1y ago
I have a theory you never actually save on resources, they just change; but I digress.

gonzo41 1y ago

There's a lot of make work out there. And AI does help. Just today it got me out a self made jam with sqlalchemy. But it's not the panacea that the entertainment financial reports make it out to be.

maccard 1y ago

That’s not new in the age of AI. I’ve refused code reviews with blatant race conditions, initialisation order problems, even stuff that literally triggers compiler warnings, and been told “it’s not a big deal” in response.

happymellon 1y ago

We've had a similar long running joke about architects. Step 1. Design system that gets push back because a bunch of things appear to be buzzwords Step 2. Force it through politically Step 3. Quit with shiney buzzword on CV Step 4. Narrowly avoid being around when shit hits the fan. I find developers are usually much more concerned about it working well because it ends up being their baby. Not always of course, but more often than architects that don't actually have to do the work.