7 ms·
Code is cheap now, but software isn't
- Ozzie_osman 9mo agoIf your job is to write code, you are being replaced. If your job is to use technology to solve problems, your job just got a lot more interesting.
- sublinear 9mo agoAnd if you make this distinction, you don't understand the operations of the business.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- sublinear 9mo ago> People are increasingly building tools to solve a single, specific problem exactly once—and then discarding them. It is software as a disposable utility, designed for the immediate "now" rather than the distant "later." Yes! This is 100% it. This is a net good for everyone because it brings basic programming literacy to the masses and culls a lot of junk projects that are littering github or SaaS scams. It means people can focus on the problems that actually matter. AI doesn't have any impact on the need for accountable humans to write code. The scratchpad analogy is so good. Most mature business software is almost literally like a tome of legal documents that have to be edited carefully, but that doesn't have anything to do with the napkin in your pocket.
- polishdude20 9mo agoIn a way it's good but as far as energy usage goes, it sucks. Not only is it taking way more energy to write software now with LLMS than by "hand", now everyone is repeating work many times over to write the same tools. From a freedom standpoint one could argue is gives the user the most freedom to have what they want and need. But its very bad from an energy efficiency point of view.
- jascha_eng 9mo agoCan't read this every paragraph ends with it's not x it's y. Just give me the prompt so I can read the real insights you have and not the generated fluff.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- dag11 9mo agoI randomly skipped to five different paragraphs and each one ended with a "!x but y" logical statement, just formatted differently most of the time. Crazy how you can't unsee it. A sibling [dead] comment to mine is a rebuttal to "just post the prompt", where it itself was expanded to several paragraphs that each say nearly nothing, including this gem: > "That’s not a critique of the writing. It’s a diagnosis" I miss when people just typed their thoughts concisely and hit send without passing it to an inflater. I'd maybe have a chance of understanding the sibling comment's point.
- hahahahhaah 9mo agoNow it is a tell but eventually people may natutally start speaking like this!! This isn't mind control, just language evolution quiety nudged by AI. ;)
- cheald 9mo agoI've rather suspected that people are subconsciously adapting their language patterns to those that they hear over and over, and with AI content so prolific online now, it's natural that people are being programmed more and more with those patterns. We trained a model on human language which is now in the business of itself retaining human language.
- lateral_cloud 9mo agoYeah it's becoming increasingly obvious now. The moment I see this "contrast framing" I stop reading.
- Sytten 9mo agoWhen you pay for anything you basically exchange money so that someone else take care of a problem you have. Obviously if you are paying you expect the result to be of good quality. Software is no different, AI won't change that fact and engineering is about creating robust solution at the cheapest price. Just my 2 cents.
- bruce511 9mo agoI saw someone use the term "orchestration", which seems to be the word for building the software using LLM tools. It made me think of the conductor, seemingly the most skillless job in the orchestra. All you do is wave the batton, no need to ever play a instrument. If LLMs are doing the hard part (writing code) then we can be the conductor waving the batton. But of course the visuals are misleading. Being conductor doesn't take the least skill, it takes the most. He hears every instrument individually, he knows the piece intimately, and through his conducting brings a unique expression to a familiar work. LLMs have made the musician part automated. They'll play whatever you want. No doubt a powerful tool in the hands of a skilled conductor. And a incredible tool for someone who can't play to generate music for themselves. There's no shortage of "I built it and they won't come" posts here on HN, predating LLMs by decades. Because code has never been the hard part of "software as a business ". LLMs have driven this point home. Code has never been cheaper. Business has never been harder.
- thechao 9mo agoVibecoding is the feeling of coding. It's the same feeling people have when they say they can see the picture in their head, but can't quite draw it.
- gpi 9mo agoIn other words the blind leading the blind
- keeda 9mo agoOr, if you focus on the "slop" aspect of AI, the bland leading the bland ;-)
- ffsm8 9mo agoIf you're talking about the original vibe coding, sure. But there are many ways to apply LLMs in the development flow. Only specifying features broadly is like a product manager might is definitely highly luck dependent wrt how buggy it will turn out. But understanding the feature and determining what needs to be done broadly, then ask the LLM to do so and verify after if the resulting change makes sense according to your mental model of the software is definitely not that. Also, I disagree with your implied message. I frequently struggle to articulate solutions even if I know how they'd work This should apply to art even more, because art is strongly supported by emotions - and people may know the feeling of the emotion (of the image), but not have an explicit framework for it yet
- rvz 9mo ago> The barrier to entry has effectively collapsed. Google, Apple, Meta, X, Bluesky, Shopify, Stripe and all the big software companies must be really shaking in their boots for disruption against the army of vibe coders. /s (They are actually laughing at all of them)
- dolebirchwood 9mo agoWhy would any big software company need to care? There are so many small businesses with unique problems with no current off-the-shelf software solutions because they've always been too niche to justify the time and expense of bespoke development. Now that door is open. Big software companies can keep servicing big businesses and mass markets, while opportunities abound for anyone else willing to innovate on smaller problems. Not everything needs to be built to scale.
- enos_feedler 9mo agoWhat a random set of companies to choose. You'd probably need to think critically about each one of those when assessing the accuracy of your statements.
- rvz 9mo ago> What a random set of companies to choose. All of the mentioned named companies have network effects, distribution and trust. Not quite easy to copy. Disposable LLM gen'd code without users is cheap, which is the point of the article.
- falloutx 9mo agoThis is my 3rd gold rush in 6 years.
- throw1235435 9mo ago> They are laughing at them. Yes but not for the reason you think - more that those are the future customers. If you look closely most are pivoting slowly away from software and shifting more to AI + hardware. The slow layoffs and pivoting that capital to infra shows this. All that "vibed" software needs to run somewhere. Also the models that generate and also power all that software need compute which comes from somewhere. If I can: - Have large margin compute since GPU's, power, data centre, etc setup is expensive AND - Models that outperform models you can have at home. - Vibed software that derives a lot of functionality from the AI compute and wants to be hosted on compute. The big companies are pivoting away from software to being more infrastructure like for the democratized software that is projected to be made. They will be fine but in 10 years they will be more cloud hyperscalers, AI compute agents, etc than software businesses. Any software they write will be more to package up their compute as higher margin products. None of this IMV gives any hope to current SWE's.
- moezd 9mo agoIn other words, yes we have CNC machines and electric saws and whatnot, reliable to a certain degree (you can still injure yourself badly), but it doesn't remove the need of a carpenter, because a carpenter also knows how to make a hammer from scratch even if he doesn't make one in his entire life.
- hooverd 9mo agoeh, rather, a carpenter knows to swing a hammer in a pinch, doing say framing, even if they mostly use a nailgun.
- anishgupta 9mo agosolving problem should be an obsession rather than building. AI have fueled way too many builders while edge cases and lifecycle maintainence of the code is more of an afterthought
- foxglacier 9mo agoIf building is easy enough, it's often OK that it's not perfect because you can just as easily fix problems as they arise if it's just for your own personal use. And making software just for your own personal use can now actually make sense wheras it would more often be a complete waste of time to do by hand.
- AdieuToLogic 9mo agoThe "barrier to entry for building software" has not collapsed, as it was never about "where engineering shifts from writing code to shaping systems". It has always been about understanding the problem to solve and doing so in a provably correct manner. Another way to reify this is: When making software, remember that it is a snapshot of your understanding of the problem. It states to all, including your future-self, your approach, clarity, and appropriateness of the solution for the problem at hand. Choose your statements wisely.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- volkk 9mo agoFor the love of all that is holy, I cannot read another 5 page AI post that could've been like 200 words. Just make it a paragraph or two and write using your brain, people. Does everything have to be ran through an AI? I'm sure there's some decent ideas in here, but I'm not wasting my time reading this slop.
- shj2105 9mo agoThis post is AI generated slop.
- DetroitThrow 9mo agoYou're absolutely right!
- feastingonslop 9mo agoI thought it seemed like an especially good read!
- ablob 9mo agoWhat makes you think it is?
- furyofantares 9mo agoA title per paragraph (slight exaggeration), half of the form The X, The Y, The Z. Every section ends with "it's not x; it's y" contrast framing. But really the only issue is it's monotone linkedin still insight fluff and you can't tell where the prompt ends and the LLM crap begins. I expect something interesting was put into the LLM, but the LLM has destroyed the author's ability to communicate it with me effectively. Everything is overinflated to the same level of importance and I can't tell what the author actually cared about expressing.
- bustylasercanon 9mo agoI'm the author.. and I actually wrote this so maybe I need to stop reading AI posts and thinking that it's good writing?
- Herring 9mo agoMan. This post reminded me I wanted a Firefox extension for switching between tabs using Q and E. I got it done in like 15 min and moved on.
- freediver 9mo agoSo many nice blogs showing on HN, and no RSS feed. Seems like most are on github pages, that should be a feature over there.
- bustylasercanon 9mo agoAuthor here - I added an RSS feed :) https://www.chrisgregori.dev/rss.xml https://www.chrisgregori.dev/rss.xml I had this in the old version of my site that I refreshed in the last 2 months and forgot to take the RSS feed with me, thanks for the reminder!
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- dzink 9mo agoWe are all fashion designers now. LLM can code the cloth, do the seams, put in zippers, and sow buttons. You pick what creature you are designing for. You study how it moves, where the limits of movement lie, where it needs ventilation, flexibility, extra reinforced knees, fire resistance, a cape for flare (or no cape for safety). We are all Edna Mode. And the best of us can turn the problems we are working on into superheroes. You model inference provider and any intermediaries get to watch what you’re designing from behind the curtain and copy, train on, or sell the insights if you’re not paying attention.
- classified 9mo ago> ...if you’re not paying attention. Even if, I would only trust local models.
- burnto 9mo agoTurns out taste and judgement still matter. Weird.
- george_atom 9mo agoThe cost of reviewing code is not cheap now.
- PeterStuer 9mo agoKeep in mind a gaggle of CC/Opus 4.5 agents is the worst this tech will be. How long ago did we hail 3.5 as the best? ATM, we are counting in months and weeks and the frogs are still leaping, and for all the naysayers, this has not yet slowed down. Will the bubble pop and wipe out progress? Will this be a boon or bust for humanity? Who knows. In any case, the future's so bright, I gotta wear shades ;).
- classified 9mo ago> The contrast with the traditional SaaS model is stark. It looks like LLM-supported coding becomes the new SaaS. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
- mpalmer 9mo agoThis is a massive shift.