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>Good software is about creating longer term value and takes consistent skill & vision to execute. >Those software engineers who focus on this big picture thin

>Good software is about creating longer term value and takes consistent skill & vision to execute. >Those software engineers who focus on this big picture thinking are going to be more valuable than ever. Not to rain on our hopes, but AI can give us some options and we can pick the best. I think this eliminates all middle level positions. Newbies are low cost and make decisions that are low stakes. The most senior or seniors can make 30 major decisions per day when AI lays them out. I own a software shop and my hires have been: Interns and people with the specific skill of my industry(Mechanical engineers). 2 years ago, I hired experienced programmers. Now I turn my mechanical engineers into programmers.

gtowey 8mo ago
> Not to rain on our hopes, but AI can give us some options and we can pick the best. But that's kind of my point. A bunch of decisions like that tend to end up with a "random walk" effect. It's a bunch of tactical choices which don't add up to something strategic. It could be, but it takes the human in the loop to hold onto that overall strategy.
AlotOfReading 8mo ago
Not to rain on our hopes, but AI can give us some options and we can pick the best. a.k.a. greedy algorithms, a subject those of us on HN should be well-acquainted with. You can watch the horizon effect frequently play out in corporate decisionmaking.
zaphar 8mo ago
So what you are a saying is that you removed the people who can make the decisions that keep your software maintainable and kept the people who will slowly over time cause your software to become less maintainable? I'm not sure that tradeoff is a a good one.
- butILoveLife 8mo ago
  This might have been true pre-agent AI programming, but honestly the code seems better than ever. It finds edge cases better than me. I know... I know buddy. The world changed and I don't know if I'm going to have a job.
  - daveguy 8mo ago
    Finding edge cases is completely orthogonal to creating maintainable software. Finding edge cases ~= identifying test suites. Making software maintainable ~= minimizing future cost of effective changes. Ignoring future maintenance cost because test suites are easier to create seems like disjointed logic.
    - butILoveLife 8mo ago
      [flagged]
      - hobs 8mo ago
        And the human downstream of this random reorganization of things at will, how do they manage it? If its AI agents all the way down its commoditization all the way down, if humans have to deal with it there's some sort of cost for change even if its 0 for code.
      - switchbak 8mo ago
        "Im not even sure we will need maintain software" (sic) - I'm not sure what your specific background is, but with a statement like that you lose all legitimacy to me.
        aspenmartin 8mo ago
        Writings on the wall, it is true, tech debt will no longer be a thing to care about. "but who will maintain it?" massive massive question, rapidly becoming completely irrelevant "but who will review it?" humans sure, with the assistance of ai, writing is also on the wall: AI will soon become more adept at code review than any human I can understand "losing all legitimacy" being a thing, but to me that is an obvious knee jerk reaction to someone who is not quite understanding how this trend curve is going.
        switchbak 7mo ago
        Trust me, I’m a well seasoned leathery developer and I’m no newbie when it comes to using AI. But this level of irrational exuberance is so over the top I just can’t take it seriously. Yes, in the very long term I expect this to be able to replace large swaths of the sw dev lifecycle, product, ideation, the whole kaboodle. That’s a long way off, whatever “a long way off” means in this accelerated timeline. For the next bunch of years, yes you’ll have to worry about architecture, coupling, testing, etc. I’m happy to have my competitors share your attitude, cause we’ll smoke them in the market.
hobs 8mo ago
AI often simply does not offer the best options, does not think strategically, and if you constrained to its choices you will often make silly mistakes. This is why all the arguments about context windows and RAG exist, because at the end of the day even if you asked the question of a human with all the context there's such a thing as opinions, stated vs unstated goals, requirements vs non functional requirements, etc which will give you wildly different answers. Most of the time people don't even know the questions they want to ask.

gtowey 8mo ago

> Not to rain on our hopes, but AI can give us some options and we can pick the best. But that's kind of my point. A bunch of decisions like that tend to end up with a "random walk" effect. It's a bunch of tactical choices which don't add up to something strategic. It could be, but it takes the human in the loop to hold onto that overall strategy.

AlotOfReading 8mo ago

Not to rain on our hopes, but AI can give us some options and we can pick the best. a.k.a. greedy algorithms, a subject those of us on HN should be well-acquainted with. You can watch the horizon effect frequently play out in corporate decisionmaking.

zaphar 8mo ago

So what you are a saying is that you removed the people who can make the decisions that keep your software maintainable and kept the people who will slowly over time cause your software to become less maintainable? I'm not sure that tradeoff is a a good one.

butILoveLife 8mo ago
This might have been true pre-agent AI programming, but honestly the code seems better than ever. It finds edge cases better than me. I know... I know buddy. The world changed and I don't know if I'm going to have a job.
- daveguy 8mo ago
  Finding edge cases is completely orthogonal to creating maintainable software. Finding edge cases ~= identifying test suites. Making software maintainable ~= minimizing future cost of effective changes. Ignoring future maintenance cost because test suites are easier to create seems like disjointed logic.
  - butILoveLife 8mo ago
    [flagged]
    - hobs 8mo ago
      And the human downstream of this random reorganization of things at will, how do they manage it? If its AI agents all the way down its commoditization all the way down, if humans have to deal with it there's some sort of cost for change even if its 0 for code.
    - switchbak 8mo ago
      "Im not even sure we will need maintain software" (sic) - I'm not sure what your specific background is, but with a statement like that you lose all legitimacy to me.
      - aspenmartin 8mo ago
        Writings on the wall, it is true, tech debt will no longer be a thing to care about. "but who will maintain it?" massive massive question, rapidly becoming completely irrelevant "but who will review it?" humans sure, with the assistance of ai, writing is also on the wall: AI will soon become more adept at code review than any human I can understand "losing all legitimacy" being a thing, but to me that is an obvious knee jerk reaction to someone who is not quite understanding how this trend curve is going.
        switchbak 7mo ago
        Trust me, I’m a well seasoned leathery developer and I’m no newbie when it comes to using AI. But this level of irrational exuberance is so over the top I just can’t take it seriously. Yes, in the very long term I expect this to be able to replace large swaths of the sw dev lifecycle, product, ideation, the whole kaboodle. That’s a long way off, whatever “a long way off” means in this accelerated timeline. For the next bunch of years, yes you’ll have to worry about architecture, coupling, testing, etc. I’m happy to have my competitors share your attitude, cause we’ll smoke them in the market.

hobs 8mo ago

AI often simply does not offer the best options, does not think strategically, and if you constrained to its choices you will often make silly mistakes. This is why all the arguments about context windows and RAG exist, because at the end of the day even if you asked the question of a human with all the context there's such a thing as opinions, stated vs unstated goals, requirements vs non functional requirements, etc which will give you wildly different answers. Most of the time people don't even know the questions they want to ask.