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100%. There are cases where a unit test or a hundred aren’t sufficient to demonstrate a piece of code is correct. Most software developers don’t seem to know w

100%. There are cases where a unit test or a hundred aren’t sufficient to demonstrate a piece of code is correct. Most software developers don’t seem to know what is sufficient. Those heavily using vibe coding even get the machine to write their tests. Then you get to systems design. What global safety and temporal invariants are necessary to ensure the design is correct? Most developers can’t do more than draw boxes and arrows and cite maxims and “best practices” in their reasoning. Plus you have the Sussman effect: software is often more like a natural science than engineering. There are so many dependencies and layers involved that you spend more time making observations about behaviour than designing for correct behaviours. There could be useful cases for using GenAI as a tool in some process for creating software systems… but I don’t think we should be taking off our thinking caps and letting these tools drive the entire process. They can’t tell you what to specify or what correct means.

carlosjobim 7mo ago
I don't have any idea of what a unit test is, but with AI I can make programs that help me immensely in my real world job. Snobby programmers would never even return an email offering money for their services.
- staticassertion 7mo ago
  It's unclear what point you're even trying to make, other than that AI has been helpful to you. But surely you understand that if you don't know what a unit test is you're probably not in a position to comment on the value of unit testing. > Snobby programmers would never even return an email offering money for their services. Why the would they? I don't respond to the vast majority of emails, and I'm already employed.
  - carlosjobim 7mo ago
    Helpful to me and millions of others. Soon to be billions even. You are employed because somewhere in the pipeline there are paying customers. They don't care about unit tests, they care about having their problems solved. Beware of AI.
    - staticassertion 7mo ago
      Right... I mean, no engineer is going to tell you that customers care about unit tests, so I think you're arguing against a straw man here. What engineers will tell you is that bugs cost money, support costs money, etc, and that unit tests are one of the ways we cheaply reduce those costs in order to solve problems, which is what we're in the business of doing. We are all very aware of the fact that customers pay us... it seems totally strange to be that you think we wouldn't be aware of this fact. I suspect this is where the disconnect comes in, much to the point of the article - you seem to think that engineers just write tests and code, but the article points out how silly that is, we spend most of our time thinking about our customers, features, user experience, and how to match that to the technology choices that will allow us to build, maintain, and support systems that meet customer expectations. I think people outside of engineering might be very confused about this, strangely, but engineers do a ton of product work, support work, etc, and our job is to match that to the right technology choices.
      - staticassertion 7mo ago
        Yeeesh. Looking at other posts from that user, they seem to have a serious grudge against software devs, presumably for not responding to their emails. "You should starve" - words taken from another post. Look, no one wanted to write code for you idk what to tell you. Now you can have AI do that for you. Congrats, best of luck. Whatever weird personal issue you have, I doubt anyone was not working for you out of some whatever this perceived snobbery is and it's just like... we all have jobs?
        carlosjobim 7mo ago
        I don't have a grudge, but there needs to be some balance. Software devs are incredibly well paid compared to other professionals. It is their responsibility to use their talents to benefit themselves, and if they are out-competed then they should work with something else. They don't have a right to a fantastic career. All other workers have had to go through this when their fields became more automated and efficient. A cargo ship used to have hundreds of crew, now it's a dozen and the amount of cargo on a ship is ten times more. So I will absolutely not cry for a software dev who has to make changes in the face of AI competition. If they're too precious to adapt or take a different job, then starve. > Look, no one wanted to write code for you idk what to tell you. Now you can have AI do that for you. Congrats, best of luck. Me and hundreds of thousands of other organizations who have software needs that were under served by the market. Now we will have AI write that code for us - or more realistically, now we will purchase this software from any of the thousands of boutique software development shops that will emerge, which use AI + talented human developers to serve us. I have the strong impression that programmers in many cases have a good deal of snobbery regarding what tasks they are willing to work on. If it's not giant enterprise software, then it's usually just filed under "hobbyist" or open source. Hopefully many programmers will find a well paying career serving less glamorous customers with software that solves real world problems. But many will have to change their attitude if they want to do that.

carlosjobim 7mo ago

I don't have any idea of what a unit test is, but with AI I can make programs that help me immensely in my real world job. Snobby programmers would never even return an email offering money for their services.

staticassertion 7mo ago
It's unclear what point you're even trying to make, other than that AI has been helpful to you. But surely you understand that if you don't know what a unit test is you're probably not in a position to comment on the value of unit testing. > Snobby programmers would never even return an email offering money for their services. Why the would they? I don't respond to the vast majority of emails, and I'm already employed.
- carlosjobim 7mo ago
  Helpful to me and millions of others. Soon to be billions even. You are employed because somewhere in the pipeline there are paying customers. They don't care about unit tests, they care about having their problems solved. Beware of AI.
  - staticassertion 7mo ago
    Right... I mean, no engineer is going to tell you that customers care about unit tests, so I think you're arguing against a straw man here. What engineers will tell you is that bugs cost money, support costs money, etc, and that unit tests are one of the ways we cheaply reduce those costs in order to solve problems, which is what we're in the business of doing. We are all very aware of the fact that customers pay us... it seems totally strange to be that you think we wouldn't be aware of this fact. I suspect this is where the disconnect comes in, much to the point of the article - you seem to think that engineers just write tests and code, but the article points out how silly that is, we spend most of our time thinking about our customers, features, user experience, and how to match that to the technology choices that will allow us to build, maintain, and support systems that meet customer expectations. I think people outside of engineering might be very confused about this, strangely, but engineers do a ton of product work, support work, etc, and our job is to match that to the right technology choices.
    - staticassertion 7mo ago
      Yeeesh. Looking at other posts from that user, they seem to have a serious grudge against software devs, presumably for not responding to their emails. "You should starve" - words taken from another post. Look, no one wanted to write code for you idk what to tell you. Now you can have AI do that for you. Congrats, best of luck. Whatever weird personal issue you have, I doubt anyone was not working for you out of some whatever this perceived snobbery is and it's just like... we all have jobs?
      - carlosjobim 7mo ago
        I don't have a grudge, but there needs to be some balance. Software devs are incredibly well paid compared to other professionals. It is their responsibility to use their talents to benefit themselves, and if they are out-competed then they should work with something else. They don't have a right to a fantastic career. All other workers have had to go through this when their fields became more automated and efficient. A cargo ship used to have hundreds of crew, now it's a dozen and the amount of cargo on a ship is ten times more. So I will absolutely not cry for a software dev who has to make changes in the face of AI competition. If they're too precious to adapt or take a different job, then starve. > Look, no one wanted to write code for you idk what to tell you. Now you can have AI do that for you. Congrats, best of luck. Me and hundreds of thousands of other organizations who have software needs that were under served by the market. Now we will have AI write that code for us - or more realistically, now we will purchase this software from any of the thousands of boutique software development shops that will emerge, which use AI + talented human developers to serve us. I have the strong impression that programmers in many cases have a good deal of snobbery regarding what tasks they are willing to work on. If it's not giant enterprise software, then it's usually just filed under "hobbyist" or open source. Hopefully many programmers will find a well paying career serving less glamorous customers with software that solves real world problems. But many will have to change their attitude if they want to do that.