4 ms·

I think what's actually happening is that the "threshold" of technical understanding required to be more productive than average is increasing, and other non-te

I think what's actually happening is that the "threshold" of technical understanding required to be more productive than average is increasing, and other non-technical skills are becoming more important. Those below the threshold are not able to provide value over anyone else, even if they have a lot of technical experience. For example, I think today a strong PM with no technical ability can produce higher quality technical output compared to a mediocre frontend developer with no project management ability.

jimbob45 3mo ago
For example, I think today a strong PM with no technical ability can produce higher quality technical output compared to a mediocre frontend developer with no project management ability. Wishful thinking by the managerial class. At best they can vibe code but they can’t verify that what was written is correct.
- NitpickLawyer 3mo ago
  > Wishful thinking by the managerial class. Heh. I wouldn't be so fast in calling this one, yet. It might go either way, or a combination of the two, who knows... Things are moving and progressing fast enough to at least be wary of, and keeping an eye on things. I wouldn't be surprised of any outcome, tbh. On the one hand, PMs get to hone in a set of skills that include lots of juggling resources, bridging the gap between stake holders and people that execute, work with different layers of technical expertise, lots of back and forth and so on. Having to "call" a thing after talking to 5 people from 6 different PoVs is interestingly something that could make them quite good at using "AI". They're already used to working with "jagged expertise" so to say. And that's really close to what "agents" do today. You might get a session where claude/gpt/gemeni turns out a brilliant piece of technical artefact, or you might get an average piece of content that misses key important aspects that a "human" could see from a mile away. On the other hand, LLMs do one thing quite well: they raise the floor of what "minimum effort" in a thing gets you. So things like language barriers, basic processes, procedures, etc. get elevated to a level where you can use these tools and be better off than not using these concepts at all. So a very talented engineer that previously had these issues, could now use LLMs to get better at auxiliary but "unimportant" aspects of integrated that technical experience into other places. In a "90% of the time people expect this to work like this" way, but with the floor being raised. One quick example of this would be a technically sound piece of software that now has bare-minimum ux/ui from this century, instead of "engineer GUI" aspect :) Who knows where this all goes. Yesterday there was an article here about someone taking a bunch of languages, asking an agent to mix concepts from all of them and slop a "new uber language" design. Is it the ultimate language that many have tried before? 99% sure it's not. Or at least this one won't be. But there's a chance, with how many people can now prompt their way to a PoC quite quickly, that we eventually get something cool. No idea how that'd look like, but it's likely the "you'll know it when you see it" kind of thing.
- CalRobert 3mo ago
  Well, they can try it out and see if it does what they want.
  - ElFitz 3mo ago
    Which is basically what most of them already did with software engineers anyway.
  - lelele 3mo ago
    Sure, but how confident can they be that it doesn't also do things they don't want? Tests can't be exhaustive, whereas even a mediocre developer is likely to possess enough background knowledge to notice risks that a non-developer would not think to test. Some people keep forgetting that we haven't reached AGI yet. These tools can still make serious and sometimes obvious mistakes. Not long ago, vibe-coded software could embed credentials directly. That particular blunder seems to have been addressed, but there is still no reliable way to tell an LLM to avoid every class of obvious blunder.
    - CalRobert 3mo ago
      I hear you, but when their choices are “flawed solution that exists” vs “perfect one that doesn’t” they will pick the former most of the time.
      - lelele 3mo ago
        Sure, but the original comment was more like “flawed solution that exists” vs “decent solution that exists”, wasn't it? That is: vibe-coding can't replace developers yet, not even mediocre ones.
    - mlrtime 3mo ago
      The un-hidden secret is that QA and real testing doesn't exist much anymore. People aren't surprised when things break, they just want it fixed quickly, and AI can do that.
      - 3mo ago
- Foobar8568 3mo ago
  Neither is your mediocre frontend developer.

jimbob45 3mo ago

For example, I think today a strong PM with no technical ability can produce higher quality technical output compared to a mediocre frontend developer with no project management ability. Wishful thinking by the managerial class. At best they can vibe code but they can’t verify that what was written is correct.

NitpickLawyer 3mo ago
> Wishful thinking by the managerial class. Heh. I wouldn't be so fast in calling this one, yet. It might go either way, or a combination of the two, who knows... Things are moving and progressing fast enough to at least be wary of, and keeping an eye on things. I wouldn't be surprised of any outcome, tbh. On the one hand, PMs get to hone in a set of skills that include lots of juggling resources, bridging the gap between stake holders and people that execute, work with different layers of technical expertise, lots of back and forth and so on. Having to "call" a thing after talking to 5 people from 6 different PoVs is interestingly something that could make them quite good at using "AI". They're already used to working with "jagged expertise" so to say. And that's really close to what "agents" do today. You might get a session where claude/gpt/gemeni turns out a brilliant piece of technical artefact, or you might get an average piece of content that misses key important aspects that a "human" could see from a mile away. On the other hand, LLMs do one thing quite well: they raise the floor of what "minimum effort" in a thing gets you. So things like language barriers, basic processes, procedures, etc. get elevated to a level where you can use these tools and be better off than not using these concepts at all. So a very talented engineer that previously had these issues, could now use LLMs to get better at auxiliary but "unimportant" aspects of integrated that technical experience into other places. In a "90% of the time people expect this to work like this" way, but with the floor being raised. One quick example of this would be a technically sound piece of software that now has bare-minimum ux/ui from this century, instead of "engineer GUI" aspect :) Who knows where this all goes. Yesterday there was an article here about someone taking a bunch of languages, asking an agent to mix concepts from all of them and slop a "new uber language" design. Is it the ultimate language that many have tried before? 99% sure it's not. Or at least this one won't be. But there's a chance, with how many people can now prompt their way to a PoC quite quickly, that we eventually get something cool. No idea how that'd look like, but it's likely the "you'll know it when you see it" kind of thing.
CalRobert 3mo ago
Well, they can try it out and see if it does what they want.
- ElFitz 3mo ago
  Which is basically what most of them already did with software engineers anyway.
- lelele 3mo ago
  Sure, but how confident can they be that it doesn't also do things they don't want? Tests can't be exhaustive, whereas even a mediocre developer is likely to possess enough background knowledge to notice risks that a non-developer would not think to test. Some people keep forgetting that we haven't reached AGI yet. These tools can still make serious and sometimes obvious mistakes. Not long ago, vibe-coded software could embed credentials directly. That particular blunder seems to have been addressed, but there is still no reliable way to tell an LLM to avoid every class of obvious blunder.
  - CalRobert 3mo ago
    I hear you, but when their choices are “flawed solution that exists” vs “perfect one that doesn’t” they will pick the former most of the time.
    - lelele 3mo ago
      Sure, but the original comment was more like “flawed solution that exists” vs “decent solution that exists”, wasn't it? That is: vibe-coding can't replace developers yet, not even mediocre ones.
  - mlrtime 3mo ago
    The un-hidden secret is that QA and real testing doesn't exist much anymore. People aren't surprised when things break, they just want it fixed quickly, and AI can do that.
    - 3mo ago
Foobar8568 3mo ago
Neither is your mediocre frontend developer.