In other words, the hard part moves from recall (“How do I write this?”) to judgment (“Does this actually make sense?”)
This is very true. But to evaluate if it makes sense, you first need experience writing the code. I am glad I learned software development over 15 years ago, and not today. AI is a super power, but without the experience to guide it, it can go horribly wrong really quickly.
mostlysimilar 7 minutes ago [-]
That's where I've landed too. Maybe I'm just delusional and telling myself a comfortable story, but I think my ~15 years of experience building software by hand lets me utilize these robots in a way that people lacking it simply can't.
I still absolutely loathe talking to them and using them. But I feel less scared about losing my career these days. Work wants me to use it, I'm using it at work. In my hobby projects I still code by hand.
asdfman123 2 minutes ago [-]
Yep, that's definitely true... for now.
The thing that concerns me, however, is that just a year ago it was only useful for doing things like reminding me how to read in a file. Now it's at the level of a competent junior, who can almost do the whole task from start to finish but needs a little supervision.
All the AI companies are methodically reading the messages we're sending to our agents to train the next models. I wouldn't be surprised if they could do what I'm doing in a year or two.
guywithahat 6 minutes ago [-]
I wonder about this. One would think new programmers, like old, will learn through experience to care most about the things that matter, and ignore things that don’t. In 10 years my pre-AI experience may condition me to waste time thinking about struct packing, while younger developers simply won’t know or care
cdkmoose 36 seconds ago [-]
I think the problem will be that there was only so much we could do wrong while we were learning 15+ years ago and our mentors had a reasonable scope to watch around us as we learned. People learning now can get a coding agent to build the entire system for them and it is much harder for the mentor to review that work.
My concern is how much damage could be done by someone learning 15+ years ago vs someone learning now.
FinnLobsien 18 minutes ago [-]
It’s the same with writing: AI writing is coherent on the surface, but is impossible to edit because it’s built on no real insight.
Now the sharpening of a coherent point, challenging one’s assumptions, and editorial decisions of what (not) to include are super important because they’re no longer a byproduct of the writing process.
twa927 4 minutes ago [-]
> Code becomes only one representation of thought among many overlapping ones.
This is wrong, code is the concrete "truth" being executed, the rest (plans, prompts, agent instructions) are just temporary artifacts used to generate the code. What's left is the code alone.
LLMs don't have any semantics, they can't execute anything with 100% certainty. So far programming languages are the only langugues that can do that.
causal 1 minutes ago [-]
I think you misunderstand. Code is also representing something. It may be what gets executed, but that does not make it "correct".
dsmurrell 16 minutes ago [-]
It's somehow more tiring, reading complex plans in response to your guidance, and then making decision after decision. Reminds me of this Alan Watts bit...
A farmer who ordered a farmhand quickly discovered he was an extraordinarily efficient worker.
The first day, he put him on sawing logs, and the farmhand sawed more logs than anybody else, ever. It was fantastic — but the wood-cutting work was all done in one day.
So, the next day, the farmer put him onto mending fences. There were all kinds of broken fences around the farm. And, again, the farmhand had all the work done in one day.
So the farmer thought, “What am I going to do with this guy?”
The next day, he took the farmhand to a basement and said, “Look, here all the potatoes that have come in from this harvest. I want you to sort them into three groups: those we sell, those we use for seeding, and those we throw away.”
He left the farmhand to it. And at the end of the day, the laborer came back and said, “Well, that’s enough, mister, I quit.”
“Oh,” the farmer replied, “You can’t quit. I’ve never had such an excellent worker. I’ll raise your salary — I’ll do anything to keep you around me.”
The farmhand said, “No. It’s all right mending fences and chopping wood, but this potato business is decision after decision after decision.”
1970-01-01 7 minutes ago [-]
The language barrier is gone. I'm done with syntax, looking up the new way to do things, etc. It works via prompting. That's a win.
furyofantares 8 minutes ago [-]
It's true that there are new skills to acquire (and that those with talents for the old skills may be less talented with the new skills).
It's absolutely not true that it "just" moved the difficulty around. If that were true then I'd be just as well off continuing to use my decades of programming expertise just as I always have; but the reality is I can get more done, and get better work done (depending on level of vibing), than ever before.
Thing is, though, making programming easier doesn't mean programmers will work less hard. That's how competitive markets work. LLMs made programming easier. Capitalism prevents workers from capturing that value.
nphardon 13 minutes ago [-]
How many times can we have the same discussion.
Anduia 4 minutes ago [-]
It's existential crisis Tuesday
ramesh31 4 minutes ago [-]
>"How many times can we have the same discussion."
Until the people wishing it to be true are thoroughly sated.
The reality is that this is the end of programming as a large scale well paying white collar profession as we knew it.
Havoc 21 minutes ago [-]
It can be both at the same time - easier and different.
stellalo 17 minutes ago [-]
But the thesis of the OP is that it is !easier && different
FinnLobsien 16 minutes ago [-]
I think the bigger issue in defining this is that “programming” is too big a task to say whether it got easier or harder.
Some YAML formalities now take zero effort while architectural thinking became way more important and difficult.
jameson 3 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
Rendered at 19:27:30 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
I still absolutely loathe talking to them and using them. But I feel less scared about losing my career these days. Work wants me to use it, I'm using it at work. In my hobby projects I still code by hand.
The thing that concerns me, however, is that just a year ago it was only useful for doing things like reminding me how to read in a file. Now it's at the level of a competent junior, who can almost do the whole task from start to finish but needs a little supervision.
All the AI companies are methodically reading the messages we're sending to our agents to train the next models. I wouldn't be surprised if they could do what I'm doing in a year or two.
My concern is how much damage could be done by someone learning 15+ years ago vs someone learning now.
Now the sharpening of a coherent point, challenging one’s assumptions, and editorial decisions of what (not) to include are super important because they’re no longer a byproduct of the writing process.
This is wrong, code is the concrete "truth" being executed, the rest (plans, prompts, agent instructions) are just temporary artifacts used to generate the code. What's left is the code alone.
LLMs don't have any semantics, they can't execute anything with 100% certainty. So far programming languages are the only langugues that can do that.
A farmer who ordered a farmhand quickly discovered he was an extraordinarily efficient worker.
The first day, he put him on sawing logs, and the farmhand sawed more logs than anybody else, ever. It was fantastic — but the wood-cutting work was all done in one day.
So, the next day, the farmer put him onto mending fences. There were all kinds of broken fences around the farm. And, again, the farmhand had all the work done in one day.
So the farmer thought, “What am I going to do with this guy?”
The next day, he took the farmhand to a basement and said, “Look, here all the potatoes that have come in from this harvest. I want you to sort them into three groups: those we sell, those we use for seeding, and those we throw away.”
He left the farmhand to it. And at the end of the day, the laborer came back and said, “Well, that’s enough, mister, I quit.”
“Oh,” the farmer replied, “You can’t quit. I’ve never had such an excellent worker. I’ll raise your salary — I’ll do anything to keep you around me.”
The farmhand said, “No. It’s all right mending fences and chopping wood, but this potato business is decision after decision after decision.”
It's absolutely not true that it "just" moved the difficulty around. If that were true then I'd be just as well off continuing to use my decades of programming expertise just as I always have; but the reality is I can get more done, and get better work done (depending on level of vibing), than ever before.
Thing is, though, making programming easier doesn't mean programmers will work less hard. That's how competitive markets work. LLMs made programming easier. Capitalism prevents workers from capturing that value.
Until the people wishing it to be true are thoroughly sated.
The reality is that this is the end of programming as a large scale well paying white collar profession as we knew it.
Some YAML formalities now take zero effort while architectural thinking became way more important and difficult.