Honest question for devs out there... is anyone worried? I don't see enough frank conversation happening around this subject. Timelines. How long until salaries fall? Is it too early to stalk thinking about back up plans? Am I crazy?
Coding is probably solved. Honestly it’s probably going to be 5 years of runtime starting now depending on industry lag and uptake.
A team I was managing spent a whole year converting government forms into a web app. It took a while and there was a lot of discussion with the end users and a bunch of back and forth (keep in mind this is government software with a lot of onerous legal requirements). Then about 4 months ago, we just fed Codex the forms, along with the UI design and the legal requirements and it spat it out in 1 hour. Was it perfect? No. But our iterative loop became make the web app, show it to end users and then incorporate feedback and completely cut out the UX team, product etc. We were able to complete the conversion in 2 weeks with one guy (something like 150+ government forms/applications). For most simple to medium corporate development work it’s basically over.
We're in a similar boat. Entire eng team went full AI about a year ago, and honestly we're struggling to find things to do. Features that would take weeks, take minutes.
I just don't see how we keep going like this without layoffs. The company cannot responsibly continue paying for this many engineers, when half, or less, could do the same job.
Serious question from a consumer of software: if software can be improved so effortlessly now, why isn't it getting better?
Like, why is it all still so buggy? Why does no website seem to consider 96 PPI displays in its design? Why don't we have ostensibly useful features like undo trees everywhere? Why is everything still a RAM hog? Why does the proportion of websites that pay no heed to accessibility seem to be going up rather than down?
I'm told we're living in the future, but it sure doesn't feel like it.
Lack of information. When you are on the building side you become blind to its faults. Consumers almost never tell you what isn't good about it.
> why is it all still so buggy?
Also lack of information. I haven't seen any bugs in years in the things I've worked on. LLMs have closed every last obvious testing gap, squashing any outstanding bugs there. That's not to say it is all bug-free now, but what bugs users may be experiencing aren't being reported.
AI is good at building software, but it is still not good at consuming software like actual consumers do.
For the same reason that increasing headcount never really solved the bug problem.
Flawless software isn't the goal, ever. Feature development is almost always the primary goal, and fixing bugs and performance issues is only done if the bug is bad enough.
I don't think you're wrong overall, and it jives with tripleee's reply, but I don't think wanting end-user software to be less buggy than it currently is is asking for "flawless" software.
Because the goal isn't to make the future better for humanity. It's to make the future more addictive for humanity. Big difference. More clicks, more ad views, more engagement, not necessarily more pleasant. I mean, that's obvious.
I live in the future when it comes to my hobby of music making. I make my own little software tools that I did not have the ability to make 2 years ago. Little tools that are too specialized and specific for my obscure taste to have much wider economic value as tools in themselves.
Claude is also the greatest obscure book recommendation engine I have ever found so I have a lot more interesting books to read than in the past.
Outside of this, I basically live in 2019 but everything is more expensive.
I worry this is the future. It doesn't really feel much different other than things getting more and more expensive.
bananaflag · · focus · HN ↗
copperx · · focus · HN ↗
jr3592 · · focus · HN ↗
dyauspitr · · focus · HN ↗
A team I was managing spent a whole year converting government forms into a web app. It took a while and there was a lot of discussion with the end users and a bunch of back and forth (keep in mind this is government software with a lot of onerous legal requirements). Then about 4 months ago, we just fed Codex the forms, along with the UI design and the legal requirements and it spat it out in 1 hour. Was it perfect? No. But our iterative loop became make the web app, show it to end users and then incorporate feedback and completely cut out the UX team, product etc. We were able to complete the conversion in 2 weeks with one guy (something like 150+ government forms/applications). For most simple to medium corporate development work it’s basically over.
jr3592 · · focus · HN ↗
I just don't see how we keep going like this without layoffs. The company cannot responsibly continue paying for this many engineers, when half, or less, could do the same job.
creata · · focus · HN ↗
Like, why is it all still so buggy? Why does no website seem to consider 96 PPI displays in its design? Why don't we have ostensibly useful features like undo trees everywhere? Why is everything still a RAM hog? Why does the proportion of websites that pay no heed to accessibility seem to be going up rather than down?
I'm told we're living in the future, but it sure doesn't feel like it.
tripleee · · focus · HN ↗
win311fwg · · focus · HN ↗
Lack of information. When you are on the building side you become blind to its faults. Consumers almost never tell you what isn't good about it.
> why is it all still so buggy?
Also lack of information. I haven't seen any bugs in years in the things I've worked on. LLMs have closed every last obvious testing gap, squashing any outstanding bugs there. That's not to say it is all bug-free now, but what bugs users may be experiencing aren't being reported.
AI is good at building software, but it is still not good at consuming software like actual consumers do.
copperx · · focus · HN ↗
jr3592 · · focus · HN ↗
Flawless software isn't the goal, ever. Feature development is almost always the primary goal, and fixing bugs and performance issues is only done if the bug is bad enough.
creata · · focus · HN ↗
FeteCommuniste · · focus · HN ↗
Like the old quip that a cup of coffee lets you do stupid things faster.
vouaobrasil · · focus · HN ↗
aryehof · · focus · HN ↗
rl3 · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzm6pvHPSGo" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzm6pvHPSGo
lutanista · · focus · HN ↗
I live in the future when it comes to my hobby of music making. I make my own little software tools that I did not have the ability to make 2 years ago. Little tools that are too specialized and specific for my obscure taste to have much wider economic value as tools in themselves.
Claude is also the greatest obscure book recommendation engine I have ever found so I have a lot more interesting books to read than in the past.
Outside of this, I basically live in 2019 but everything is more expensive.
I worry this is the future. It doesn't really feel much different other than things getting more and more expensive.