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Software Engineering Is Dead. Long Live Product Engineering

27 points · 14 comments · cliffclimber

  1. betteryet · · focus · HN ↗
    Software Engineering is not dead, damn it. Anything research and original is not dead. Are these things fantastic at connecting concepts, producing digital work products, and putting out derivate hypotheses? Sure. But proper original thought is still firmly in the realm of humans. Though speed of propagation of new ideas probably did change massively.
    1. almogo · · focus · HN ↗
      In a way, many “novel” ideas are mathematical restructurings of existing ideas. I think we’ve seen a fair number of examples by now, especially in the realm of mathematics, of LLMs producing these novel ideas. I’d imagine Lee Se-dol would agree.
      1. flowerlad · · focus · HN ↗
        > LLMs producing these novel ideas

        We haven't seen that in software development though. Chris Lattner, inventor of the Swift programming language recently took a look at a compiler entirely written by Claude AI. Lattner found nothing innovative in the code generated by AI [1]. And this is why humans will be needed to advance the state of the art.

        [1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.modular.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;the-claude-c-compiler-what-it-reveals-about-the-future-of-software" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.modular.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;the-claude-c-compiler-what-it-r...

        1. bewareofscams · · focus · HN ↗

          [dead]

        2. ranger_danger · · focus · HN ↗
          Was said Claude AI prompted to even attempt to look for anything &quot;innovative&quot; or just make more of the same? The same can be said of humans if one isn&#x27;t already intentionally trying to do something different.
        3. almogo · · focus · HN ↗
          That is a useful data point. I think there’s interesting points in both directions, but probably what’s the most important is that it’s a field of humans have been researching and optimizing very heavily for a while. Whatever fruits there are to reap our probably quite difficult to find.
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