alt Hacker NewsFor people who like to tick boxes, which is essentially most of the above, AI is welcome. That includes managers.
It still has nothing to do with software engineering. All good code was written by humans. AI took it, plagiarizes it, launders it and repackages it in a bloated form.
Whenever I look deeply at an AI plagiarized mess, it looks like it is 90% there but in reality it is only 50%. Fixing the mess takes longer than writing it oneself.
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The hard part of software engineering is turning a vague problem description into a set of box-ticking exercises. If ticking boxes became genuinely easier, the software engineering part is now a lot more valuable.
You’re reminding me a lot of those old assembly hackers who thought compilers were bullshit because they could hand-write better assembly. And I don’t mean that as an insult; those guys were probably right about their assembly code, just like an Amish craftsman will make better furniture than a factory in China. The problem is that the world needs more furniture and more software than skilled craftsmen can produce, and the skill gap between the craftsman and the mass production process is diminishing fast.
We’re still going to have handwritten software, just like we still have handwritten assembly. It just won’t be the norm.
No fixing the mess definitely does not take longer than writing it oneself.
Your linter should identify all issues - including architectural and stylistic choices - and the AI agents will immediately repair them.
It's about 1000x faster than a human code at repairing its own mess.
How can you say it has "nothing to do with software engineering" with a straight face?
I think you might be in serious denial.
Of course writing code isn't the only task of a software engineer, but it's an important one.
There wouldn't be so much controversy if it wasn't the case