alt Hacker News> I bought a book however many years ago with no previous development experience and delivered a Web app people paid for and eventually honed that as an actual career, so I’m just not really seeing what’s a difference in kind here.
So you taught yourself how to program. Do you not see that there's a difference between teaching yourself how to program so that you could build a web application and using a new technology that allows you to build a web application without having to learn how to program?
I get that people have differences of opinion but it seems to me like you're being intentionally obtuse here. Learning how to program to build web applications is not the same as learning how to use a new technology that can build web applications for you without you having to learn how to code.
> I also disagree with the “democratization” frame because now developers are spending like $1000 per month on tokens at their jobs, which does the opposite of making things more accessible.
I'm curious: if you're already working as a developer and your employer values your skills, why do you have to spend anything on tokens? Are you not able to do your job satisfactorily without AI?
The "democratization" has nothing to do with people working as developers. The "democratization" refers to the ability of a growing number of smart, motivated people who don't know how to program to create working software using AI.
> So you taught yourself how to program. Do you not see that there's a difference between teaching yourself how to program so that you could build a web application and using a new technology that allows you to build a web application without having to learn how to program?
Well, I guess where we're not lining up is I don't see that you are going to deliver a serious application that isn't the equivalent of table knocked together in a home workshop without, in practice, "learning how to program." Like, what are you not understanding here? I keep saying this and you keep alternating between accusing me of being deliberately obtuse and accusing me of motivated reasoning, but you aren't actually addressing the argument I am making.
> I'm curious: if you're already working as a developer and your employer values your skills, why do you have to spend anything on tokens? Are you not able to do your job satisfactorily without AI?
Sure, but I can do more stuff faster with AI, which they also value enough to pay for the tools. Is that a serious question? You will find few professional software developers whose employers aren't encouraging AI tool use today.
> The "democratization" has nothing to do with people working as developers. The "democratization" refers to the ability of a growing number of smart, motivated people who don't know how to program to create working software using AI.
Yeah, I understand that, and I reject the framing because 1) it's made the way professional developers work much more capital-intensive and different from the ways hobbyists work in a way that's unattainable for the average hobbyist 2) I don't really agree with the idea that all the barriers are gone and everyone's ready to deliver commercial-grade software without understanding what they're doing. If you think that's the case, then you'll have to conclude most businesses are acting highly irrationally by continuing to pay high wages to employ people with specialized knowledge of software development to operate AI tools rather than just handing it over to your new breed of semiskilled laborers who don't need to know how to program.