alt Hacker NewsIt's over. LLMs can produce any algorithm, any tech stack, any concept in seconds, minutes, or hours.
Writing code is like trying to build a house without powertools. Could you do it? Sure. But no one ever will, for most values of no one.
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Indeed, the OP's point seems very focused on programmers enjoying programming. And that's a perfectly laudable goal, but obviously this then means that the goal is programmer enjoyment, satisfaction, etc. If the goal is code that allows the user to benefit while also being correct and secure, then that drastically changes the economics and hence potential solutions of what parts of the work should be done by a LLM agent and what parts of the work should be done by a human agent. Economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources to satisfy human wants; so what you want from code determines a great deal of how to get there with the greatest benefit and the least cost.
This comment highly resonates with me. I strongly believe coding by hand (defined as an act of writing computer code in some programming language) is moreless obsolete. I.e. my skill to implement dijkstra or quicksort in 10 minutes at 1am in 10 different languages while being hangover/drunk is absolutely worthless now. Software Engineering itself is more than just coding, the creative (and well engineering) part is still there.
>Writing code is like trying to build a house without powertools.
You know, it is called "soft" for a reason...
> Writing code is like trying to build a house without powertools. Could you do it? Sure. But no one ever will, for most values of no one.
If LLMs could be relied upon to produce a good result every time, then they would be like power tools. But they can't, so they aren't. Nobody would use a cordless drill that has a 10% chance of the drill bit suddenly moving several inches to the left of where you were aiming.
I think it’s more analogous to view LLMs as taking steroids while not going to the gym.
it can not not? moreover, it can totally ruin existing invariants, introduce dead code, falsify tests and sabotage further work by poisoning comments and documentation in a few hours.
Power tools cannot "produce any house in hours"
So what are people like me, who fall into "some values of no one" supposed to do?
I guess just blow my brains out? Just.. Thanks for trying man, but you picked the wrong thing to specialize in, now you're completely redundant and worthless to society. Here's your cyanide pill?
God damn I'm so bitter about all of this. I was doing so well for a bit now I feel like I've completely wasted my life.
I repeat for the millionth time, not everything is web dev.