alt Hacker NewsI believe that software engineering will be considered solved for the vast majority of current software development sometime in 2027.
I'm setting myself up to take advantage of the most useful tool ever created, the AI agent, to create in whatever way I want and is necessary in the future. Software engineering may not be necessary in the future, at least not for a lot of normal software application development we see today.
To me it's very much a development is dead, long live development type of situation.
Sure development is "solved" if you define it as producing code. I think it's solved already. It's incredible in a way but then I notice nothing changed: my boss still doesn't know anything. Stuff doesn't get done until I get on it. Responsibilities haven't moved, accountability is the same, if there are issues I'm sure some AI could take a look at it but who instructs the AI? My non-tech colleagues don't even know that's a question they could ask. The entire problem domain of what used to be my work is completely opened up yet at the same it's closed off as ever.
It reminds me of mathematics in a way. Sure, I have the most powerful machines in the history of the world assisting me but I can't make heads or tails of even (relatively) basic math no matter how much sci-fi tech you're giving me. I either need to A) defer to the machines completely B) have a mathematician on call.
I know AI's could perform B) technically, but that would be A) but I'm absolutely not sure we'll ever fully move on to A) until a lot of progress has been made / society is fundamentally restructured.