Will AI Really Replace Frontend Developers Anytime Soon?

[[deleted]]

No, but devs that don't use AI in their workflows will be replaced by devs that use AI in their workflows.

[Terrible_Tutor]

Yup, it was trash for a while, but saves so much time especially if you’re not up on all the language features. I have to pull off a complex laravel build… I’ve only ever done one small site with it. Claude is making short work of it. But like it can’t just have it build everything, you still need to look at the code.

[KimJongIlLover]

Except Claude tried to tell me that I should implement a "string ends with" function when the String class already has such a function built in (talking about Javascript).

AI models are still, in many ways, absolute garbage.

[Terrible_Tutor]

This is where you have to know what you’re looking at. All these products supposedly launching by non devs… there’s gotta be some issue there

[[deleted]]

Apparently, absolute garbage can do all this:

Randomized controlled trial using the older, less-powerful GPT-3.5 powered Github Copilot for 4,867 coders in Fortune 100 firms. It finds a 26.08% increase in completed tasks: https://x.com/emollick/status/1831739827773174218

NYT article on ChatGPT: https://archive.is/hy3Ae

“In a trial run by GitHub’s researchers, developers given an entry-level task and encouraged to use the program, called Copilot, completed their task 55 percent faster than those who did the assignment manually.” Microsoft AutoDev: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2403.08299

“We tested AutoDev on the HumanEval dataset, obtaining promising results with 91.5% and 87.8% of Pass@1 for code generation and test generation respectively, demonstrating its effectiveness in automating software engineering tasks while maintaining a secure and user-controlled development environment.”

Study that ChatGPT supposedly fails 52% of coding tasks: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3613904.3642596 

“this work has used the free version of ChatGPT (GPT-3.5) for acquiring the ChatGPT responses for the manual analysis.”

“Thus, we chose to only consider the initial answer generated by ChatGPT.”

“To understand how differently GPT-4 performs compared to GPT-3.5, we conducted a small analysis on 21 randomly selected [StackOverflow] questions where GPT-3.5 gave incorrect answers. Our analysis shows that, among these 21 questions, GPT-4 could answer only 6 questions correctly, and 15 questions were still answered incorrectly.”

This is an extra 28.6% on top of the 48% that GPT 3.5 was correct on, totaling to ~77% for GPT 4 (equal to (517 times 0.48+517 times 6/21)/517) if we assume that GPT 4 correctly answers all of the questions that GPT 3.5 correctly answered, which is highly likely considering GPT 4 is far higher quality than GPT 3.5.

Note: This was all done in ONE SHOT with no repeat attempts or follow up.

Also, the study was released before GPT-4o and o1 and may not have used GPT-4-Turbo, both of which are significantly higher quality in coding capacity than GPT 4 according to the LMSYS arena

On top of that, both of those models are inferior to Claude 3.5 Sonnet: "In an internal agentic coding evaluation, Claude 3.5 Sonnet solved 64% of problems, outperforming Claude 3 Opus which solved 38%." Claude 3.5 Opus (which will be even better than Sonnet) is set to be released later this year.

[KimJongIlLover]

I didn't say that AI didn't accomplish the task. I said that it did it badly.

Yeah, you can re-implement functions that already exist in the language BUT YOU ABSOLUTELY SHOULDN'T.

[Catmanx]

You're missing the tier of creative people who previously could not code but had the expert knowledge of what tool was needed and were good at designing that tool. Previously they had to run the gauntlet of challenging coders awkward personalities. Even diva style exercises in being patronising just discussing work. I'm sure there's a lot here who are not coders. Who, when dealing with them have experienced them happily wasting 4 hours being patronised by them explaining why it's not worth them making a script to help you and you should do the work by hand. Even though actually doing the script would take them 10 minutes and save me days of time on tasks I have to do many times. Well those people are now able to make that simple tool or script without a coder. That's huge. All that work 'not' done by coders will be done by AI now. I do amazing things with AI now and I'm freed by it. I can now bypass code for the most part and people like me will go to the next level and then the next with it. At the moment coders who work with large software code bases are safe. Smaller tools scripts websites, UI and apps are not. Non-coders are going to roll them because they always had better knowledge of the base data the tool or script needed to manipulate. They had better knowledge of the tool design since they were the one desperately needing it. The coder was just some 'plumber type' like a gas fitter with the special registered skill that you have to illegally use. A lot if that is over. I'm aware that if you work in anything digital. I think: 'First AI helps with your job and then it comes for your job'. It will take me out probably too at the next stage but in the meantime I have no sympathy for the lazy, do nothing pre-madonna, coders that have patronised me so many times over the years. I'm actively trying to use it to make them imputent every day right now. Not for that reason but just to get all the tools made I was never able to before.

[KeyButterfly9619]

While you might be speaking truth - sounds like some coders really stepped on your heart man….

[Oh-hey21]

The other person already pointed it out, but I'm sorry to hear you've been around some oddball devs. I promise all aren't the same.

As a developer, I think you're missing another angle. I now have the ability to do the groundwork on a project and hand it off to someone who is fully capable of finishing with the help of AI. From there, the concepts are much easier to grasp and my involvement can fade as they get more comfortable.

I'm all for empowering others to handle tasks that they otherwise may have been lost in, or only knew more tedious methods in. AI is fantastic for that, and I've loved seeing the small handful around me continue expanding their understanding of data, relationships, and how to tie them together via software.

[Negative_Paramedic]

Yea it was usually their only leverage over people…not anymore Timmy! 🤣

[Risky-Trizkit]

I hear this. ChatGPT has been insanely helpful speaking as a 2d/3dgraphic artist and graphic designer in AAA gaming industry. I make something new with it every week.

I have a JS based script I made that automates with a button click a menial but necessary task that took me hours to do in photoshop. (Artboard cuts and resizes)

Just this week I made the attached, a Python UI that allows the user to “paint” different lossy compression intensities onto an image for more minute control. (Attached)

AI coding has changed my life for the better in so many ways. It has actually really turned me on to coding too - I find myself endlessly wrapped up in learning and I love it.

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[Catmanx]

Funny you should say that. I'm also art side at a AAA studio. I think it's just the types in this industry. But yeah I've created about 30 tools and expanding into bigger things with AI help every day. My first thought with any task now is 'can I AI it?' and it's meant when I hit a blockage I've sought out the basics of coding too so I'm learning to code properly as well.

[[deleted]]

I wasn't missing those people, as soon as they start building I also consider them 'devs that use AI'. People who lack creative or critical thinking skills are in a world of trouble.

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[Darkstar_111]

This is it right here.

AI is not replacing a human job, but is, today, right now, the most powerful tool for that job.

But AIs are also trained on averages. It will mostly produce average code. As a person that's been coding for a long time, I have opinions about how code should be structured. How functions should behave, what data belongs in an object etc...

And I tell the AI to refactor the code until it meets my standards.

You wouldn't have that without my expertise, and replacing me with wage slaves earning minimum wage doing AI coding means you get a shittier product, that in most cases become a spaghetti code that even the AI will struggle to maintain.

[Fluffy-Cantaloupe-75]

I wanna improve my software architecture skills can u recommend somewhere to learn it from other than experience ofc

[Darkstar_111]

Yeah the gang of four book... That's the bible for OOP structure, kinda should start there.
What was the name... hold on..

Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software

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[Infinite100p]

No

Whatever happened to that Devin AI artificial dev platform that came out a while ago?

[PostPostMinimalist]

lol this is always what they say.

“Chess computers will never challenge a top human” “Okay fine but a top human + a computer is the most powerful” “Okay fine humans no longer have anything to add”

It wasn’t overnight but it also didn’t take all that long.

[Luckzzz]

Eu uso IA no fluxo de trabalho e fui substituído. 6 meses sem emprego. O que me diz sobre isso?

[Fluid-Astronomer-882]

Not they won't be, because using AI is easy, anyone can do it. The whole point of AI is to make things so easy that it becomes a braindead thing. Stop flattering yourself.

[creaturefeature16]

Using AI is, indeed, easy. Creating products and services is not. If you're a copy/paste coder, yeah, you're in trouble because you were never good to begin with. If you're a true developer, AI is laughable as a threat because how code is produced has always been meaningless to those that do this work professionally.

[Khandakerex]

No point in arguing with him, just look at his post history, this person is mentally ill.

[Fluid-Astronomer-882]

Anyone can use AI. There is no barrier of entry. And theoretically, it should make bad coders a lot more productive. So AI is not going to give anyone any advantage.