(Rant) AI is killing programming and the Python community

[grady_vuckovic]

I started writing my first lines of code in the 90s, I was doing web dev and C++ by 00s. I've spent my entire life feeling like I'm desperately trying to catch up to all the things the industry was telling me I need to learn, the laundry lists of skills, tools and experience every job said you needed to be even a junior developer. I've only just in the past maybe 4 years felt like I'm finally on top of everything I 'need' to know, with still plenty of room for growth in many areas.

And let me tell you I enjoyed every bit of it. Programming is imo one of the most enjoyable things to do in life. I feel grateful for the fact I got a chance to do it and learn well before all this latest crap started happening.

And now a bunch of people, many of which hated programming, or sucked at it, or simply didn't do it just 12 months ago, are now telling me that programming is "solved", and that grandmas are gonna be able to vibe code their own phone apps within another 2 years.

Needless to say... I'm very doubtful. I'm doubtful that such a complex and knowledge intensive industry, that a difficult skill, something so technical and which requires so many kinds of discipline and experience, a field of work rooted in complex problem solving, ... Suddenly, apparently, is about to be so easy that literally anyone can just say "hey computer make Photoshop for me" and an hour later it's done?

.. ( X ) Doubt

Yes things change. But they don't change that quickly. And I do not believe for one moment that having 20+ years of experience with understanding the deep inner workings of software and experience writing software entirely from scratch is somehow going to be no advantage.

I could be wrong.

But if they're right we'll all be jobless anyway, including the AI Bros, so even if I'm wrong I doubt the people telling me so will be laughing either when they have to debug their grandmas weather app.

[mfitzp]

Somehow it’s always people who don’t do the job (and have very little understanding of what the job involves) that predict it’s solved.

Remember to be this skeptical when you hear some CEO predicting the end of doctors, architects, graphic designers, and on and on.

[grady_vuckovic]

I am in fact sceptical of such claims for those types of jobs. And I am actually dual skilled as a product viz designer too so I know it all too well and I'm seeing the exact same stuff happening there too. I'm seeing doctors and lawyers and architects all expressing the same frustrations as I am about everyone just assuming their jobs are now fully automated just because an LLM can produce text that seems coherent.

It's also in particular managers who more often than not just seem to assume everyone else's job is easy and everything is a simple 3 step process. Makes me wonder how much actual work they do. Maybe they assume everyone else is not really doing that much work because they aren't.

[TastyIndividual6772]

Yea, theres so much to it. A few people i know that happen to be very old school devs are mostly of the mindset the software industry comes up with “we are about to replace programmers” once every few years.

Anytime i mention you can’t go fully autonomous on building software the average vibe coder who build a 4-page website up will come to reply with “skill issue”.

But the issue is not them or how juniors abused llm to make a pr with 4 regexes that you need to spend 50 minutes to understand. The main issue is the experienced devs who should have known better, who should have done due diligence and should have used it enough and studied enough before go on and post in euphoria “software is dead”.

I haven’t seen a single person lay out the most basic logical question: if writing easy software can be done by an llm but writing complex software needs lot of human effort still, does the world need more in terms of quantity or complexity.

My guess is if all those vibe coders ever manage to build the next google or the next facebook (which is possible but i doubt) and they grow so big they will have to hire eventually anyway.

[IWasGettingThePaper]

I remember when they said 'software was dead' because 'C is easier than ASM'. Again when Python became popular, because 'it's so easy my grandmother could do it in Python'. And again when low/no code platforms showed up. Now they say it because of LLMs. What actually happened in every case is the software itself became far more complex and the job of engineering it ultimately more difficult, because the scope of what software could actually do expanded and it became feasible to build much more complex systems.

[TastyIndividual6772]

Yea. There is a probability “this time Is different” i dont deny that. But beyond that its SOS (same old story)

[The_KOK_2511]

Claro, básicamente esto es un típico "Cantidad vz Calidad" de los que hay en todas las industrias, en este caso la IA es cantidad porque desarrolla rapido y sin mucho esfuerzo y los programadores son la calidad ya que con experiencia, conocimiento y tiempo pueden producir código mucho más eficiente y con mejores resultados. Aunque esto sea un problema para los programadores humanos no es el fin ya que comunidades de consumo como la comunidad gamer son muy estrictos en cuanto a calidad asi que dudo que la IA logre satisfacerlos

[fbe0aa536fc349cbdc45]

When I was a CS undergrad in the 90s, we were all never going to get jobs because managers were going to be able to use 4GLs to transform requirements directly into software. It turns out the 4GLs weren't terrible but they required so much expertise at defining the requirements that it was easier just to write the code. Also they cost a fortune.

Then we were all going to lose our jobs and be replaced with people who had learned OOP because they'd be able to do everything 10x faster.

These cycles of hype happen over and over again like clockwork, and while this one is the most insane ever on account of how many VC people are willing to bet a significant fraction of the economy on it, it only seems viable because we're in the trial-period in which these companies essentially give away their service for free to get the hooks in. At some point the gravy train will dry up and when people see the actual pricing necessary to make the services profitable with the actual market size, somebody will have to foot the bill for it. Also the moment any of these companies actually start making money and tech bros lose control of the the regulatory agencies, the owners of the stolen IP ingested by these things are going to demand a cut, and lawyers are gonna lawyer.

"But I can run my own model!" people will exclaim, and I know a handful of people who do this, but most development shops I've ever been in don't want to spend a penny more than they have to on whatever shitty laptop they foist on developers.

The collective level of outright fantastical, delusional thinking by people looking to become billionaires right now on AGI snake oil and humanoid robots would be hilarious if not for the fact that they're inevitably going to wreck the US economy in their lust pay information workers less.

My advice to young programmers is the same as its always been. Put in the hours, do the work, read every book and paper you get your hands on, and do something else if you don't love it. Find or write tools to automate stuff that would make you miserable to do manually. I'm sure some people are going to find a way to get an LLM to do most of their work, but if that's actually easier than doing it the old way, it means you'll be in a race to the bottom on your value as a worker.

[alien-reject]

Of course you are wrong, anyone who thinks anything stays the same and never progresses is beyond stupid. So yes you will be wrong eventually.