7 ms·

> “Soon, everyone will be a developer” This is the wrong view. It's more like "Soon, everyone will be able to go from idea to a prototype". IMO, there's a diff

by clvx 1y ago

> “Soon, everyone will be a developer” This is the wrong view. It's more like "Soon, everyone will be able to go from idea to a prototype". IMO, there's a different value perception when people can use concrete things even if they are not perfect. This is what I like about end-to-end vibe coding tools. I don't see a non developer using Claude Code but I can totally see them using Github Spark or any similar tool. After that, the question is how can I ensure this person can keep moving forward with the idea.

someothherguyy 1y ago
Yeah, like soon everyone will be a poet, or a multi-linguist, or a song writer, academic, copywriter, artist, counselor, etc. I think overzealous LLM hype is a sort of Gell-Man amnesia.
- 6510 1y ago
  Reading that I thought everyone could be a series of APIs. We are all experts at something. Something like: when was building X at the end of Y street demolished?
- joshdavham 1y ago
  That’s a good way to think about it. AI can help me translate languages, but I’m definitely not a translator.
- fragmede 1y ago
  Depends how critical computers are to one's life, I think. I wouldn't call myself a cook, but I need to eat, so I can make a mean bowl of pasta when it comes down to it. Given another five-ten years of development, I expect tooling to develop that lets everyone automate computers to a degree previously reserved for professional programmers, akin to what the microwave oven did for cooking. The ability to microwave a hot pocket doesn't remotely make me a cook, but I won't starve, either.
cjcenizal 1y ago
Absolutely! AI coding is a communication lubricant. It enables non-technical people to express complex software ideas without the friction of asking a developer for help or even working with a no-code tool. Software development doesn't occur in a vacuum -- it's part of a broader ecosystem consisting of tech writers, product managers, sales engineers, support engineers, evangelists, and others. AI coding enables each person in the org to participate more efficiently in the scoping, design, and planning phases of software development.
- bluefirebrand 1y ago
  Instead of expecting anyone to raise their standards and learn the bare minimum about software development to have a conversation about it, we're lowering the bar Again and again and again
  - clvx 1y ago
    who says it's about lowering the bar. If someone can build a more concrete view of their ideas which in most cases are requirements, then the conversation can be about nuances and not trying to figure it out what this person wants. I would say, It makes the conversation of the software development process easier because now you can discuss exactly why or why not it cannot be possible or the challenges you'll have to implement it.
    - unshavedyak 1y ago
      I do fear this framing though. It's going to be annoying with someone in a meeting using GPT on the side saying "No, it's totally possible to scale this way. Make it happen" because they're feeding what you say to a GPT to counter you with nonsense. I'm using LLM a fair bit so i'm not doom and gloom entirely on it, but i do think our adjustment period is going to be rough. Especially if we can't find a way to make the LLMs actually reliable.
- florianherrengt 1y ago
  If you can prompt AI that well, couldn't you just explain it to another human? Or is it the faster prototyping iterations that help them refine their ideas? As in, I'm not sure what I want so I'll use AI to build a few prototypes and clarify my ideas?
pier25 1y ago
Everyone who can afford it once AI companies actually start selling at a price that can generate profits. If people have to pay eg $100 for every of those prototypes I doubt they’ll be very popular. Sure it’s still cheaper than paying a dev but it will be expensive to iterate and experiment.
- NitpickLawyer 1y ago
  Open models are ~6mo behind current closed SotA, and are hosted by many parties that have no incentive to subsidise the cost, so they're making some profit already. The biggest thing in our favor is that there isn't just oAI. There are 3 main closed providers, and plenty of open models released every cycle. Even if they're gonna raise the prices, there's enough competition so that eventually it levels off at a point. I think that point will still be "affordable". Certainly cheaper than a full time dev, even outsourced.
- guluarte 1y ago
  the new wordpress/shopify blogs/sites/stores
silversmith 1y ago
I had an epiphany about this couple days ago. You know how the average dev will roll their eyes at taking over a maintenance of a "legacy" project. Where "legacy" means anything not written by themselves. Well, there will be a lot more of these maintenance takeovers soon. But instead of taking over the product of another dev agency that got fired / bankrupt / ..., you will take over projects from your marketing department. Apps implemented by the designers. Projects "kickstarted" by the project manager. Codebases at the point antropic / google / openai / ... tool became untenable. Most likely labelled as "just needs a little bit more work". These LLM tools are amazing for prototypes. Amazing. I could not be anywhere near as productive for churning out prototypes as claude code is, even if I really tried. And these prototypes are great tools for arriving at the true (or at least slightly better) requirements. Prototypes should get burned when "real" development starts. But they usually are not. And we're going to do much, much more prototyping in very near future.
- mjr00 1y ago
  > Apps implemented by the designers. Projects "kickstarted" by the project manager. Codebases at the point antropic / google / openai / ... tool became untenable. Most likely labelled as "just needs a little bit more work". True, but not a new thing! You've never known true development pain until you're told something from another department "needs some help to get productionized", only to find out that it's a 300 tab Excel file with nightmarish cross-tab interdependencies and VBA macros. Genuinely not sure if vibe coded Python would be an improvement for these type of "prototype" projects. They'll definitely continue to exist, though.
  - mandevil 1y ago
    A friend got hired by a defense contractor to be the first developer on a new project! Greenfield developing! It turned out the project was here are 30,000 lines of Fortran77 written by two scientists who got Ph.Ds in Geology in ~1985, please make this do X, Y, and Z. He left that job a week later. It never went on his resume or LinkedIn.
  - pbronez 1y ago
    Well… at least the vibe coded python codebase has better tooling. There are probably some cool tools for fixing rats nests of Macro’d Excel, but I’ve never found them.
florianherrengt 1y ago
It's great that more non developers can create their own software now and I made it clear that I'm in full agreement with this. What I'd argue is that people who build software professionally and got really good at it (or want to) focus on completely different types of projects where vide coding is irrelevant.

by clvx 1y ago

someothherguyy 1y ago

Yeah, like soon everyone will be a poet, or a multi-linguist, or a song writer, academic, copywriter, artist, counselor, etc. I think overzealous LLM hype is a sort of Gell-Man amnesia.

6510 1y ago
Reading that I thought everyone could be a series of APIs. We are all experts at something. Something like: when was building X at the end of Y street demolished?
joshdavham 1y ago
That’s a good way to think about it. AI can help me translate languages, but I’m definitely not a translator.
fragmede 1y ago
Depends how critical computers are to one's life, I think. I wouldn't call myself a cook, but I need to eat, so I can make a mean bowl of pasta when it comes down to it. Given another five-ten years of development, I expect tooling to develop that lets everyone automate computers to a degree previously reserved for professional programmers, akin to what the microwave oven did for cooking. The ability to microwave a hot pocket doesn't remotely make me a cook, but I won't starve, either.

cjcenizal 1y ago

Absolutely! AI coding is a communication lubricant. It enables non-technical people to express complex software ideas without the friction of asking a developer for help or even working with a no-code tool. Software development doesn't occur in a vacuum -- it's part of a broader ecosystem consisting of tech writers, product managers, sales engineers, support engineers, evangelists, and others. AI coding enables each person in the org to participate more efficiently in the scoping, design, and planning phases of software development.

bluefirebrand 1y ago
Instead of expecting anyone to raise their standards and learn the bare minimum about software development to have a conversation about it, we're lowering the bar Again and again and again
- clvx 1y ago
  who says it's about lowering the bar. If someone can build a more concrete view of their ideas which in most cases are requirements, then the conversation can be about nuances and not trying to figure it out what this person wants. I would say, It makes the conversation of the software development process easier because now you can discuss exactly why or why not it cannot be possible or the challenges you'll have to implement it.
  - unshavedyak 1y ago
    I do fear this framing though. It's going to be annoying with someone in a meeting using GPT on the side saying "No, it's totally possible to scale this way. Make it happen" because they're feeding what you say to a GPT to counter you with nonsense. I'm using LLM a fair bit so i'm not doom and gloom entirely on it, but i do think our adjustment period is going to be rough. Especially if we can't find a way to make the LLMs actually reliable.
florianherrengt 1y ago
If you can prompt AI that well, couldn't you just explain it to another human? Or is it the faster prototyping iterations that help them refine their ideas? As in, I'm not sure what I want so I'll use AI to build a few prototypes and clarify my ideas?

pier25 1y ago

Everyone who can afford it once AI companies actually start selling at a price that can generate profits. If people have to pay eg $100 for every of those prototypes I doubt they’ll be very popular. Sure it’s still cheaper than paying a dev but it will be expensive to iterate and experiment.

NitpickLawyer 1y ago
Open models are ~6mo behind current closed SotA, and are hosted by many parties that have no incentive to subsidise the cost, so they're making some profit already. The biggest thing in our favor is that there isn't just oAI. There are 3 main closed providers, and plenty of open models released every cycle. Even if they're gonna raise the prices, there's enough competition so that eventually it levels off at a point. I think that point will still be "affordable". Certainly cheaper than a full time dev, even outsourced.
guluarte 1y ago
the new wordpress/shopify blogs/sites/stores

silversmith 1y ago

I had an epiphany about this couple days ago. You know how the average dev will roll their eyes at taking over a maintenance of a "legacy" project. Where "legacy" means anything not written by themselves. Well, there will be a lot more of these maintenance takeovers soon. But instead of taking over the product of another dev agency that got fired / bankrupt / ..., you will take over projects from your marketing department. Apps implemented by the designers. Projects "kickstarted" by the project manager. Codebases at the point antropic / google / openai / ... tool became untenable. Most likely labelled as "just needs a little bit more work". These LLM tools are amazing for prototypes. Amazing. I could not be anywhere near as productive for churning out prototypes as claude code is, even if I really tried. And these prototypes are great tools for arriving at the true (or at least slightly better) requirements. Prototypes should get burned when "real" development starts. But they usually are not. And we're going to do much, much more prototyping in very near future.

mjr00 1y ago
> Apps implemented by the designers. Projects "kickstarted" by the project manager. Codebases at the point antropic / google / openai / ... tool became untenable. Most likely labelled as "just needs a little bit more work". True, but not a new thing! You've never known true development pain until you're told something from another department "needs some help to get productionized", only to find out that it's a 300 tab Excel file with nightmarish cross-tab interdependencies and VBA macros. Genuinely not sure if vibe coded Python would be an improvement for these type of "prototype" projects. They'll definitely continue to exist, though.
- mandevil 1y ago
  A friend got hired by a defense contractor to be the first developer on a new project! Greenfield developing! It turned out the project was here are 30,000 lines of Fortran77 written by two scientists who got Ph.Ds in Geology in ~1985, please make this do X, Y, and Z. He left that job a week later. It never went on his resume or LinkedIn.
- pbronez 1y ago
  Well… at least the vibe coded python codebase has better tooling. There are probably some cool tools for fixing rats nests of Macro’d Excel, but I’ve never found them.

florianherrengt 1y ago

It's great that more non developers can create their own software now and I made it clear that I'm in full agreement with this. What I'd argue is that people who build software professionally and got really good at it (or want to) focus on completely different types of projects where vide coding is irrelevant.