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This always comes back in cycles. You don’t need programmers, just have analysts write their requirements in English! And that’s how we got COBOL (common business-oriented language) and programmers didn’t disappear.
Then when had other stuff like “low code and no code”. Graphic designers with grant promises of “citizen developer”.
All these have failed to remove programmers entirely. Why? It’s straightforward: defining software requirements in a concise way can’t be done in a better way than in code. Because that’s code, translating the requirements in a language that both a human and a machine can interpret reliably.
AI can do a bunch of things via prompts but how many prompts is it going to take to make a complex piece of software? And who is going to check the code that specifications have been well implemented?
Yeah, I’ll impress a bunch of managers with simple CRUD applications, and prototypes and perhaps save a lot of time in repetitive, boring basic functions but programmers are going to be needed.
Edit: Oh and it is in Nvidia’s interest for companies to invest heavily in AI and buy their hardware so of course their CEO is promising AI will solve all your problems as long as you pay him $$$.
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I’m mostly terrified of what outsourced code is going to look like in a few years…
i wish i could remember who said it, but i saw a programmer say something like “chatgpt will now allow people to generate code instead of hiring programmers as long as they can clearly state the functionality they want. in other words, we’re safe”
I once heard about an analogous research project aiming at automatically generating correct application code. All you had to do is describe your application specifications using a new formal language for app specifications.
It would probably reduce the number of people capable of producing apps. A significant portion of programmers don’t know how to write formal specifications.
But I wonder if a large language model could discuss someone’s requirements in a plain-english discussion. Then turn that into a formal specification, that can be turned into code.
“make me a Facebook, but better”
That’s the typical crappy CEO attitude towards tech workers, maybe he’ll learn or maybe he won’t
lets not hold our breathe on them learning
🤣
I wonder if they are going to use that lie as an excuse to pay programmers less.
lol
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GPT-4 writes better code than the junior developers on my team. I wish they would use it as a rubber duck, at the least.
It often requires iteration and asking for certain things (logging, error handling, simplification/maintainability, etc.) but it gets there. I think it would eventually be possible to get AI at a place where it thinks about these things automatically instead of requiring prodding.
Still doesn’t replace people, but makes them more effective.
Yay, more bad programmers, exactly what we need! /s
