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by smoldesu 1040 days ago
I think the problem with that is the same reason why "no code" platforms struggle to succeed. Writing software without understanding control flow or libraries or APIs is practically impossible. Instead of being a liberating experience like it should be, it becomes a confining and frustrating one where you don't understand what is and isn't possible.

LLMs will work really well when developers know what they want and how to ask for it, same with many no-code platforms. If you don't understand programming though, you can't even know if your request is possible.
2 comments
shafyy 1039 days ago
I've worked a fair amount with a client that was using a no-code platform (Bubble) and I agree. These platforms make it easy to get started, but quickly their users get stuck at problems that would take me 2 lines of code to solve, but they just get stuck at the glass walls of the no-code platform.

Now, is it still better that no-code platforms exists and give non-technical people the chance to get started? Yes, probably. But the transition path is not clear to me, since no-code platforms don't want their users to move on. So, naturally, they evolve to do more and more complex stuff, which in turn makes their whole platform more complicated and scares off their very target audience.

So now, you need to hire agencies and "no-code developers" to work on your no-code app. Back at square one.

I can see the same story playing out with AI-based coding. If you don't know coding, AI-based coding is just a layer on top of a no-code platform.

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pylua 1040 days ago
That is true. I have seen this first hand with bpmn tools such as camunda, where the analysts simply cannot wrap their head around it.

However, over time you will need to describe less and less of the code for a large majority of use cases. I expect Generative AI will be able to take more generic prompts based on a specific vendor and really generate more with less prompting given context of whatever you are targeting. Ie azure , camunda, etc

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dragonwriter 1040 days ago
> However, over time you will need to describe less and less of the code for a large majority of use cases

Over the same time, the sophistication demanded of software will expand to more than offset this.

Source: this process of advancing tooling and advancing demands has been going on the whole time software has existed, with a consistent pattern.

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