| > There's a name for seeing the past through rose-colored glasses, isn't there? > "In the old days" developers had various degrees of skill and care, as they do "in the new days". Yes, but "various" isn't a fixed ratio. While there have always been unskilled and careless developers, the ratio in the past could have been better and the ratio now could be worse. Personally I've seen the decline over my career, in my little corner. But I wouldn't attribute it to generative AI, rather: 1. The rise of offshoring ("Why hire a skilled American developer when you can hire ten of the cheapest possible offshore developers instead?"). Skilled and careful developers don't want to get paid the cheapest wages, so this increases the proportion of unskilled and careless developers that you have to deal with everyday. 2. Programming being perceived as a well-paying, desirable job. That changes the kind of people who try to pursue it. When it was seen as mostly the domain of looked-down-on nerds, you got a greater proportion of people who where passionate about it. If it's seen as the last of the good-paying jobs, you'll get more people doing it for the money who don't really like it. This is also a factor in the offshoring situation above. It's totally plausible that generative AI will accelerate the trends and make them even worse, but the trends didn't start with it. |