[tjchear]

If we sees ourselves less as a programmer and more as a software builder, then it doesn’t really matter if our programming skills atrophy in the process of adopting this tool, because it affords us to build at a higher abstraction level), kind of like how a PM does it. This up-leveling in abstractions have happened over and over in software engineering as our tooling improves over time. I’m sure some excellent software engineers here couldn’t write in assembly code to save their lives, but are wildly productive and respected for what they do - building excellent software.

That said, as long as there’s the potential for AI to hallucinate, we’ll always need to be vigilant - for that reason I would want to keep my programming skills sharp.

AI assisted software building by day, artisanal coder by night perhaps.

[stemlord]

Isn't this the exact reason why modern software is so bloated?

[tjchear]

I think this question can be answered in so many ways - first of all, piling abstraction doesn’t automatically imply bloating - with proper compile time optimizations you can achieve zero cost abstractions, e.g C++ compilers.

Secondly, bloated comes in so many forms and they all have different reasons. Did you mean bloated as in huge dependency installs like those node modules? Or did you mean an electron app where a browser is bundled? Or perhaps you mean the insane number of FactoryFactoryFactoryBuilder classes that Java programmers have to bear with because of misguided overarchitecting? The 7 layer of network protocols - is that bloating?

These are human decisions - trade-offs between delivering values fast and performance. Foundational layers are usually built with care, and the right abstractions help with correctness and performance. At the app layers, requirements change more quickly and people are more accepting of performance hits, so they pick tech stacks that you would describe as bloated for faster iteration and delivery of value.

So even if I used abstraction as an analogy, I don’t think that automatically implies AI assisted coding will lead to more bloat. If anything it can help guide people to proper engineering principles and fit the code to the task at hand instead of overarchitecting. It’s still early days and we need to learn to work well with it so it can give us what we want.

[fragmede]

You'd have to define bloat first. Is internationalization bloat? How about screen reader support for the blind? I mean, okay, Excel didn't need a whole flight simulator in it, but just because you doing don't you use a particular feature doesn't mean it's necessarily bloat. So first: define bloat.

[card_zero]

Some termite mounds in Botswana already reach over two meters high, but these traditional engineering termites will be left behind in their careers if they don't start using AI and redefine themselves as mound builders.