| AI is another step up the ladder of abstraction, another tool like linters, compilers, IDEs, code completion. Can Claude replace you? Have LLMs altered the software developer productivity equation? In 1987, Fred Brooks wrote [1]: "But, as we look to the horizon of a decade hence, we see no silver bullet. There is no single development, in either technology or in management technique, that by itself promises even one order-of-magnitude improvement in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity." Most companies do not measure software developer productivity. I have never been part of an organization that does. Will it collapse the economy? The last innovation to collapse the economy was credit default swaps. This says more about the economic systems we have built than technology or progress. No one knows what is going to happen. But humans are still necessary for every stage of labor, and software developers are still necessary for making software. [1] https://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/Outreach/pc204/NoSilverBullet.html |