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by dakiol 65 days ago
> I completely see your point, but when my / developer time is worth what it is compared to the cost of a frontier model subscription, I'm wary of choosing anything but the best model I can.

Don't you understand that by choosing the best model we can, we are, collectively, step by step devaluating what our time is worth? Do you really think we all can keep our fancy paychecks while keep using AI?
1 comments
gbro3n 65 days ago
Do you think if you or me stopped using AI that everyone else will too? We're still what we always were - problem solvers who have gained the ability to learn and understand systems better that the general population, communicate clearly (to humans and now AIs). Unfortunately our knowledge of language APIs and syntax has diminished in value, but we have so many more skills that will be just as valuable as ever. As the amount of software grows, so will the need for people who know how to manage the complexity that comes with it.
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lelanthran 65 days ago
> Unfortunately our knowledge of language APIs and syntax has diminished in value, but we have so many more skills that will be just as valuable as ever.

There were always jobs that required those "many more skills" but didn't require any programming skills.

We call those people Business Analysts and you could have been doing it for decades now. You didn't, because those jobs paid half what a decent/average programmer made.

Now you are willingly jumping into that position without realising that the lag between your value (i.e. half your salary, or less) would eventually disappear.

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gbro3n 64 days ago
I guess we will need to wait and see if AI can remove ALL of the complexity that requires a software engineer over a business analyst. I can't currently believe that it will. BA's I've worked with vary in technical capability from 'having coded before and understanding DB schema basics and network architecture' to 'I know how the business works but nothing about computers'. If we got to the point in the future where every computer system ran on the same frameworks in the same way, and AI understood it perfectly, then maybe. But while AI is a probabilistic technology manipulating deterministic systems, we will always need people to understand whats going on, and whether they write a lot of code or not, they will be engineers, not analysts. Whether it's more or less of those people, we will see.
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lelanthran 64 days ago
> If we got to the point in the future where every computer system ran on the same frameworks in the same way, and AI understood it perfectly, then maybe.

They don't need to all run on the same frameworks, they just need to run on documented frameworks.

What possible value can you bring to a BA?

The system topology (say, if the backend was microservices vs Lambda vs something-else)? The LLM can explain to the BA what their options are, and the impact of those options.

The framework being used (Vue, or React, or something else)? The AI can directly twiddle that for the BA.

Solving a problem? If the observability is setup, the LLM can pinpoint almost all the problems too,and with a separate UAT or failover-type replica, can repro, edit, build, deploy and test faster than you can.

Like I already said, if[1] you're now able to build or enhance a system without actually needing programming skills, why are you excited about that? You could always do that. It's just that it pays half what programming skills gets you.

You (and many others who boast about not writing code since $DATE) appear to be willingly moving to a role that already pays less, and will pay even less once the candidates for that role double (because now all you programmers are shifting towards it).

It's supply and demand, that's all.

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[1] That's a very big "If", I think. However, the programmers who are so glad to not program appear to believe that it's a very small "If", because they're the ones explaining just how far the capabilities have come in just a year, and expect the trend to continue. Of course, if the SOTA models never get better than what we have now, then, sure - your argument holds - you'll still provide value.

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