It’s entirely possible that what we’re doing now is the last project we’ll all work on (I’m planning ten years on this project)
Rather than debate that, let’s just make our current projects as awesome as possible
Maybe I'm wrong. But I just don't see it. I see it greatly increasing the productivity of developers, and removing the need for certain tasks, but not removing the need for them entirely.
I’ve been using Cursor for a month or two, as it’s a great speedup and a big step forward in DX. I’ve also been periodically browsing r/cursor, to see if I can pick up any workflow tips. I can see a clear distinction between fellow devs using it as a powerful coding tool (as intended), and the no-code folks trying to use it as an application generator.
A few of the latter have some success and showcase the things they’ve built, but the majority who post on the subreddit vent similar frustrations :
- Trying to build an app one tab press at a time without understanding the code, so unable to fix inevitable problems when chat is unable to.
- Relying heavily on the Composer or Agent features, which sometimes merrily erases chunks of code or entire files. Unable to recover work because unaware of Local History or VCS.
- Running out of fast response credits because 500 are bundled per month. The ideal workflow is to give harder things to Claude or O1, and delegate easier things to gpt4o-mini (which is unmetered). But that only helps if you know which tasks are harder or easier.
It’s not, obviously, but I wouldn’t want to be in the bottom 50% … you can end up being the person who fixes the LLM-generated code but that’s awful.
Just like there are lots of layoffs now, but also many areas of new growth, it’s hard to imagine how the opportunities will evaporate.
Stay flexible and don’t drink the “end of the dev” kool-aid. Don’t paint yourself into a corner - especially not a corner that is ripe for LLM-efficiency takeover.
You guys are too focused on whether AI can code. The story is much much bigger than that.
> the master control system needed for the Optimus/droid future
all righty then.
I love my job, but I can’t see myself doing it for the rest of my life. I have greater ambitions than that, and what’s stopping me from pursuing them is that implementation of big things is really hard. If AI makes implementation much easier, then that makes pursuing those things really worthwhile.
Because, to be blunt, if you don't have that something, why would an AI doing the grunt work help you? Everyone else will have the same advantage.
And if you do have that something, why let your day job stop you from tackling it?
I just don't understand why AI would change anything fundamentally for you.
I know how to talk to people, I have 30 years of industry experience and I’m technical and up to date. Other people have that combination of skills but it’s rare enough.
I doubt AI will be getting to that point in my lifetime, but if it did, it would be amazing
Software is nowhere close to done "eating the world". I see endless opportunities to apply software to remove drudgery; anything that helps me do that faster is a win.
Fair enough. It's a very approximate model tho; even C++ is operating at a very high level of abstraction. To me, what's more important is what it does, not how it does it. To use an LLM effectively you absolutely have to understand what it's doing; for software, that's the code it generates and the domain/ecosystem the software operates in. Conceptually, it's not that different from what senior ICs have been doing for ages, when they delegate to less-senior ICs