I understand this perspective. I'll just note that as the abilities increase, the intent is to have some non -coding IC or TPM/manager literally just managing some LLMs and cutting out some software engineers. The goodness is specifically to wholly replace people who code first and foremost, at least partially. It just has to cost less tokens than the equivalent wage is the pricing goal.
And people who use LLMs to talk for them (e.g. email, slack) are deplorable. A completely disrespectful use case in my view.
The desire to get rid of software engineers is bizarre - because at the root of it, developers were there not to just write the code, but to ask right questions and based on these question build right things.
I've met in my professional life some managers or other middlemen who would be profoundly incapable of producing correct software no matter how smart of an AI agent they have access to. One of those - you don't know what you don't know.
But, I guess this is the world we live in now. Going to be Mortal Kombat for positions in companies where software engineers are actually valued.
It depends a lot where you work because there are lots of companies in the world where the business analyst does all of that and the developers exist to mindlessly translate their docs into code.
That sounds like an unmotivating working arrangement. It’s so rewarding to understand a customer need and help with the design and implementation of the feature.
Having worked in places across both extremes (software engineer doing lots of other things including BD, hardware, ops, etc. to just being a JIRA ticket machine monkey), I am suspicious that HN readership is biased towards the former and frankly the bulk of "software engineers" in the world _willingly_ exist in the latter category. I didn't experience the latter until later in my career and God Almighty was it uncomfortable, but I think if AI were to displace some subset of "software engineers" it would those (they also seem to overwhelmingly dislike writing any prose whatsoever, which to me is a major tell). Many, many software engineers outside of hotshot shops seem either incapable or profoundly averse to "asking the questions" as you say.
Most here on HN know sweatshops exists but seemed they think not people work there or use them. I have worked with (via clients who used them) programmers in enormous buildings in Bangalore, who have a camera behind them so you can watch your people 247 and who just mindlessly transform jira tickets into code; I keep saying; there is zero use for all those millions of people at all; seems HN does not believe that because they seem to not believe these people exist. I worked with many over the past 30 years and by far most have no real clue what they are doing so I also doubt they can be re educated for a new co existence with LLMs.
It seems that you've not worked out how to harness the LLM as a tool to improve your qualified knowledge and abilities in a domain, and have instead focused on whether or not its a crutch for lack of knowledge or laziness.
When paired with your skill and knowledge, it is a force multiplier. You maintain control, the ability to direct, structure, strategise, and refine.
That some are using it as the entire brain does not mean that this is how everyone is using it, or how you must use it. The models can be fantastic at breaking past certain issues, surfacing qualified information, and surfacing related distributed information to help you acquire it and pick up what you need on niche topics quickly. Something as basic as copilot hooked into sharepoint can make life a lot easier when you are in a big org. Something like claude code or codex can be great at hunting down issues in an unfamiliar code base rapidly. Whether or not you outsource the thinking component is entirely up to you, but ignoring the productivity side of the tool because it can do some of the thinking is a case of focusing too hard on the negative.
Im not denying its usefulness for Q&A on docs/code as a search tool. Im talking about people who use it design and write their code, people who are offloading problem solving altogether, they aren't faster.
Yeah there are some tasks which it is a definite speed-up but I think overall its probably only marginally beneficial. Which is why, ~6 months into 10x productivity we aren’t seeing ai boosters shipping 5 years worth of software.
You're fighting a battle you can't win. Doesn't care what you think about those using LLMs, they will outproduce you and in corporate environments, shipping things is paramount. If I can ship 5 more things simultaneously with AI, I'm going to beat you even if you think you're creating "better" software.
Okay. I rebuilt my website in ~a month with the help of Opus 4.7/.8 and it would have taken me, unaided human, at least 6 months. Link's in my bio if you care.
Satisfied now? Will you stop asking this question? Thought not.
Why would this have taken 6 months? No offense, but this is a few days work without llms (assuming the content already exists). This should not have taken a month.
Also, not trying to be an asshole. Props for not making it look like every other llm generated slop site, Its just not a great example.
I asked claude to crawl the website and summarize its findings, took about 10minutes. I'm not sure I would've done it faster, but i have no doubt you couldve done it in 5, and grokked the pages faster than an llm too. but anyway heres what claude said:
Based on what I already saw across those 2,924 pages, here's the summary:
It's a one-person business selling a file organisation methodology called Johnny.Decimal. Three paid products (personal, business, university/course tier). A substantial blog — 200+ posts, updated weekly. Full documentation for the system. A support knowledge base.
The technical ambition is higher than the aesthetic suggests. One person built auth, payments, entitlement-gated downloads, a CLI, an API, AI tooling, self-hosted analytics, self-hosted email (Listmonk on PikaPods), personalized search, and keyboard navigation with server-synced state. Then wrote 200 blog posts about using the system in real life.
The "Written by humans" footer is not a boast about the font. It's a position statement from someone who has thought carefully about AI, published an essay about it, and is making a deliberate choice. Every word on the site was written by the creator. Whether you agree with the choice or not, that's not the same as someone who slapped a SSG together.
That's not a terrible read of the site's tech. It over-sells it a touch – I use Umami for analytics, for example – but yeah, auth, payments, entitlement-gated downloads, those downloads adapt to the app you've selected in your settings, yada yada.
I never said I was a good dev! That's why it would have taken me 6 months. To pretend that I could have done it in days is just silly.
My point – site roast over – is that it's absurd to suggest that LLMs don't help anyone 'ship' faster. Like them or not, it's a fact that they do.
At this point, why would anyone in their right mind respond to this question and paint a target for all manner of negativity ranging from snark to harassment to malicious action?
> target for all manner of negativity ranging from snark to harassment to malicious action
We get get the Borg-esque "resistance is futile" spiel, someone asks for examples. One guy (kinda smugly tbh) points us to his (neat) online course website, claiming that it took him 1 month to rebuild with Claude, ergo GP is right and the non-AI dev is destined to extinction. As WooCommerce didn't end all web development before, he gets some good-natured ribbing.
I find the AI booster dynamic of "you are fool and will get replaced" to "I'm a smoll defenseless bean" kinda puzzling.
That is not a coherent reply to my point, which is that you guys are like school yard bullies to people naive enough to throw chum into the water.
We've seen this play out so many times. Nobody working on anything serious is going to volunteer to be a target for your BS.
I sincerely wish that people would stop falling for the "prove you're not hallucinating" trap. If winning was possible - and it's not - there would be no prize but more snark and harassment.
I didn't say Mr. Johnny was hallucinating, or that he's lying. Was finding the "Written by humans" humorous the most polite comment ever? No, but it is absurd to call it harassment. Specially considering it matched his energy.
His website is cool, and from what I could skim from the content I'm sure his clients are happy and find it worthwhile. I'm not being facetious. He said Claude saved him time, which is true. Regardless of that, I believe he wildly overestimated how much time it would've taken. A website that could be a Wordpress install with plugins isn't technically interesting. It does not validate what @halfmatthalfcat said.
LLMs are capable and impressive. I'm not doubting that, but we do this song and dance [0] each time of grandiose statements and subsequent disappointment. My wariness is not violence against you or anybody.
I specially resent being called a bully for not coaching my language in every possible way. I'm not the avatar of your every forum trauma.
To be clear, you took something that I said generally - and is not just easily defended but obvious - and made it all about you and your comment.
The pattern I'm talking about is easily repeatable. Someone says that they used LLMs to do something, people demand to see proof, and no matter what it is a sockpuppet army arrives on cue to insult and snipe. It doesn't matter if it's total shit or really impressive, it's the kneejerk aspect that makes it unsane to actually take the bait.
Meanwhile, everyone in this thread seems to assume that the website Mr. Johnny was talking about having used LLMs to build quickly was the one linked in his profile. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but the river of snark was flowing before anyone had any confirmation of what they were actually supposed to be shitty about.
That's the tip off that you are a member of a pack of bullies, whether you're consciously aware of it or not. If you were actually offering opinions in good faith, you'd clarify the subject before jumping to snark.
