Me too, but a more optimistic view is that this is just a nascent form of higher-level programming languages. Gray-beards may bemoan that us "young" developers (born after 1970) can't write machine code from memory, but it's hardly a practical issue anymore. Analogously, I imagine future software dev to consist mostly of writing specs in natural language.
No one can write machine code from memory other by writing machine for years and just memorizing them. Just like you can't start writing Python without prior knowledge.
> Analogously, I imagine future software dev to consist mostly of writing specs in natural language.
> Me too, but a more optimistic view is that this is just a nascent form of higher-level programming languages.
I like this take. I feel like a significant portion of building out a web app (to give an example) is boilerplate. One benefit of (e.g., younger) developers using AI to mock out web apps might be to figure out how to get past that boilerplate to something more concise and productive, which is not necessarily an easy thing to get right.
In other words, perhaps the new AI tools will facilitate an understanding of what can safely be generalized from 30 years of actual code.
Web apps require a ton of boilerplate. Almost every successful web framework uses at least one type of metaprogramming, many have more than one (reflection + codegen).
I’d argue web frameworks don’t even help a lot in this regard still. They pile on more concepts to the leaky abstractions of the web. They’re written by people that love the web, and this is a problem because they’re reluctant to hide any of the details just in case you need to get to them.
Coworker argued that webdev fundamentally opposes abstraction, which I think is correct. It certainly explains the mountains of code involved.
I admit that my own feelings about this are heavily biased, because I _truly_ care about coding as a craft; not just a means to an end. For me, the inclusion of LLMs or AI into the process robs it of so much creativity and essence. No one would argue that a craftsman produces furniture more quickly than Wayfair, but all people would agree that the final product would be better.
It does seem inevitable that some large change will happen to our profession in the years to come. I find it challenging to predict exactly how things will play out.
I suppose the craft/art view of coding will follow the path of chess - machines gradually overtake humans but it's still an artform to be good at, in some sense.
