Comment by masfoobar
20 days ago
> "we didn't really need to learn python" because AI was going to take over anyways
Wow! I think this is an extreme comment to make. I get it.. but WOW! It really makes you wonder about the future of universities. If the answer is to let AI do our work.. even to cheat in final exams... what is the point of universities? Not only are we talking about Software Engineers dying.. but so if his lecturer job!
Anyway..
I am developer for over 20 years.
I have kids -- both are not even teenagers... but there are times I think to myself "is it worth them learning XYZ" because of AI?
By the time my eldest get his first job.. we are talking (atleast) around year 2032. We have to accept that AI is going to do some pretty cool things. HOWEVER, I still "believe" that AI will work alongside software developers. We still need to communicate with it - to do that, you need to understand how to communicate with it.
Point is, if any of my kids express interest in computer programming in the next year or so, I will HAPPILY encourage them to invest time in it. What I have to accept is that they will use AI.. a lot.. to build something in their chosen language.
I can see this being a typical question for new coders:-
"Can you create a flappy bird game in python"
Sure.. AI might spit something out in a matter of minutes and it might even work, but are they really learning? I think I would encourage my kids to ban using AI for (around) 4 days a week.
At the end of the day it is very difficult to know our future. Sometimes I have to think about my future.. not just my kids. I mean, would my job as a software engineer be over? If so, when? What would I do?
Overall It doesn't not bother me because I do think my role will transition with AI but for the younger generation, it can be a grey area understanding where they fit in all this.
I try to be optimistic that the next 100 years will be a very exiciting time for the human race (if we do not destroy ourselves beforehand)
To counter your lecturer, I am reminded of a John Carmack quote: "Low-level programming is good for the programmer's soul"
Not even low-level -- any programming. If you really like to code, you are going to learn it whether in School, College, or University. To me, the best times I learned was outside of official education, shutting myself away in my bedroom. "Official education" is nothing more that doing what you are told for a peice of paper. What is its worth these days?
Whether AI exists or not - those that like coding will invest the time to code. This is what will seperate average to good programmers or developers. What seperates a good programmer to a great programmer will be their lack or AI generated code... to DIY!
Thats my view... but this is a large topic and I am only scratching the surface.
At the end of the day, the question is what do you do when things aren't working. Being resilient in the face of failure is the most important skill. If AI in 2032 never gets stuck anywhere ever, then that's a totally different world we'd living in. So assuming we don't, that's the underlying thing to pass on to your kids, regardless of the actual details. Just the other day I was vibe coding and the code had two fields for date and time instead of one timestamp field and it kept getting confused, but I had to go into the code and actually read it to figure out what went wrong. Low level programming is important for programmers because you have to dig deeper to find gold. The program isn't working like it's supposed to? look at the source. The library being called by that program isn't behaving like it's supposed to? look at the source. The binary doesn't match the source? stick it in a decompiler. At the end of the day, that's where the true value lies.
> If AI in 2032 never gets stuck anywhere ever, then that's a totally different world we'd living in.
Well, this. And at that point we'd likely be facing the same situation in just about every other information-intensive field as well. Yet it doesn't seem like anybody has any idea how to prepare students (or anybody else) for that kind of a future.
It seems absurd to give up on learning and understanding things ourselves because of a hypothetical future for which nobody has a better plan anyway.