Comment by tnelsond4
4 days ago
Even back in the day you had to buy programming books and courses if you wanted to learn how to make the best code. That wasn't free. It's really not all that different from LLMs, you can code without them, but they're a good resource to help you when you're stuck. There's a billion free LLMs you can use, Grok, duck.ai, etc. you don't need money or a subscription to vibe code.
This is directly addressed by the author and part of the post? Tools were very expensive until gcc etc., and the internet made excellent free guides available.
and there are free models available. and free ways to run them...
they also addressed this and talked about how competitive models can't run on the weaker hardware most people have
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...that require fairly expensive computers.
>Even back in the day you had to buy programming books and courses if you wanted to learn how to make the best code. That wasn't free
"Even before the extinction level meteor hit Ohio, there were tiny meteors hitting Earth all the time, it wasn't that safe either".
You can still write code without LLMs, much like you can write code without modern IDEs, or use C and assembly instead of higher-level languages. But there are significant differences between the skills you learn in the process, which I believe inhibits upward mobility.
Well, way back in the day, dev tools weren't free, either, for the most part.
In the 80s, a good compiler would cost several hundred dollars. Relentless competition pushed the prices down to zero.
There are those who started playing with computers when compilers were often more expensive than the computer they ran on, and those who came after you could download an entire "Unix" system and toolchain for free.
Entire industries and massive companies existed for tools and tooling that is now considered free and table-stakes. Heck, an operating system used to cost money and didn't come with much at all!
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Along with distribution costs for information going to near zero.
I'm not sure how true that is. There was copious free information on the internet to learn about coding.
I was fortunate to grow up when the internet was full of free learning resources, but there was a time just before that when you really did need physical books to get beyond the basics.
I remember talking to people a couple decades older than me and being confused when they talked about having to buy compilers, too.