Comment by avaer
5 days ago
Hot take: we (not I, but I reluctantly) will keep calling it code long after there's no code to be seen.
Like we did with phones that nobody phones with.
5 days ago
Hot take: we (not I, but I reluctantly) will keep calling it code long after there's no code to be seen.
Like we did with phones that nobody phones with.
Code isn't going anywhere. Code is multiple orders of magnitude cheaper and faster than an LLM for the same task, and that gap is likely to widen rather than contract because the bigger the AI gets the sillier it gets to use it to do something code could have done.
Compare the actual operations done for code to add 10 8-digit numbers to an LLM on the same task. Heck, I'll even say, forget the possibility the LLM may be wrong. Just compare the computational resources deployed. How many FLOPS for the code-based addition? How many for the LLM? That's a worst-case scenario in some ways but it also gives you a good sense of what is going on.
Humans may stop looking at it but it's not going anywhere.
I think grandparent comments were talking about how Codex designers try to push LLMs to displace the interface to code, not necessarily code itself. In that view, code could stay as the execution substrate, but the default human interaction layer moves upward, the way higher-level languages displaced direct interaction with lower-level ones. From a HCI perspective, raw computational efficiency is not the main question; the bottleneck is often the human, so the interface only has to be fast and reliable enough at human timescales.
Very much agree.
Everyday people can now do much more than they could, because they can build programs.
The idea that code is something sacred and only devs can somehow do it is dying, and I personally love it, as I am watching it enable so many of my friends and family who have no idea how to code.
Today, when we think of someone "using the computer" we gravitate towards people using apps, installing them, writing documents, playing games. But very rarely have we thought of it as "coding" or "making the computer do new things" -- that's been reserved, again, for coders.
Yet, I think that a future is fast approaching where using the computer will also include simply coding by having an agent code something for you. While there will certainly still be apps/programs that everyone uses, everyone will also have their own set of custom-built programs, often even without knowing it, because agents will build them, almost unprompted.
To use a computer will include _building_ programs on the computer, without ever knowing how to code or even knowing that the code is there.
There will of course still be room for coders, those who understand what's happening below. And of course that software engineers should know how to code (less and less as time goes on, though, probably), but no doubt to me that human-computer interaction will now include this level of sophistication.
We are living in the future and I LOVE IT!
> I am watching it enable so many of my friends and family who have no idea how to code.
Be careful what you wish for, this is going to be a double edged sword like YouTube is. YouTube allowed regular people without money and industry connections to make all sorts of quality, niche content. But for every bit of great content, there’s 1000 times as much garbage and outright misleading shit.
Giving people without any clue how computing works the ability to create software that interfaces with the outside world is likewise going to create some great stuff and 1000 times as much buggy and dangerous stuff. And allow untold numbers of scammers with no technical skill the ability to scam the wider world.
I'm aware, and I'll very much take those odds. This is just another problem for humanity to solve in its quest to empower itself.
I'm not sure how we're going to solve the obviously relevant problem of slop, but I would rather die trying, than restrict access to knowledge and capability because of evil. I believe in the GOOD of humanity. We WILL find a way.
> The idea that code is something sacred and only devs can somehow do it is dying, and I personally love it, as I am watching it enable so many of my friends and family who have no idea how to code.
People on HN are seriously delusional.
AI removed the need to know the syntax. Your grandma does not know JS but can one shot a React app. Great!
Software engineering is not and has never been about the syntax or one shotting apps. Software engineering is about managing complexity at a level that a layman could not. Your ideal word requires an AI that's capable of reasoning at 100k-1 million lines of code and not make ANY mistakes. All edge cases covered or clarified. If (when) that truly happens, software engineering will not be the first profession to go.
I wonder how good AI is at playing Factorio. That’s the closest thing I’ve ever done to programming without the syntax.
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I never said Software Engineering is dying or needs to go. I'm not the least bit afraid of it.
In fact, in the very message you're replying to, I hinted at the opposite (and have since in another post stated explicitly that I very much think the profession will still need to exist).
My ideal world already exists, and will keep getting better: many friends of mine already have custom-built programs that fit their use case, and they don't need anything else. This also didn't "eat" any market of a software house -- this is "DIY" software, not production-grade. That's why I explicitly stated this is a new way of human-computer-interaction, which it definitely is (and IMO those who don't see this are the ones clearly deluded).
> People on HN are seriously delusional.
Yes you sure are.
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> Everyday people can now do much more than they could, because they can build programs.
Indeed. Just spoke to a buddy, he's got some electronics knowledge, he's been code-curious but never gotten past very simple bash scripts and Excel sheets (vlookup etc to drive calculations).
He got himself a Claude subscription and has now implemented a non-trivial Arduino project, involving multiple CAN-bus modules and an interactive, dynamic web interface to control all this. The web interface detects the CAN-bus modules and populates the web interface based on that, and allows him to adjust the control logic.
It's a project he's had in his head for a few years and now was able to realize on his own (modulo Claude).
Exactly the kind of thing I've been seeing too. And often with people who know even less.
You spoke of an Arduino, and I have a friend with zero coding knowledge who built a fun project with an ESP32 and a tiny camera to detect when they are "not looking at the computer".
But, sure, people keep saying we're delusional when we say that this is where the world is headed: people building things, so often without even knowing they are doing anything "different" than what they were doing before, when they simply clicked buttons and "things just happened in the computer".
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i WISH we weren't phoning with them anymore, but people keep trying to send me actual honest-to-god SMS in the year 2026, and collecting my phone number for everything including the hospital and expect me to not have non-contact calls blocked by default even though there are 7 spam calls a day
In what world would I prefer to give someone access to me via a messaging app rather than a fully-async text SMS message? I don't even love that people can see if you've read their texts now.
Fully agree about phone calls though.
I believe that in all of South America people exclusively use WhatsApp to communicate via text because SMS is only used for spam and bad 2FA. Companies are even using WhatsApp for 2FA now instead of SMS and the fact that americans use SMS is viewed as a joke.
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Yeah, that's indeed a hot take. I am curious what kind of code you write for a living to have an opinion like this.
It's not the code I write, it's what I've noticed from people in 25 years of writing code in the corner.
All of my friends who would die before they use AI 2 years ago now call themselves AI/agentic engineers because the money is there. Many of them don't understand a thing about AI or agents, but CC/Codex/Cursor can cover up for a lot.
Consequently, if Claude Code/"coding agents" is a hot topic (which it is), people who know nothing about any of this will start raising money and writing articles about it, even (especially) if it has nothing to do with code, because these people know nothing about code, so they won't realize what they're saying makes no sense. And it doesn't matter, because money.
Next thing you know your grandma will be "writing code" because that's what the marketing copy says. That's all it takes for the zeitgeist to shift for the term "code". It will soon mean something new to people who had no idea what code was before, and infuriating to people who do know (but aren't trying to sell you something).
I know that's long-winded but hopefully you get where I'm coming from :D.
Well put, but I don't like it. Though, I've seen this exact pattern multiple times now.
Totally this. People who don't see this seem to think we're in some sort of "bubble" or that we don't "ship proper code" or whatever else they believe in, but this change is happening. Maybe it'll be slower than I feel, but it will definitely happen. Of course I'm in a personal bubble, but I've got very clear signs that this trend is also happening outside of it.
Here's an example from just yesterday. An acquaintance of mine who has no idea how to code (literally no idea) spent about 3 weeks working hard with AI (I've been told they used a tool called emergent, though I've never heard of it and therefore don't personally vouch for it over alternatives) to build an app to help them manage their business. They created a custom-built system that has immensely streamlined their business (they run a company to help repair tires!) by automating a bunch of tasks, such as:
- Ticket creation
- Ticket reporting
- Push notifications on ticket changes (using a PWA)
- Automated pre-screening of issues from photographs using an LLM for baseline input
- Semi-automated budgeting (they get the first "draft" from the AI and it's been working)
- Deep analytics
I didn't personally see this system, so I'm for sure missing a lot of detail. Who saw it was a friend I trust and who called me to relay how amazed they were with it. They saw that it was clearly working as intended. The acquaintance was thinking of turning this into a business on its own and my friend advised them that they likely won't be able to do so, because this is very custom-built software, really tailored to their use case. But for that use case, it's really helped them.
In total: ~3 weeks + around 800€ spent to build this tool. Zero coding experience.
I don't actually know how much the "gains" are, but I don't doubt they will definitely be worth it. And I'm seeing this trend more and more everywhere I look. People are already starting to use their computer by coding without knowing, it's so obvious this is the direction we're going.
This is all compatible with the idea of software engineering existing as a way of building "software with better engineering principles and quality guarantees", as well as still knowing how to code (though I believe this will be less and less relevant).
My experience using LLMs in contexts where I care about the quality of the code, as well as personal projects where I barely look at the code (i.e. "vibe coding") is also very clearly showing me that the direction for new software is slowly but surely becoming this one where we don't care so much about the actual code, as long as the requirements are clear, there's a plethora of tests, and LLMs are around to work with it efficiently (i.e. if the following holds -- big if: "as the codebase grows, developing a feature with an LLM is still faster than building it by hand") . It is scary in many ways, but agents will definitely become the medium through which we build software, and, my hot-take here (as others have said too) is that, eventually, the actual code will matter very little -- as long as it works, is workable, and meets requirements.
For legacy software, I'm sure it's a different story, but time ticks forward, permanently, all the time. We'll see.
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> Like we did with phones that nobody phones with.
Since when? HN is truly a bubble sometimes
Easily less than 10% of my time spent using a phone today involves making phone calls, and I think that's far from an outlier.
You'll cause mild panic in a sizable share of people under 30 if you call them without a warning text.
That’s a pretty far cry from “nobody makes phone calls”. You can also find people who spend 6+ hours on phone calls everyday, including people under 30.
On the flip side, I cause a medium panic in my daughter when I text "please call me when you can" without a why attached. She assumes someone's in the hospital or dying or something.
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