Comment by ElProlactin
11 hours ago
> I absolutely believe that. I think those are people with "software brain" who are on their way to becoming real developers.
In my opinion, this is a software developer-centric way of thinking that reminds me of the saying, "if all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail."
Here's an alternative perspective:
For billions of people, technology products are an integral part of daily life. As a result, lots of people have an interest in building technology products, particularly software. Thanks to AI, you no longer need to be a "real developer" to build software. You can learn enough to build things that are commercially viable without seeking to be employed as a developer.
> If we want to stay employed, we need to be notably better at building software than they are.
While I don't believe that the market for developers will shrink to 0, unfortunately, I think this type of comment reflects the fear, existential angst and denial that has overtaken many people in this industry.
The reality is that developers are no different than all the displaced workers who came before them. One day you had a job that seemed secure and capable of providing for a comfortable life and the next you were facing the prospect of diminished wages and unemployment because the world simply needs fewer people with your skills and there's no way around the secular trend.
The sad irony is that when software was eating the world and new CompSci grads could take their pick of $150,000+ job offers before ever writing a line of production code, a lot of people in the industry had a smug "tough luck" attitude towards all the workers being displaced by the tech boom. Now it's their turn.
Maybe the tools are going to get to a point where this isn't true but today even with Claude Code at whatever at hand you're going to have to learn enough about software to basically be a developer in the traditional sense to deliver a multi-tenant application that has to deal with high TPS or whatever. At least at present you're positing there's no need for carpenters because the home gamer can knock together a table or birdhouse at home.
> ...to deliver a multi-tenant application that has to deal with high TPS or whatever.
There's a whole world of opportunity that lives below complex multi-tenant applications that have to deal with high TPS.
> At least at present you're positing there's no need for carpenters because the home gamer can knock together a table or birdhouse at home.
This is an extreme, straw man argument. And here's the thing: I don't know a home gamer who framed a house. But I do know tech-savvy people who have used AI to build web apps that they have launched and been able to get customers to pay for.
Not every tech-savvy person has the ability to do this but the whole "you can't do that if you're not a software developer" argument looks to me like a denial mechanism more than a reflection of reality. People are doing it because the AI tools have advanced to the point where they can.
Why is anyone paying for these apps if any idiot can do it with a few prompts?
2 replies →
> The sad irony is that when software was eating the world and new CompSci grads could take their pick of $150,000+ job offers before ever writing a line of production code, a lot of people in the industry had a smug "tough luck" attitude towards all the workers being displaced by the tech boom. Now it's their turn.
You could've just written this sentence and dropped the rest. I understand your vindictive, "justice", self-hate line of thought, but not it's not a healthy way to live. Get help.
Another angle to refute this take: my experience is software developers themselves arent good at building software products. Its been historically necessary but not sufficient to have to understand the underlying tech. Even if AI makes that no longer necessary, it doesn’t magically make people good at building useful and usable things.
Being in the weeds of the trade expands the lens of capabilities so I’d give the upper hand to someone more deeply aware of the tech vs not. even though that in itself is still not sufficient.