Software developers, anyone still writing code?
Over the last few months where I worked* have gone AI (LLM) mad coming to a head last week when it was decreed that all coding must be AI first, we are not to start writing code and deadlines have been set for productivity increases. Now I'm not a luddite and quite like using AI in editor as it saves a lot of tedious typing but using agenic AI to generate masses of code and tests for a longterm product feels a lot like trading velocity for maintainability and stability. Also the reality of of what the coders are finding using AI and the expectations of management are different, and that's before we go into how long someone can work at the productivity level expected or how long before they lose their coding ability.
I'm interested how other devs are finding it?
*took voluntary redundancy before the latest directives.
Only using it for reducing tedious bits in the editor and for suggestions on how to get something to work (the cases when you know it is possible but can't quite nail the syntax). In the last case it frequently generates crap.
Not a proper dev but I'm using it to write a Kotlin app for myself (knowing nothing about Kotlin or app development). I've used a combination of pretty much all the public free ones and none of them are error free. I was also lazy a while back and couldn't be bothered to look up the syntax for a bit of M so asked Copilot which completely made up a function that does not and never has existed in M. Python I'll still hand crank but VS Code sometimes helps with filling in stuff, but sometimes just goes off on a tangent.
So no unless commercial versions are substantially ahead of the public offerings I wouldn't trust it for any large project with real clients.
We are pretty much AI first now. With the lens of an old fart that's been doing this a long time, my realisation are this...
- We stopped writing assembly code a long time ago an moved to modern, managed languages, so appropriately asking AI to write the code could look like another stop along this journey. Just zoomed out another level.
- Writing the code was never the bottle neck, and if anyone wants enterprise grade, maintainable solutions, then currently there really does need to be a human in the loop, designing, reviewing and building. I now spend way more time reviewing monster PRs and explaining mine to others which takes significant time to do properly.
- The flow state of physically writing code is something I miss, and something that really imprints new frameworks (or entire stack) into my mental understanding. I'm finding it harder to really understand newer stuff without that. But then the flip side is a massive leg up in near instant productivity.
- With those points in mind, I wonder how we get new juniors up to the experience / knowledge of currently senior or lead engineers where they've only experienced agentic development. Perhaps they won't need to, such is the pace of AI improvement.
/ scurries of to the "how much money do I need to retire" thread.
We don't routinely write code with AI but we do use AI for code reviews and its way more effective and robust than human developers.
Posted by: sam_underhill- Writing the code was never the bottle neck, and if anyone wants enterprise grade, maintainable solutions, then currently there really does need to be a human in the loop, designing, reviewing and building. I now spend way more time reviewing monster PRs and explaining mine to others which takes significant time to do properly.
/ scurries of to the "how much money do I need to retire" thread.
This is exactly what we've found, it generates so much code you end up with the bottleneck being massive code reviews, we've been pushing to break the tasks into smaller chunks that are properly reviewable rather than massive PRs where in all honestly any human is just going to skim that it looks alright. Management have already asked if AI can code review its own work, I'm glad I've stepped out of this, I'm not quite in the retirement window yet but any future code work is going to be small company only and NO American management.
I'm a Data Engineer and I have been writing scripts to automatically generate elements of my code for the last decade anyway. I've challenged myself to be AI first now. I good approach I've found is to use AI/manual coding to create a template/style and then ask AI to amend it for different requirements. This way I have more control over what it is doing and it also makes the output code look handwritten. Right now I'm using AI to double the number of clients I can work with. I believe the next few years is a golden opportunity to gain an advantage while organisations and people are getting to grips with AI.
Posted by: polyWe don't routinely write code with AI but we do use AI for code reviews and its way more effective and robust than human developers.
How have you assessed that? I don't doubt it's true, but I'd be interested to learn how you have proved it.
It's over.*
* unless you have a niche thats not represented well in the training data, eg my BIL who works in genomics. They use LLM's for all their dashboards and what not, but the actual science stuff AI can't handle at all.
Safety critical engineer here. Coding was only ever 10% of a project effort. So there's that.
AI is changing how software gets made in the first place. For sure. As noted above, we used to use punch cards write assembler code and now we use high level languages and soon we'll use a quasi-legal style of English language.
AI can be really quick to get first drafts off the ground. It's astonishingly good at getting cookie cutter application type code together. The more your thing looks like other things the more useful it is.
But.
It's astonishingly bad at the difficult stuff. It produces mountains of code. It's really quick at always doing something. That last point is the killer, you can travel at light speed in the wrong direction. Experience is absolutely needed here.
So yeah, whilst AI can help with most of the SW design development and testing process, it won't replace humans. The bus still needs driving. The bus just got faster. You also still need experienced people to drive that bus and to teach the juniors where the steering wheel is and what brakes look like.
Last thought, any company that hard pivots to AI is going to find life easy for a short time and then very difficult, very quickly, I would guess.
The main indications are:Posted by: oldtennisshoesPosted by: polyWe don't routinely write code with AI but we do use AI for code reviews and its way more effective and robust than human developers.
How have you assessed that? I don't doubt it's true, but I'd be interested to learn how you have proved it.
- time to get the code reviewed - fallen from "when someone got a chance" to "as quick as the AI can process it" = a few minutes
- number of times errors are detected in formal testing and sent back for rework (which hits release schedules)
- number of "escaped bugs" reported by customers after release
But anecdotally the devs are also reporting:
- its spotting stuff we would have missed before
- it is not reading the requirements with the inherent bias we have and so is forcing better requirement writing / clarification too
From a people management perspective it also seems to avoid me getting into the politics of personalities about who is being a ****, or who is perceived as being an arse about feedback. We do have a human escalation process when the developer doesn't like the AI response, and its used very little. But more code actually goes through an improvement/change at the code review rather than being rubber stamped.