We're about due for some new computing abstractions to shake things up I think. Those won't be conceived by LLMs, though they may aid in implementing them.

It’s fascinating watching the sudden resurgence of interest in software architecture after people are finding it helps LLMs move quickly. It has been similarly beneficial for humans as well. It’s not rocket science. It got maligned because it couldn’t be reduced to an npm package/discrete process that anyone could follow.

Asked it to spot check a simple rate limiter I wrote in TS. Super basic algorithm: let one action through every 250ms at least, sleeping if necessary. It found bogus errors in my code 3 times because it failed to see that I was using a mutex to prevent reentrancy. This was about 12 lines of code in total.

My rubber duck debugging session was insightful only because I had to reason through the lack of understanding on its part and argue with it.

The problem with this argument is many do not believe this sort of leverage is possible outside of a select few domains, so we're sort of condemned to stay at a low level of abstraction. We comfort ourselves by saying it is pragmatic.

LLMs target this because the vast, vast majority of code is not written like this, for better or for worse. (It's not a value judgment, it just is.) This is a continuation (couldn't resist) of the trend away from things like SICP. Even the SICP authors admitted programming had become more about experimentation and gluing together ready-made parts than building beautifully layered abstractions which enable programs to just fall out of easily.

I don't agree with the author, BTW. Good code is needed in certain things. It's just a lot of the industry really tries to beat it out of you. That's been the case for awhile. What's different now is that devs themselves are seemingly joining in (or at least, are being perceived to be).

I'd put intelligence in quotes there, but it doesn't detract from the point.

It is astounding to me how willfully ignorant people are being about the massive aggregation of power that's going on here. In retrospect, I don't think they're ignorant, they just haven't had to think about it much in the past. But this is a real problem with very real consequences. Sovereignty must be occasionally be asserted, or someone will infringe upon it.

That's exactly what's happening here.

I argue popularity is insufficient signal. React as tech is fine, but the market of devs who it is aimed at may not be the most discerning when it comes to quality.

The pay is nice but I find myself…remarkably unenvious as I get older.

I'm not sure what your take is, but this reads like goalpost shifting.

If one of the biggest orgs that practically mandates some amount of LLM use cannot surface productivity gains from them after using them for several years, then that speaks volumes.

Reality has a way of showing itself eventually.

The status quo, which always require an order of magnitude more effort to overcome. There's also a substantial portion of the population that needs well-defined power hierarchies to feel psychologically secure.