We aren't, but the AI Labs no doubt are. They just can't release it right now because their bread and butter is still developers burning tokens, so there is still a business problem to solve.

Lack of information. When you are on the building side you become blind to its faults. Consumers almost never tell you what isn't good about it.

> why is it all still so buggy?

Also lack of information. I haven't seen any bugs in years in the things I've worked on. LLMs have closed every last obvious testing gap, squashing any outstanding bugs there. That's not to say it is all bug-free now, but what bugs users may be experiencing aren't being reported.

AI is good at building software, but it is still not good at consuming software like actual consumers do.

I have been the lone developer on a project for quite some time and was already feeling that way. Yet, recently found out that a second is being added to the team and a third is to come. I guess I'll enjoy what is effectively a paid vacation before it all comes crumbling down.

Exactly. Hence why services like AWS were said to be cloud services. The details not mattering was the value proposition being sold.

> PaaS, which didn't exist in the 90s.

It did, except we called it time-sharing back then.

> The cloud could be a symbol for a telephone network, a packet-switched network (including the internet), a company WAN, etc.

While you are right that the parent did specifically say internet, I am not sure there is a meaningful distinction anymore. Telephony, packet-switched networks, WANs, etc. are all, for the most part, a part of the internet now. The exceptions are exceptional and thus can be ignored.

Hasn't it meant that for many decades now? Originating as a cloud symbol on network diagrams, but not long after used as a word when people wanted to talk about said diagrams. I certainly remember using it in the 90s, so it has meant that for at least that long. You make it sound like we've only recently come to this determination.

What he needs instead is a moat.

This comment aside, I do not see that text anywhere, lest my own comments. Get back to us when you return to reality.

> The people who attacked blue collar workers said "who cares if they suffer? They're obviously all just dumb people (and thus bad)."

Whether or not calling them "dumb" was justified, there no implication of "who cares if they suffer". In fact, in the context I remember, those comments were made around trying to figure out how to help those who were deemed "dumb".

Again, we’re talking about jobs (and whether they will remain in the future), not professional designations. Licensed professional engineers are usually referred to as PEs, but even if you want to call them engineers it is clear that not all engineers of that sort work in engineering. In context, we can establish that we are talking about engineers in the worker sense, not the professional license sense.

Is English a second language for you? Maybe context doesn’t translate well. English is certainly bad for assigning multiple meanings to words and relying on context to figure out which meaning applies.

> I think lots of software people want to call themselves "engineers" because it sounds like someone who should be paid more money.

How would describing the job by what it is, literally by dictionary definition, garner more money?

I am aware of the time physicians started calling themselves doctors to try and ride on the coattails of academics, so I think I understand the angle you are trying to come up with, but this isn’t like that. In this case engineer was already the word in the dictionary that existed to describe the work.

Because the people involved weren't good at their job...? We've been over this multiple times now. It doesn't seem like it should be hard to figure out. What do you continue to miss?

> but they are not engineers

Sure, software involves lots of different types of work. Engineers are just one tiny piece of the puzzle. But design is exclusively the domain of engineers. Anyone working on the design is an engineer, by definition. That, again, does not imply that they know what they are doing, are good at their job, or bold enough to push back against out-to-lunch stakeholders. Having someone doing engineering work does not magically mean you are going to see an excellent product on the other side. Most people are pretty lousy at what they do.

You, again, increase your chances if you involve PEs, but that's not a job, just a designation.

Boeing, Microsoft, and medical device manufacturers mentioned seem like pretty good candidates. Were you under the impression that the software designed at those places just magically appears?

As before, being an engineer does not imply being good at the job. It only implies designing things. The designation of Professional Engineer institutes a vetting process to try and weed out those who aren't good at the job, which may be the source of your confusion, but PE is a designation, not a job. Not all PEs even work as engineers, although certainly many do.

No. I am paid to be involved in the software industry, but as an engineer, not as a coder. Writing software is not part of what I do. That is, to use your bridge analogy, for the construction crew.

> over the course of repeated "agile" "sprints".

It is true that not all engineers know what they are doing, are good at what they do, or bold enough to push back against out-to-lunch stakeholders.

> so someone gets angry, throws it away, and starts again growing a new monster.

I never understood that. Untangling the messes was always the fun part back when coding was still a job. But I don't really see any coders in industry anymore. Any last remaining ones I knew of have already been replaced by LLMs. LLMs will also happily untangle the messes, though, so still no reason to abandon code.

You don't think anyone designs software? It just magically appears?

> So-called software "engineers" do not practice engineering in the way that a mechanical engineer or a civil engineer does.

And? The dictionary defines engineer as someone who designs and builds things. It does not prescribe how the thing is designed.

> How often do bridges collapse?

Not often, but often enough to know that we still consider the designer to have been an engineer and not a project manager. I still have no idea where the idea that project managers do the design work came from.

> passing messages back and forth to the computer, or passing messages back and forth to the customer.

When AI can handle the judgment, anticipation, and deal with ambiguity neither are important. The customer will go straight to he AI. Hence why "white collar" jobs of all sorts are ultimately doomed. Unless you believe AI cannot reach that level, in which case software engineers will be fine, since that's the whole reason for their existence.

What we do see happening already is the decline of the project owner/manager role. More expensive money and technology increasing engineering efficiency has made it such that it is becoming hard to justify an assistant to bridge the telephone tag gap. That doesn't really affect engineers much, though. Before ZIRP allowed budgets for project managers/owners engineers also played that same role, so it is nothing unusual for them. Engineering getting secretarial assistants for a time, something historically reserved only for the upper brass, is but a curious aberration.

Perhaps you have confused software engineer with coder? LLMs are most definitely the final death knell for anyone still working as a coder, but that profession was on the way out for decades already. The earlier comment was clear about software engineer.

...you then take it to the customer. And wait, and wait, and wait, and maybe eventually they'll get around to trying out what you created, and if you're lucky they'll even give you some feedback to loop back with to try again. They will only try your application a few times before giving up on you, so even if the feedback loop is immediate like you claim (its not; not even close), you aren't afforded many iterations. A software engineer's job is, of course, to get ahead of the customer using judgment, anticipation, and dealing ambiguity to minimize how many round trips are required to satisfy the customer.

If AI can replace the software engineer, why can't it replace all "white collar" work?

Some people do wear all sorts of uncomfortable clothes and shoes, but they do so when they want to reject the fashion. Fashionable people blend into the wall, so naturally some people gravitate towards anti-fashion in order to differentiate themselves from the rest of the heard.

I do agree that it has become fashionable to practice anti-fashion on special occasions, although that isn't the type of fashion we've been talking about.