alt Hacker NewsAs others has already been pointed out, not all new technologies that are proposed are improvements. You say you understand this, but the clear subtext of the analogy to compilers is that LLM driven development are a obvious improvement and if we don't adopt them we'll find ourselves in the same position as assembly programmers who refused to learn compiled languages.
> Is that what I’m doing?
Initially I'd have been reluctant to say yes, but this very comment is laced with assertions that we'd better all start adopting LLMs for coding or we're going to get left behind [0]
> taking the gcc analogy, in the early compiler days there was a period where compilers were weak enough that assembly by hand was reasonable. Now it would be just highly inefficient and underperformant to do that
No matter how good LLMs get at translating english into programs, they will still be limited by the fact that their input (natural language) isn't a programming language. This doesn't mean it can't get way better, but it's always going to have some of the same downsides of collaborating with another programmer.
[0] This is another red flag I would hope programmers would have learned to recognize. Good technology doesn't need to try to threaten people into adopting it.
My intention was to say: you won't get left behind you will just get left slightly behind the curve until things reach a point where you feel you have no choice but to join the dark side. Like gcc/assembly: sure maybe there were some hardcore assembly holdouts but any day they could and probably did jump on the bandwagon. This is also speculation, I agree, but my point is: not using LLMs/coding agents today is very very reasonable, and the limitations that people often bring up are also very reasonable and believable.
> No matter how good LLMs get at translating english into programs, they will still be limited by the fact that their input (natural language) isn't a programming language.
Right but engineers routinely convert natural language + business context into formal programs, arguably an enormously important part of creating a software product. What's any different here? Like a programmer, the creation process is two-way. The agent iteratively retrieves additional information, asks questions, checks their approach, etc etc.
> [0] This is another red flag I would hope programmers would have learned to recognize. Good technology doesn't need to try to threaten people into adopting it.
I think I was either not clear or you misread my comment: you're not going to get left behind any more than you want to. Jump in when you feel good about where the technology is and use it where you feel it should be used. Again: if you don't see value in your own personal situation with coding agents, that is objectively a reasonable stance to hold today.