[HN Gopher] The Future of Programming - Interview with Richard E...
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The Future of Programming - Interview with Richard Eisenberg
Author : Smaug123
Score : 56 points
Date : 2023-05-18 21:00 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (signalsandthreads.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (signalsandthreads.com)
| dang wrote:
| Related ongoing thread:
|
| _In Rust, for memory, you don 't pay as you go, everyone has to
| pay all the time_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36000242
| - May 2023 (58 comments)
| Dudester230518 wrote:
| Well, that is one way to do job ads.
| b20000 wrote:
| i'm more interested in what clearing arrangements they have, if
| they have their own risk management tools, how they make sure
| nobody sees their traffic to and from the exchanges (including
| the clearing firm), how they prevent their traffic being shared
| with 3rd party application providers etcetc
|
| and how they started out, where they got funding and what opening
| account size
| jncraton wrote:
| I appreciated Richard's take on AI-assisted programming:
|
| > It doesn't remove the need to communicate precisely. ... In a
| sense, that's almost the definition of what makes a programming
| language a programming language, as opposed to some other kind of
| language. There's a precise semantics to everything that is said
| in that language.
|
| > With the advent of AI-assisted programming, now we have sort of
| a new method of communication in that it's a communication from
| computer back to human. In that, you might have something like
| ChatGPT producing the code, but a human still has to read that
| code and make sure that it does what you think it does. And as a
| medium of precise communication, it's still very important to
| have a programming language that allows that communication to
| happen.
| idopmstuff wrote:
| > but a human still has to read that code and make sure that it
| does what you think it does
|
| I feel like a lot of programmers are too stuck in their work to
| realize that there's a huge universe of problems for which this
| isn't the case. If you need to build a complex web app,
| absolutely someone needs to validate the code, but if you just
| need to build a simple internal app or a script to automate
| something for a small business, you can just test it and make
| sure it does what you expect.
|
| I think the biggest benefit of natural language programming via
| LLMs isn't going to be for sophisticated developers; it's going
| to be for kinda smart businesspeople who have problems that can
| be solved by code. Maybe it wasn't worth the time to find a
| developer to solve them (if you don't have any connection to
| the tech industry, not only finding but also evaluating the
| quality of a developer is hard!) or it would've been too
| expensive. Now you can just fire up GPT4 and get your simple
| inventory tracking app or whatever it is you need built.
|
| It's like the small claims court of software development. If
| someone owes you $500, you can't engage a lawyer to help
| recover it because the cost is too high. Small claims gives
| people the ability to get restitution at low cost and without
| much sophistication. GPT4 is the equivalent of letting you
| solve small legal issues without bringing in a lawyer, but for
| programming.
| zamnos wrote:
| > But for programming.
|
| Why just for programming? ChatGPT wrties legal documents just
| fine.
| ResearchCode wrote:
| The LLM can replace the kinda smart "business person" easy
| before it replaces the computer scientist. Generating a kinda
| smart prompt in human language is really easy compared to
| good computer programs. LLM will write slide decks and
| spreadsheets before they write good computer programs.
| idopmstuff wrote:
| That's not the kind of business person I mean - I'm talking
| about someone like the owner of an SMB.
| tikhonj wrote:
| Right, and this is already _exactly_ the pattern we see with
| Excel!
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| That was the role of Visual Basic, back in the day.
|
| And before that, it was the _intended_ role of Cobol. It was
| supposed to make professional programmers obsolete. And, um,
| that 's not the way Cobol worked out.
|
| So how will AI-assisted programming work out? Like Visual
| Basic, or like Cobol? I don't even have a guess. I think it's
| too early to tell.
| tjr wrote:
| Also Cucumber test frameworks with Gherkin syntax.
| JimtheCoder wrote:
| "I think the biggest benefit of natural language programming
| via LLMs isn't going to be for sophisticated developers; it's
| going to be for kinda smart businesspeople who have problems
| that can be solved by code...Now you can just fire up GPT4
| and get your simple inventory tracking app or whatever it is
| you need built."
|
| I'm already preparing myself for the "kinda smart
| businesspeople" who will come to me and say...
|
| "Why is it taking you so long to fix [insert sophisticated
| software problem here]? I built [incredibly simple script]
| with ChatGPT in 5 minutes. Do you need my help?"
|
| I'm excited...
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