The Seven Voyages Of SteveOne of the things I loved about software development was that we were always trying to get better at it, and there was no ceiling in sight for that. Using LLMs to make code is the opposite of that - learning to use them is more akin to learning rituals than it is to intellectual development. And don’t give me that nonsense about it being like using a compiler to move up an abstraction level; it’s not, any more than becoming a manager is coding at another level of abstraction.
I lived through the era in the noughties when the only promotion available outside management was to become a “software architect”. This was supposedly another level of abstraction over development and these experienced developers would level up the whole process by being dedicated architects. And you know what happened if those architects didn’t still actively write code too? Their designs were absolute garbage.
Martin Weber@sinbad no software architecture survives the first contact with code.
The fun thing is that when I was talking to guys at construction sites about the plans they receive from architects, they always needed to “compensate” to be able to actually build the thing.
We saw the same thing when doing architectural visualisation based on 2d plans. And 99% of architectural plans were only 2d.
So it’s not just a software issue.
@martinweber when we renovated our house I deliberately hired an architect who was also an engineer, so he didn’t just do the high level stuff but all the structural/technical engineering detail as well. There were still detail things to resolve but I think it was far more practical
@sinbad smart.
I understand why management wants architects. They don’t think about the small details that will break. So they do not start asking the difficult questions during meetings.
I have an engineering mindsets. And I have been on investor and board meetings. This does not mix well, especially when they came up with “brilliant” strategies and I had to ask a few simple questions. They don’t like that. Solving problems is not positive enough.
Happy to be writing code again.