AFAICT, the future of software development looks like a lot of unprofessional software development.
Not unlike digital photography and Instagram. Has it killed film-photo divisions of photography companies? Yes. Has it put professional photographers out of business? Hardly, and in fact, the opposite. What the ubiquitous phone camera has done, is expose a lot many more people to the steep challenge of making truly good photographs. It has raised the average population-scale level of photo-erudition and taste to ever-more sophisticated levels. And, it has pushed the envelope on what photography can do.
So---assuming the AI overlords prevail (which I'm deeply skeptical of, but suppose a trillion dollars are right and I'm wrong)---what happens when LLMs allow anyone to vibe-code their own SaaS or Database or IDE or bespoke health-monitoring app or whatever...?
The important difference with digital photography is the phone photographer won't use pro lighting, different lenses, reflectors, bounced flash or other gear that contributes to the "pro photography" look.
With software, vibe-coders might use AI agents that have all the equivalent "pro photo gear" for professional output.
There's a moat around pro-photography protecting it from its snack-size phone-camera cousin. All those lights, lenses and tripods are the physical moat. If we ponder the question whether software development has an equivalent moat, the gp's gloom may be warranted.
adityaathalye|1 month ago
Not unlike digital photography and Instagram. Has it killed film-photo divisions of photography companies? Yes. Has it put professional photographers out of business? Hardly, and in fact, the opposite. What the ubiquitous phone camera has done, is expose a lot many more people to the steep challenge of making truly good photographs. It has raised the average population-scale level of photo-erudition and taste to ever-more sophisticated levels. And, it has pushed the envelope on what photography can do.
So---assuming the AI overlords prevail (which I'm deeply skeptical of, but suppose a trillion dollars are right and I'm wrong)---what happens when LLMs allow anyone to vibe-code their own SaaS or Database or IDE or bespoke health-monitoring app or whatever...?
(edit: fix formatting)
exodust|1 month ago
The important difference with digital photography is the phone photographer won't use pro lighting, different lenses, reflectors, bounced flash or other gear that contributes to the "pro photography" look.
With software, vibe-coders might use AI agents that have all the equivalent "pro photo gear" for professional output.
There's a moat around pro-photography protecting it from its snack-size phone-camera cousin. All those lights, lenses and tripods are the physical moat. If we ponder the question whether software development has an equivalent moat, the gp's gloom may be warranted.
jesse__|1 month ago
jesse__|1 month ago