If it was written by a human, none of this would be javascript except the next button click handler. I don't know what is going on that it mentions a service worker at the end. That's wild.
Anyway the CSS is missing a transition for the width. That's why it's jerky.
> My complaint is about more than parsing or syntax or “developer ergonomics” ... My problem with Date is that using it means deviating from the fundamental nature of time itself.
I don't really have a problem with the substance of this blog post. I have a problem with this exaggerated writing style. It means deviating from the fundamental purpose of writing itself!
I had to scroll all the way to the end to find the actual point, and it was underwhelming.
> Unlike Date, the methods we use to interact with a Temporal object result in new Temporal objects, rather than requiring us to use them in the context of a new instance
Bro, just be honest. This entire blog post was totally about developer ergonomics and that's okay. We all hate the way Date works in javascript.
It's not an exaggeration - you're used to dramatic phrases that use similar wording ("fundamental nature of time itself"), but in this case it's a regular old literally-true statement. Date is used to represent two things: Timestamps and human times (date, time, tz). But it only actually represents the former. Using it to represent the latter is a hack we simply put up with.
Pedantically, Temporal also deviates from the fundamental nature of time itself. Temporal.Instant? In which accelerating frame of reference? It supports equality, which is a nonsense concept.
I think I've come full circle back to the idea that a human should write the high-level code unassisted, and the LLM should autocomplete the glue code and draft the function implementations. The important part is that the human maintains these narrow boundaries and success criteria within them. The better the scaffolding, the better the result.
Nothing else really seems to make sense or work all that well.
On the one extreme you have people wanting the AI to write all the code on vibes. On the other extreme you have people who want agents that hide all low-level details behind plain english except the tool calls. To me these are basically the same crappy result where we hide the code the wrong way.
I feel like what we really need is templating instead of vibes or agent frameworks. Put another way, I just want the code folding in my editor to magically write the code for me when I unfold. I just want to distribute that template and let the user run it in a sandbox. If we're going to hide code from the user at least it's not a crazy mess behind the scenes and the user can judge what it actually does when the template is written in a "literate code" style.
So then why did MIDI not replace musicians and conductors many decades ago? Why do we even bother thinking in terms of sheet music, or programs in terms of code?
It kinda sorta did. Decades ago, all music was played by live players. Today, there are lots of albums, lots of background music on television, radio, etc., that is made mostly or entirely using MIDI-controlled virtual instruments. No longer do you need to book an actual chamber orchestra for a little 30-second spot on some cooking show.
So those musicians are no longer getting booked for that bit of music. Instead, one person produces it in their home studio. But, there’s now an industry for creating software tools that support that workflow, and there are a lot more opportunities for such music than there used to be. The amount of music used in background spots on television is astounding.
Things changed. Some jobs diminished (studio players?) or went away altogether (music copyists?). But new work came into existence.
Yeah my point was that there's not much existing software within a business that's the equivalent of an ad jingle, unless you really split hairs and start counting excel macros or something.
Will there be new software like that? Maybe, but you'll never hear about it. Not only because it's throwaway code, but because the best interface is probably no code at all. The chatbot will instead spin up a VM behind the scenes and never even show the code it generated unless you dig for it.
On the other hand, if there is budget available, like on real movies and bigger television projects, real musicians are still used. And across the board, except for musical styles that explicitly call for electronic sounds, most people agree that using live players would be preferred if only they had the time and money.
I wonder if there’s any parallel to that in software?
I think the equivalent to "live players" are frontend app devs.
It's a deeply unpopular opinion around here, but if a human has to interact with anything that's where most of the effort and budget is going to go. They're still the "rock stars".
That skill set is not merely writing code. It's more about collaboration with all the stakeholders and making a ton of deliberate decisions and compromises. It doesn't matter how "good" an LLM is at writing code for the web. That's subjective, and that's my point. We've had all kinds of no-code solutions for a very long time.
An experienced frontend dev is necessary when the project isn't just for other devs or internal use.
This doesn't make any sense. If the business can get rid of their engineers, then why can't the user get rid of the business providing the software? Why can't the user use AI to write it themselves?
I think instead the value is in getting a computer to execute domain-specific knowledge organized in a way that makes sense for the business, and in the context of those private computing resources.
It's not about the ability to write code. There are already many businesses running low-code and no-code solutions, yet they still have software engineers writing integration code, debugging and making tweaks, in touch with vendor support, etc. This has been true for at least a decade!
That integration work and domain-specific knowledge is already distilled out at a lot of places, but it's still not trivial. It's actually the opposite. AI doesn't help when you've finally shaved the yak smooth.
If the business can get rid of their engineers, then why can't the user get rid of the business providing the software?
A lot of businesses are the only users of their own software. They write and use software in-house in order to accomplish business tasks. If they could get rid of their engineers, they would, since then they'd only have to pay the other employees who use the software.
They're much less likely to get rid of the user employees because those folks don't command engineer salaries.
So instead of paying a human that "commands an engineer salary" then they'll be forced to pay whatever Anthropic or OpenAI commands to use their LLMs? I don't see how that's a better proposition: the LLM generates a huge volume of code that the product team (or whoever) cannot maintain themselves. Therefore, they're locked-in and need to hope the LLM can solve whatever issues they have, and if it can't, hope that whatever mess it generated can be fixed by an actual engineer without costing too much money.
Also, code is only a small piece and you still need to handle your hosting environment, permissions, deployment pipelines, etc. which LLMs / agentic workflows will never be able to handle IMO. Security would be a nightmare with teams putting all their faith into the LLM and not being able to audit anything themselves.
I don't doubt that some businesses will try this, but on paper it sounds like a money pit and you'd be better off just hiring a person.
It’s the same business model as consulting firms. Rather than hiring a few people for 65k each, a VP will bring in a consulting firm for 10M and get a bloated, half-working solution that costs even more to get working. The VP doesn’t care though because he ends up looking like a big shot in front of the other execs.
There are lots of developer agencies that hire developers as contractors that companies can use to outsource development to in a cheaper way without needing to pay for benefits or HR. They don't necessarily make bad quality software, but it doesn't feel humane.
Unless we're talking about some sketchy gig work nonsense, the "agency" is a consultancy like any other. They are a legitimate employer with benefits, w2, etc. It's not like they're pimps or something!
Those devs aren't code monkeys and they get paid the same as anyone else working in this industry. In fact, I think a lot of the more ADHD type people on here would strongly prefer working on a new project every 6 months without needing to find a new employer every time. The contracts between the consultancy and client usually also include longer term support than the limited time the original dev spent on it.
> If the business can get rid of their engineers, then why can't the user get rid of the business providing the software?
I have't checked the stats lately, but at one point most software written was in non-tech companies for the single business. The first 1/2 of my career was spent writing in-house software for a company that did everything from custom reporting and performance tracking to scraping data of automated phone dialers. There's so much software out there that effectively has a user base of a single company.
> People are increasingly building tools to solve a single, specific problem exactly once—and then discarding them. It is software as a disposable utility, designed for the immediate "now" rather than the distant "later."
Yes! This is 100% it.
This is a net good for everyone because it brings basic programming literacy to the masses and culls a lot of junk projects that are littering github or SaaS scams.
It means people can focus on the problems that actually matter.
AI doesn't have any impact on the need for accountable humans to write code.
The scratchpad analogy is so good. Most mature business software is almost literally like a tome of legal documents that have to be edited carefully, but that doesn't have anything to do with the napkin in your pocket.
In a way it's good but as far as energy usage goes, it sucks.
Not only is it taking way more energy to write software now with LLMS than by "hand", now everyone is repeating work many times over to write the same tools.
From a freedom standpoint one could argue is gives the user the most freedom to have what they want and need. But its very bad from an energy efficiency point of view.
So many people hyping AI are only thinking about new projects and don't even distinguish between what is a product and what is a service.
Most software devs employed today work on maintaining services that have a ton of deliberate decisions baked in that were decided outside of that codebase and driven by business needs.
They are not building shiny new products. That's why most of the positive hype about AI doesn't make sense when you're actually at work and not just playing around with personal projects or startup POCs.
> why some people are incapable of changing their point of view
Do you really want the answer?
People don't always say what they think and aren't consistent because they may hold multiple conflicting beliefs. This isn't lying or a lack of curiosity. It's the opposite, and perfectly rational.
Actually, if you don't think you have any conflicting beliefs you should think about it harder or seriously question how open-minded you really are.
You can give someone all the evidence that convinced you about something, but it will only convince them if they share enough of your foundational assumptions. At the core of all beliefs lie some assumptions, not facts.
This quickly becomes philosophy, but I encourage you to seek more if you really want this answer. You are pulling on a thread that I promise will bring enlightenment. I wish more people asked this more often and really meant it. It would resolve a lot of pointless conflict.
What I see instead, especially on places like HN or Reddit, is people trying to reassure themselves because they want to settle a question "once and for all" instead of seeking better answers. They want praise for what they "know" and to take a break, but there is no perfect truth, just better answers, and this process never ends.
> the what if, the “wouldn’t it be cool if this premise were true,” still lingers in my mind from time to time.
This stops being as relevant when you're put under pressure to make real decisions based on what you believe is true. You are forced to weigh the consequences of the decision, not just what you think might be true. This is a compromise, but I struggle to call this dishonesty.
Has this not always been "the meta" everywhere for all of human history (and nature)? It's the fundamental driving force in favor of "diversity" always winning out over time. It's diffusion.
It's definitely there in sports teams, jobs, politics, etc.
There's a natural limit to this effect. The downside is that being a big fish in a small pond means you may not leave the pond without a longer term goal beyond it, and there's a saturation point of talent beyond which any competitive advantage is minimal.
This ultimately does not really impact the lesser schools much unless they were starved for talent for too long and needed to raise the bar. Migration patterns have an ebb and flow.
Anyway the CSS is missing a transition for the width. That's why it's jerky.
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