> Non-coders are churning out small apps in record pace, juniors are looking like savants with the amount of code and tasks they finish, where probably 90% of the code is done by Claude or whatever.
Honestly I think you’re swallowing some of the hype here.
I think the biggest advantages of LLMs go to the experienced coders who know how to leverage them in their workflows. That may not even include having the LLM write the code directly.
The non-coders producing apps meme is all over social media, but the real world results aren’t there. All over Twitter there were “build in public” indie non-tech developers using LLMs to write their apps and the hype didn’t match reality. Some people could get minimal apps out the door that kind of talked to a back end, but even those people were running into issues not breaking everything on update or managing software lifecycle.
The top complaint in all of the social circles I have about LLMs is with juniors submitting LLM junk PRs and then blaming the LLM. It’s just not true that juniors are expertly solving tasks with LLMs faster than seniors.
I think LLMs are helpful and anyone senior isn’t learning how to use them to their advantage (which doesn’t mean telling the LLM what to write and hoping for the best) is missing out. I think people swallowing the hype about non-tech people and juniors doing senior work is getting misled about the actual ways to use these tools effectively.
It's not just "juniors". It's people who should know better turning out LLM junk outside their actual experience areas because "They are experienced enough to use LLMs".
There are just some things that need lots of extra scrutiny in a system, and the experienced ones know where that is. An LLM rarely seems to, especially for systems of anywhere near real world production size.
I feel sorry for juniors because they have even less incentive to troubleshoot or learn languages. At the same time, the sheer size of APIs make me relieved that I will never have to remember another command, DSL, or argument list again. Ruby has hundreds of methods, Rails hundreds more, and they constantly change. I'd rather write a prompt saying what I mean than figure out obscure incantations, especially with infrequently used tools like ffmpeg.
> Should I use AI to solve Advent of Code puzzles? No. If you send a friend to the gym on your behalf, would you expect to get stronger? Advent of Code puzzles are designed to be interesting for humans to solve - no consideration is made for whether AI can or cannot solve a puzzle. If you want practice prompting an AI, there are almost certainly better exercises elsewhere designed with that in mind.
I would advocate for Advent of Code in every workplace, but finding interest is rare. No matter how much craft is emphasized, ultimately businesses are concerned with solving problems. Even personally, sometimes I want to solve a problem so I can move on to something more interesting.
I’m a garage coder and the kind of engineer that has a license. I had the capacity with my kids to make a usable application for my work about once every 6 months. Now it’s once a weekend or so. You don’t have to believe it.
Honestly I think you’re swallowing some of the hype here.
I think the biggest advantages of LLMs go to the experienced coders who know how to leverage them in their workflows. That may not even include having the LLM write the code directly.
The non-coders producing apps meme is all over social media, but the real world results aren’t there. All over Twitter there were “build in public” indie non-tech developers using LLMs to write their apps and the hype didn’t match reality. Some people could get minimal apps out the door that kind of talked to a back end, but even those people were running into issues not breaking everything on update or managing software lifecycle.
The top complaint in all of the social circles I have about LLMs is with juniors submitting LLM junk PRs and then blaming the LLM. It’s just not true that juniors are expertly solving tasks with LLMs faster than seniors.
I think LLMs are helpful and anyone senior isn’t learning how to use them to their advantage (which doesn’t mean telling the LLM what to write and hoping for the best) is missing out. I think people swallowing the hype about non-tech people and juniors doing senior work is getting misled about the actual ways to use these tools effectively.