"Get a working prototype in hours or days instead of weeks"
This is nothing new. Algorithmic code generation has been around since forever, and it's robust in a way that "AI" is not. This is what many Java developers do, they have tools that integrate deeply with XML and libraries that consume XML output and create systems from that.
Sure, such tooling is dry and boring rather than absurdly polite and submissive, but if that's your kink, are you sure you want to bring it to work? What does it say about you as a professional?
As for IDE-integrated "assistants" and free floating LLM:s, when I don't get wrong code they consistently give suggestions that are much, much more complicated than the code I intend to write. If I were to let those I've tried write my code I'd be a huge liability for my team.
I expect the main result of the "AI" boom in software development to be a lot of work for people that are actually fluent, competent developers maintaining, replacing and decommissioning the stuff synthesised by people who aren't.
It seems most developers that are hyping AI capabilities have never used a proper IDE like IntelliJ IDEA. The productivity boost compared to using a text editor is real. Most experienced programmers that use a text editor subscribe to Unix as an IDE philosophy or have built their own integration using Emacs or what's not. Code generation is not an issue as I have an idea of what to write (If I don't, I should go learning about it instead of writing code). The issue is boilerplate (solved by code snippets and generators), syntax mistakes (highlighter and linting), and bugs (debugger and console log).
Probably true for at least some of them. Having crunched out prototypes by both more formal and ad hoc code generation in a bunch of languages, and also having inherited some mature applications that started that way, I'm not really impressed with the notion of putting down some foundations fast.
If you're building something possibly serious, you expect to be hacking away for years anyway. Whether it takes you one or five weekends to make something for recruiting or financing or whatever doesn't actually matter much, it's not a very good sales pitch.
I think a lot of the hype is from managerial people, the kind that have been swayed by promises from people selling RAD and "low code" and so on over the decades. And yeah, you can put your non-technical employees to work building things if you want, but when it breaks your profits are at risk anyway and the consultants you need to hire won't be cheap.
This is nothing new. Algorithmic code generation has been around since forever, and it's robust in a way that "AI" is not. This is what many Java developers do, they have tools that integrate deeply with XML and libraries that consume XML output and create systems from that.
Sure, such tooling is dry and boring rather than absurdly polite and submissive, but if that's your kink, are you sure you want to bring it to work? What does it say about you as a professional?
As for IDE-integrated "assistants" and free floating LLM:s, when I don't get wrong code they consistently give suggestions that are much, much more complicated than the code I intend to write. If I were to let those I've tried write my code I'd be a huge liability for my team.
I expect the main result of the "AI" boom in software development to be a lot of work for people that are actually fluent, competent developers maintaining, replacing and decommissioning the stuff synthesised by people who aren't.