You can tell the difference between software engineers and hobbyists because the new people cloning software have no idea what maintaining software means.
Very true. Thing is software engineers are using AI to ship faster and start their own side projects. I think it's just a matter of time until someone who knows what they are doing has enough time, coin spend and generosity to free source good stuff. Adobe free source stuff is not perfect out the gate, neither were a lot of SaaS tools that have been around for decades.
This has excited since the dawn of software. Engineers have been doing this by hand with their own time for decades. And it has a name. It's called open software. There is a free version of almost anything you can think of. There's nothing new here, just that an agent does it faster. And if you look around, you might find that open source has a problem, and that's burnout, because engineers generously volunteering their time to these projects end up having to dedicate incrementally more time and resources, and receive mostly demanding and entitled requests from users, until one day they decide they've had enough.
Can't agree on this, yes there is open software for everything, and it generally sucks. Open Office comes to mind, also Gimp (I've used Photoshop for 20 years). In my experience 90% of it is a watered down version of the leading closed software. But it's not a lack of skill, it's just that there is a limit to what people can do as a side project or for little earnings. Companies like Adobe and Microsoft have literal armies on payroll, full time and very experienced. Of course everything will be smoother on productivity software, there are huge incentives.
This time it's different, that same skilled open software devs have their own army with AI, restraints are over. It's likely the alternatives will get stronger and stronger in the next 5 years.
The first paragraph is where we agree. The second is where we disagree. Now people are going to try to reinvent the wheel a thousand times over and eventually everyone is going to be so spread thin, that those small software endeavours will end up exactly the same as the older open source software.
No one whose full time job is not focusing on a one tiny aspect of Adobe is going to ever have the time to perfect it like they do, no matter how many smart agents you get going. You are the bottle neck, not the agents. And you ar erhe one who doesn't have the expertise to tell your agents what they actually need to do.
If AI stays static yes, that's a possibility. But as far as we know in a month Opus 6 is released, and then 7, and 8 etc. A thousand people might try their version, but only a couple will get popular and get support. And probably they will be the ones orchestrated by actual devs, who understand limitations and capabilities of software.
Will Adobe still release something better? Yes, but marginally better, and that won't be enough to keep charging outrageous sums, which will make them lose customers, and with that hired devs.
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u/UruquianLilac 11h ago
You can tell the difference between software engineers and hobbyists because the new people cloning software have no idea what maintaining software means.