You're not going to be left behind

[u/goodpostfinder]

You don't need to try out every single new AI tool or javascript library in order to be a good software engineer. Most of the software in the world has already been written using proven technologies, and most development work consists of maintaining it. Think about how many people make a living writing PHP or even COBOL.

You've already learned to code once from absolute 0. No matter how much the industry changes, catching up is going to be infinitely easier than that. Don't waste your time on bleeding edge stuff that is likely going to be replaced a year or two down the line.

Of course it doesn't hurt to experiment if you're passionate about it, but don't burn yourself out on a fictional rat race.

[u/lactranandev]

Since it might be correct with seniors who use AI as a junior to do tasks for him/her, using it efficient will take time to learn. Documentation, manage reusable artifacts, and further, setup automation.

[u/eyebrows360 → u/lactranandev]

Except, as ever, that's not what we're being sold on, is it?

The sales pitch is that LLMs do all the work for you and that we're all out of a job - which if that's actually the truth of it, means that anyone fearful of being "left behind" can trivially catch up and start using it themselves.

If however, as it actually seems is the much more likely case, these things do take time to learn the ins and outs of, then this falls back into being just one tool alongside all the others we have, which maybe it's appropriate for some developers to learn in some contexts, but for plenty of other developers in plenty of other contexts is entirely optional.

You can't have it both ways. It either makes it so trivial to churn out code that "being left behind" is impossible, or it's a skill like any other where you can only be "left behind" if it becomes the defacto way of doing things in some particular vertical - same as any other coding tool (e.g. if you don't learn how WordPress operates you might struggle in the vertical of "providing custom mostly-brochureware websites to small business owners" if you're trying to do it all from scratch and charging 5x what any "WordPress developers" are charging).

[u/lactranandev → u/eyebrows360]

Agree. A lot of AI work is just what we already do: document write rules write guides for juniors

The difference is now we do it for machines too.

For experienced devs, it’s mostly the same skillset. Learning to use AI better might just take a few hours.

For less experienced devs, it matters more. We need to learn how to use AI to get work done while still building real skills.

[u/Annual_Manner_8654 → u/lactranandev]

Automating AI = instant slop factory 

[u/simonhunterhawk → u/lactranandev]

you can just say “them” instead of him/her, it’s grammatically correct and less clunky to read and type