LLMs are Power Tools for Software Builders
We have not yet understood how to use LLMs effectively for coding and enhance productivity.
Over the web-sphere you will see in general two main camps:
Proponents of LLMs, which believe that LLMs can build anything.
Detractors that concede that LLMs are interesting, but not revolutionary.
Usually, the big proponents are young builders without much experience, or people that don’t code professionally. They both find in LLMs a way to quickly ship something that work.
And the thrill that you get from shipping something is incredible. I understand that.
In the other camp, there are professional software builders who have different problems.
They usually solve problems more difficult, more ambiguous, never quite solved before. For them, the issue is not ship something. For them, the issue is shipping exactly what is needed.
Within the budget, within the time constraint, while maintain a harmonious relationship with stakeholder.
In this context, cracking up code too quickly is almost dangerous. But more importantly, it was never the bottleneck. Especially if the code is not correct.
We are just observing the Gartner Hype Cycle in real time.
Inexperienced builders are now in the peak of inflated expectations.
Demos are flashy and are pushing out real world results, it seems that any problem can be solved with the right prompt and enough ChatGPT.
More experience builders are instead on the trough of disillusionment. They skip the peak, because they have the experience to recognize what is important to them and see the issues with LLMs.
They don’t work with complex code scattered over many files, it is difficult to prompt, it is expensive.
Eventually we will reach the plateau of productivity.
The slope of enlightenment is realizing that LLMs code assistants are POWER TOOLS for builders.
They are useful to outsource the slow and grunt part. That part still needs to be controlled, directed, reviewed, and managed. But does not need to be coded manually anymore.
I am taking the goal to move our industry as fast as possible in the plateau.
We are currently in the race to build these power tools, and we don’t have yet a clear winner. But we have a lot of competing tools.
A lot of patterns and similarities start to appear between all of these tools. And this hint us on how to use these tools effectively, but also on how to build better tools.
I am currently writing The 1hr Guide to Code With LLMs for the Busy Dev
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