Like most loudmouths in this field, I’ve been paying a lot of attention
to the role that generative AI systems may play in software development. I
think the appearance of LLMs will change software development to a similar
degree as the change from assembler to the first high-level programming
languages. The further development of languages and frameworks increased
our abstraction level and productivity, but didn’t have that kind of
impact on the nature of programming. LLMs are making that degree of
impact, but with the distinction that it isn’t just raising the level of
abstraction, but also forcing us to consider what it means to program with
non-deterministic tools.