Posted by Jach 20 hours ago
On the other hand it does mean there's no excuse for writing your program using Python or Electron or whatever, which will have a big effect on performance.
I get that LLMs would make it faster to write distinct copies for different operating systems and maintain them both but thats still more costly than a single system.
Sorry if I’m misunderstanding the goal of Electron but it still seems cheaper and easier (although admittedly worse than multiple native apps)
Besides a bootup that is no longer than your browser's, everything else inside an Electron app can be identically fast to a native application.
Please be a better filter - do not spread bad memes.
HTML layout and rendering is almost never as fast as GUIs like Qt. Also Electron apps usually use JavaScript which is slower than "fast" languages like C++/Rust/Kotlin/etc.
The reason people use Electron is because it's easy, especially if you have to have a website anyway. Slack is a great example of this. They already have a full website so it's kind of silly to redo the whole thing...
Unless AI makes it easy. We'll see I guess.
LLMs have caused such an increase in ram prices that pine64 is no longer making linux machines. When you can't afford RAM, as a direct result of LLMs, it's going to make your assembly app slower too. Sorry, this is the future you chose.
There has never been. We are running supercomputers. And somehow every app is a dog-slow barely moving monstrosity incapable of showing a page of text without stuttering.
First of all, coding speed is not the main bottleneck. I've been working on my own JavaScript framework. Most of my work is talking to people about challenges they have with web development, doing research on existing tools, and thinking about features to add.
Coding more slowly without LLM usage is a benefit because it helps me understand every line of code. The slower pace also helps me think about making things intuitive and reflect on my experiences with React.
While my framework is outperforming React, that isn't particularly impressive. On the other hand, it demonstrates how ignoring LLMs improves quality. Also, my monthly token spend is $0.
The author of the article definitely seems to think LLMs are what enables this to happen, but I personally am much more skeptical of that. I think what it really needs is bringing engineering back into software, not just throwing LLMs at it and calling it a day.
It's messed up. Sometimes it feels like everything in the universe is aligned to ensure that skilled software engineers lead horrible lives full of anguish, frustration and powerlessness.
It feels like the economic system creates incentives which go against efficiency. So then it makes sense that software engineers would be most impacted.
There's a weird duality to our job; it's supposed to be about automation and efficiency but in reality, engineers who make the most money are those who create unnecessary complexity because it creates better lock-in and thus gives them more leverage in negotiations. And the tech monopolies they work for never seem to run out of money no matter how much enshittification occurs as a result.
Same perverse incentive for open source projects; engineers who lead projects that are full of bugs can charge more consulting fees and sell more enterprise licenses to work around the issues.
And engineers are often forced to use shitty tools by their employers so we're always stuck between a rock and a hard place with limited control over our output... Which we are blamed for when things go wrong but never given credit for when we pull heroic feats because those achievements are often overshadowed by missed deadlines resulting from being forced to use shitty software.
Adoption and quality are orthogonal, unfortunately.
Worst part is that nobody listens to us. Business people with money only listen to engineers who have money; who are mostly merchants of complexity. Engineers who care about efficiency have no voice in this market.
There is less of a need for super convenient, yet bloated languages now. For software that matters, and burns the most joules in the world, I hope we can also spend a few more tokens instead of doing it in interpreted python just because it's a bit easier for the LLM.