That's a concern I have: The pain of writing boilerplate used to make people improve their architecture and frameworks. If the Java ecosystem hadn't been so painful in the early 2000s, would better languages and frameworks have gained traction? Would good refactoring practices have gained traction?
Sometimes refactoring doesn't even cut it, unfortunately. When stuck with a language and/or framework that simply requires lots of boilerplate, there's only two options: Migrate to something else or use/build code generation tools. I've done both with good success. Not sure I'd use a non-deterministic tool (like an LLM) for this, but since deterministic tools are harder to build, we might be looking at a future where a lot of working code is rewritten with automation that introduces subtle problems.
I'm optimistic though. There's always been a lot of terrible software somehow kept under control with high development/testing resources. And then there's always been carefully built good software. I suspect we'll continue to have both.
We'll probably have good software because some managers manage to hire good devs _and_ give them the right direction and support to do good work.
We'll probably have lots of bad software for the same reasons as in the past: Incompetent management, competent management pragmatically sacrificing software quality and/or maintainability, incompetent (or really just impatient/rushed) developers.
I don't think LLMs change the equation that much. Good devs will use them well (or perhaps not at all). Bad devs will use them badly. Good software can give startups an edge, bad (enough) software can bring down incumbents.
Sometimes refactoring doesn't even cut it, unfortunately. When stuck with a language and/or framework that simply requires lots of boilerplate, there's only two options: Migrate to something else or use/build code generation tools. I've done both with good success. Not sure I'd use a non-deterministic tool (like an LLM) for this, but since deterministic tools are harder to build, we might be looking at a future where a lot of working code is rewritten with automation that introduces subtle problems.
I'm optimistic though. There's always been a lot of terrible software somehow kept under control with high development/testing resources. And then there's always been carefully built good software. I suspect we'll continue to have both.
We'll probably have good software because some managers manage to hire good devs _and_ give them the right direction and support to do good work.
We'll probably have lots of bad software for the same reasons as in the past: Incompetent management, competent management pragmatically sacrificing software quality and/or maintainability, incompetent (or really just impatient/rushed) developers.
I don't think LLMs change the equation that much. Good devs will use them well (or perhaps not at all). Bad devs will use them badly. Good software can give startups an edge, bad (enough) software can bring down incumbents.