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Ask HN: Are developers who build libs and dev tools safer from AI replacement?

2 points

15 hours ago

| 2 comments

I’ve been thinking about AI and developer jobs.

It feels like developers who build libraries, frameworks, compilers, and dev tools might be safer from AI replacement compared to people building typical CRUD apps.

My intuition is that tooling work requires deeper systems knowledge and taste, while a lot of app-level code is becoming easier for AI to generate.

Am I wrong? Curious what others here think

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raw_anon_1111

14 hours ago

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Who is making money from selling tools and libraries and compilers? All of those are supported by BigCorp and given away for free.

And who needs an abstraction layer like a framework?

I’m not a web dev at all for instance and haven’t done web development in a decade. I was able to create a relatively feature filled internal web tool in less than a day using Codex-CLI. It didn’t use any frameworks just raw HTML.

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verdverm

14 hours ago

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Frameworks or libraries are about reusing the common stuff. If you want to make any serious app, you are going to use one or reimplement one. They have their feature set for reasons (mostly).

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austin-cheney

8 hours ago

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There is very little correlation between technological depth of tools created by employees and the business of the employer for most companies. Employees skilled at creating their own diagnostic tools are not typically safer in their jobs against sweeping business decisions but are nonetheless less replaceable.