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Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

(martinalderson.com)
413 points martinald | 3 comments | 08 Dec 25 19:00 UTC | HN request time: 0.578s | source
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CobrastanJorji ◴[08 Dec 25 22:32 UTC] No.46198554[source]▶
Man, that's a big title. I can't wait to see the data on how the cost has dropped so far.

> AI Agents however in my mind massively reduce...

Nevermind. It's a vibe 90%.

replies(1): >>46198719 #
1. marcosdumay ◴[08 Dec 25 22:47 UTC] No.46198719[source]▶
That. I was expecting some overview of the last couple of decades in a "There's no Silver Bullet" fashion.

Instead it's some guy that claims it takes a team to make CI/CD for something he can vibe-code in a day, and that agentic code totally solves the complexity problems caused by too much React.

replies(1): >>46199144 #
2. bitwize ◴[08 Dec 25 23:29 UTC] No.46199144[source]▶
Even if that were true, so we've made development needlessly more complicated, only to gain back the time lost by running numberwang across enough datacenters to fill a small country? You haven't abstracted anything away, Morty, just created another layer of shit.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22601623

replies(1): >>46199375 #
3. marcosdumay ◴[08 Dec 25 23:50 UTC] No.46199375[source]▶
Oh, if LLMs did actually solve the problem of too much React, that would by itself drop the cost of doing the software the author cares about by close to 90%.

And yes, it's a completely self-imposed problem that many people don't have at all. But LLMs make it worse, and the author is celebrating that it's worse now.