I personally find figuring out what the product should be is the fun part. There still a need for architecting a plan, but the actual act of writing code isn't what gives me personal joy, it's the building of something new.
I understand the craft of code itself is what some people love though!
Thing is, LLMs are already better than people at the "architecting a plan" and "figuring out what the product should be" in details that go beyond high-level vibes. They do that even better than raw coding.
In fact, that's the main reason I like developing quick prototypes and small projects with LLMs. I use them less to write code for me, and more to cut through the bullshit "research" phase of figuring out what code to write, which libraries to pick, what steps and auxiliary work I'm missing in my concept, etc.
They’re great if word count is your measure. But it’s hard for LLMs to know the whole current SOTA and come up with something innovative and insightful. The same as 99% of human proposals.
Can LLMs come up with the 1% ideas that breakthrough?
Paired with great execution
LLMs definitely know more of the current SOTA in everything than anyone alive, and that doesn't even count in the generous amount of searching capability granted to them by vendors. They may fail to utilize results fully due to limited reasoning ability, but they more than make up for it in volume.
> Can LLMs come up with the 1% ideas that breakthrough? Paired with great execution
It's more like 0.01%, and it's not the target anyway. The world doesn't run on breakthroughs and great execution, it runs on the 99.99% of the so-so work and incremental refinement.
I understand the craft of code itself is what some people love though!