> unless I’m building software for a disconnected desktop?
... Why wouldn't you build software that works there?
As I understand things, the purpose of computers is to run software.
But more importantly, let's suppose your software does require an Internet connection to function.
Why should that imply a requirement for your development environment to have one?
Why should that imply a requirement for a code generation tool to have one?
Then why are people constantly talking about how expensive it is now to get a new computer with 64GB of RAM and several TB of flash storage and a modern graphics card?
Why would they remotely need any of that, if "to a first approximation no one wants desktop software"?
> when I can spend $20/month and codex is included with my ChatGPT subscription?
I bought the machine I'm posting from for about $1k (with some minor upgrades since then). Canadian. More than 11 years ago. And that gets me the entire computer rather than one specific cloud service.
$20/month is a lot, actually.
Even comparing to a new computer (which there is apparently still a lot of demand for): monthly charges really should be compared to a couple decades of principal, the amount you'd have to save up to yield that cash flow as a return on investment (or just interest). But even just a year or two of $20/month is hundreds of dollars. That's not insignificant, when the opportunity cost is reckoned in terms of physical goods that perform general computation.
People outside of the small nerd community aren’t buying computers with 64GB of RAM.
With that $1000 computer can you run an LLM that can write code for you?
Because to a first approximation, no one wants desktop software, maintenance is a pain, it’s a pain to distribute across a large organization and people want to use the same app across devices and no one will pay me for it.
> But more importantly, let's suppose your software does require an Internet connection to function.
Because I have been able to depend on “fast” internet since 2000 both at home and at work, just like I’ve been able to depend on a compiler since 1992? There is nothing so important that can’t wait in the rare chance that internet goes out.
> Why should that imply a requirement for a code generation tool to have one
Because I don’t want to spend thousands of dollars to run a frontier model locally when I can spend $20/month and codex is included with my ChatGPT subscription?