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Show HN: My 13-year-old built an ant colony tracker

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Re: Show HN: My 13-year-old built an ant colony tracker

#31

Post by brandonmenc »

totallygeeky wrote: post #30

[flagged]

They're 13.

When we were using Hypercard or BASIC to make dumb little programs, we weren't learning any of that stuff either, really.

Making apps is so complicated now that without a little bit of help from LLMs, most kids would probably just give up.

Heck, lots of professional software developers are using LLMs to get over that hump on their side projects for the very same reason.

It's hard to even get started nowadays, and LLMs lower the barrier of entry. This is a good thing.

EDIT: Also, maybe this kid doesn't dream of being a programmer? And they just want an app that solves their immediate problem? Everyone here is being unnecessarily harsh. I hope none of you have kids.

Re: Show HN: My 13-year-old built an ant colony tracker

#33

Post by pooloo »

brandonmenc wrote: post #31
totallygeeky wrote: post #30

[flagged]

They're 13. When we were using Hypercard or BASIC to make dumb little programs, we weren't learning any of that stuff either, really. Making apps is so complicated now that without a little bit of help from LLMs, most kids would probably just give up. Heck, lots of professional software developers are using LLMs to get over that hump on their side projects for the very same reason. It's hard to even get started nowad…

> When we were using Hypercard or BASIC to make dumb little programs, we weren't learning any of that stuff either, really.

> Making apps is so complicated now

Well that is not entirely true, I recall trying to learn game development. A lot of the time I spent was searching posts on web forums or asking questions in DAL/EF/Free/etc net and getting told to learn how to ask a question... not only that but I had learned it was better to write games not engines. Though I still managed to find out about GDI, which led me to DirectX, OpenGL, and then SDL. Those were scary... This is also when I learned about modding games, specifically Half-Life modding, which for some reason led me to creating bots for Counter-Strike just because I could and that is when I learned ladders are really difficult.

Re: Show HN: My 13-year-old built an ant colony tracker

#34

Post by seba_dos1 »

brandonmenc wrote: post #31
totallygeeky wrote: post #30

[flagged]

They're 13. When we were using Hypercard or BASIC to make dumb little programs, we weren't learning any of that stuff either, really. Making apps is so complicated now that without a little bit of help from LLMs, most kids would probably just give up. Heck, lots of professional software developers are using LLMs to get over that hump on their side projects for the very same reason. It's hard to even get started nowad…

> They're 13.

So? It's 13 years, not months. They're perfectly capable of learning that stuff by now.

> Making apps is so complicated now

I haven't noticed. Why do you think it's so complicated? Making things with GTK, Qt, PHP etc. seems even easier now than it was two decades ago when I was 13 and learning this stuff. Browsers are picky with JavaScript from local files, but these days you can just launch a HTML file with Electron. There's even Lazarus if we wanted to closely replicate what I was learning with back then.

Re: Show HN: My 13-year-old built an ant colony tracker

#35

Post by protocolture »

brandonmenc wrote: post #31
totallygeeky wrote: post #30

[flagged]

They're 13. When we were using Hypercard or BASIC to make dumb little programs, we weren't learning any of that stuff either, really. Making apps is so complicated now that without a little bit of help from LLMs, most kids would probably just give up. Heck, lots of professional software developers are using LLMs to get over that hump on their side projects for the very same reason. It's hard to even get started nowad…

I learned heaps from making dumb VB6 winform apps I have no idea what you are talking about.

Part of what I learned was "Dont try and make games in dumb VB6 winform apps" but thats part of the process.

Re: Show HN: My 13-year-old built an ant colony tracker

#36

Post by vector_spaces »

brandonmenc wrote: post #31
totallygeeky wrote: post #30

[flagged]

They're 13. When we were using Hypercard or BASIC to make dumb little programs, we weren't learning any of that stuff either, really. Making apps is so complicated now that without a little bit of help from LLMs, most kids would probably just give up. Heck, lots of professional software developers are using LLMs to get over that hump on their side projects for the very same reason. It's hard to even get started nowad…

Speak for yourself (re learning)? Lots of young ppl are curious and determined and willing to dig into the guts of a thing to understand how it works.

I agree re LLMs lowering the barrier of entry generally being a good thing, but I also find it disingenuous to present this as anyone's work at all, really.

All of the copy on the page (e.g. the "Made with I am sorry to be a downer! To be clear, shipping alone is a hurdle, and that counts for something. Also, not every work needs to be novel or demonstrate outstanding creativity or copywriting skills

But one element of making things that's overlooked is taste. I think that's what is missing here for me -- it's not really transparent which choices were made by the LLM and which were made by the kid.

Re: Show HN: My 13-year-old built an ant colony tracker

#38

Post by brandonmenc »

vector_spaces wrote: post #36
brandonmenc wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're 13. When we were using Hypercard or BASIC to make dumb little programs, we weren't learning any of that stuff either, really. Making apps is so complicated now that without a little bit of help from LLMs, most kids would probably just give up. Heck, lots of professional software developers are using LLMs to get over that hump on their side projects for the very same reason. It's hard to even get started nowad…

Speak for yourself (re learning)? Lots of young ppl are curious and determined and willing to dig into the guts of a thing to understand how it works. I agree re LLMs lowering the barrier of entry generally being a good thing, but I also find it disingenuous to present this as anyone's work at all, really. All of the copy on the page (e.g. the "Made with I am sorry to be a downer! To be clear, shipping alone is a hur…

re: "taste" - whatever that even means here - you could say the same thing about any of the thousands of Bootstrap or Tailwind or whatever CRUD apps made over the years.

Re: Show HN: My 13-year-old built an ant colony tracker

#39

Post by brandonmenc »

protocolture wrote: post #35
brandonmenc wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're 13. When we were using Hypercard or BASIC to make dumb little programs, we weren't learning any of that stuff either, really. Making apps is so complicated now that without a little bit of help from LLMs, most kids would probably just give up. Heck, lots of professional software developers are using LLMs to get over that hump on their side projects for the very same reason. It's hard to even get started nowad…

I learned heaps from making dumb VB6 winform apps I have no idea what you are talking about. Part of what I learned was "Dont try and make games in dumb VB6 winform apps" but thats part of the process.

How do you know they're not learning by using an LLM?

You think just because they built something with an LLM they won't ever "view source" on the output?

Very presumptuous.

Re: Show HN: My 13-year-old built an ant colony tracker

#40

Post by protocolture »

brandonmenc wrote: post #39
protocolture wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned heaps from making dumb VB6 winform apps I have no idea what you are talking about. Part of what I learned was "Dont try and make games in dumb VB6 winform apps" but thats part of the process.

How do you know they're not learning by using an LLM? You think just because they built something with an LLM they won't ever "view source" on the output? Very presumptuous.

Where did I presume that?

All I did was counter this weird narrative "When we were using Hypercard or BASIC to make dumb little programs, we weren't learning any of that stuff either, really."

Why did you presume I had taken a position on LLM usage?

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