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AI-enhanced development makes me more ambitious with my projects

simonwillison.net

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Re: AI-enhanced development makes me more ambitious with my projects

#231

Post by w4ffl35 »

sokoloff wrote: post #214
w4ffl35 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried it yet? It is significantly better than a stackoverflow answer. I've been using copilot since release and have now integrated chatgpt into that workflow (thankfully copilot using chatgpt 4 and some tricks I figured out to treat copilot more like a chat bot are making it so I can avoid the chatgpt browser).

It may be significantly better than a random stackoverflow answer, but I haven’t seen it as being better than the top-voted stackoverflow answer (at least not without significant curation/prompting).

i think maybe you're using ai wrong. its not akin to stackoverflow answers, its more akin to a jr programmer that can bang out some code for you while you go to the kitchen or bathroom and then you fix a few mistakes and integrate it with your larger project

Re: AI-enhanced development makes me more ambitious with my projects

#232

Post by duckmysick »

abnercoimbre wrote: post #178
braveyellowtoad wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. However, it’s worthwhile also noting these represent a very small proportion of all jobs in software development.

I'm not sure how you quantify "very small" here? I'm running low-level conferences [0] and they're big enough for me to be a full-time organizer for them: with a job fair that's included Mozilla, real estate, nuclear defense and various game studios. [0] https://handmadecities.com

We could check popular job boards (or HN's Who's Hiring threads) and see how many postings mention compilers, kernels, assembly, GPU, etc. Then compare that number to the total.

Re: AI-enhanced development makes me more ambitious with my projects

#233

Post by drKarl »

jlnho wrote: post #118
JimmyRuska wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having spent a lot of time with GPT-4 recently, it's possible the new generation will not have the same issues we did. For example they can write some code and say, "adjust for best practice". Then "explain why needs to be " Oh this is called , give me an example of it. Give me another example. Give me another example. Give me use cases where this would be better. Give me a short story where it was done my way but it…

OT: Are you _the_ Jimmy Ruska (jimmyrcom on YouTube)? If so, thanks for your videos. I remember watching those as a teen, they were super inspiring and solidified my decision to pursue a career in IT.

I keep getting surprised every time I read that when someone posting on HN was a teen Youtube already existed.

Re: AI-enhanced development makes me more ambitious with my projects

#234

Post by Technotroll »

dandellion wrote: post #174
Technotroll wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that is why we need AI assist in cars. With that said, where I'm from (Europe) most people drive "stick". That is, until recently. Now most new drivers are learning on auto or AI assisted vehicles. Is it better or worse? It'll definitively lead to fewer accidents. But driving stick is kinda cool tho, imho xD And I'm sure it also give you a better intuition about how a gear box actually works.

Where I'm from most cars are also stick, but I got my license years ago but since then I've only driven twice: once with stick and once automatic, and I have to say, automatic is so much easier to learn that I don't know why we're all still getting licenses or buying manual cars. It must be stubbornness and the slight price difference because in reality automatic is just much more practical.

Honestly, for me, it's for driving pleasure, and for having the choice. If I’m kicked off the bus at some remote location, and all I get is an old Volvo Amazon veteran car, then I’d like to be able to drive it around. And where I’m from, you can only do that (legally) if you have the right license, which is the license for manual “stick” drive.

Other than that, it’s far less about logic, and more about the feeling of control and mastery that it gives you. True, this feeling is largely more inefficient and more prone to failure than an automatic system, but that feeling, man; that feeling is just so great!

I also live in a wintery country, with many winding roads, hills and mountains with diverse weather and road conditions. The argument was made that it’s better to drive “stick” under these conditions. However, I’m not sure the argument that manual is better for diverse conditions will hold for long, given the current advent of better AI.

I’ve already seen AI drive in very hilly and adverse terrain in the Hollywood Hills, rife with bushes hanging over junctions and pedestrians popping in and out of parked cars, and so on. Naturally, not much ice up there, but that’s a pretty difficult landscape for an AI to master, and the AI already masters it pretty well!

Re: AI-enhanced development makes me more ambitious with my projects

#235

Post by FpUser »

I am curious at what stage the developer will loose the ability to understand code and pray that ChatGPT does not make a mistake.

I admit that I am using ChatGPT to write little snippets here and there but I am an old fart and was writing software for 40 years already. I am probably safe from loosing the skills bar going senile ;)

Re: AI-enhanced development makes me more ambitious with my projects

#236

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #167
ak_111 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are sort of ignoring the bias in your own AI extremist prediction. People who have decided to go all in in learning an interpreted language like Perl or even PHP, had to continuously also learn react, js, ruby,... and gazillions of other languages and frameworks to remain in business over the last two decades. While people who invested in learning C, Java or SQL have as much healthy opportunities to pursue today…

You don't need to kill a chasing bear to survive, you just need to run faster than your friend.

Which pretty much sums up today's work culture. I was just talking about this same exact thing, yesterday.

That's absolutely heartbreaking.

In the old days, we would have a team, that would compete, as a team, against other corporations. Our team would stick together, work together, and, quite often, function as a unit; leveraging each others' strengths, and compensating for each others' weaknesses.

Nowadays, we look at our team members as "the competition." In fact, we may actually be making plans to move to the other team.

But I have written programs in C, that were still in use, 25 years later. I have written programs in PHP, that were still (are still) in use, 15 years later.

There'll always be room for the classics.

That said, I'm quite looking forward to seeing what I can do with the new AI stuff.

Re: AI-enhanced development makes me more ambitious with my projects

#237

Post by thfuran »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #206
speedylight wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly have issue with using ChatGPT to write medical software. I don’t know what your exact process is like but I hope you’re giving the code it generates extra scrutiny to make sure it really does what you put in the prompt. It kinda feels like the judge who used ChatGPT to determine whether to deny or grant bail.

Medical software has to go through a validation process. As long as that validation process is still as rigorous, I don't see much difference.

You might want to look into how often recalls are issued for medical software. Or not, if you prefer pisces of mind.

Re: AI-enhanced development makes me more ambitious with my projects

#238

Post by orwin »

capableweb wrote: post #213
opportune wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been programming for 10 years, and as you’d expect know a lot of people with a few more or less years programming. I think all the “kids these days” gripes only apply to people’s first few years. You can argue they’re formative, but most professional programmers will quickly need to evolve beyond “take message literally, ask online for help, paste error message into google/SO” to be good at their jobs. I don’t k…

I've had the unfortunate luck of working with a couple of people with "senior" in their title that once faced with an error message from a open source library, starts their troubleshooting with searching for the error message and if nothing comes up, opens a issue on the issue tracker and then wait. They didn't even consider digging into the source code of the library to figure things out themselves. I haven't worked…

To me, it is only an issue if they sit still after and do not start to work on something else. But I am unashamed to admit that if I don't find the error in github/gitlab issue tracker, and if it seems to take more than 20 minute to investigate, I'll open an issue then move on (if I already know the library, if it's new to me, I'll assume Pebkac for at least two hour and try to rubber duck the issue)

Re: AI-enhanced development makes me more ambitious with my projects

#239

Post by Veen »

ashitlerferad wrote: post #172

Honestly, I keep secret some of the amazing uses of ChatGPT. I feel selfish but also I feel as if everyone is respsible for what they get out of it. We have many people and the media spending hours and tons of prompts trying to create funny or eyebrow raising headlines. I just keep my head down an marvel at the growing array if uses, many complex, that chatgpt can perform. It has been making me tons more money for ju…

Yes, I see all these people saying they've tried ChatGPT and don't understand the point or why it's useful. They've probably just not learned how to prompt it correctly.

Re: AI-enhanced development makes me more ambitious with my projects

#240

Post by jlnho »

drKarl wrote: post #233
jlnho wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OT: Are you _the_ Jimmy Ruska (jimmyrcom on YouTube)? If so, thanks for your videos. I remember watching those as a teen, they were super inspiring and solidified my decision to pursue a career in IT.

I keep getting surprised every time I read that when someone posting on HN was a teen Youtube already existed.

These were the very early YouTube days :^) I'm turning 32 this year, started coding 19 years ago...
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