Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI • Hacker News Board

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#91

Post by pydry » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 10:40 PM UTC

tehwebguy wrote: post #72

wouldbecouldbe wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is the hallucinations, I also wasted few hours trying to work on solutions with GPT where it just kept making up parameters and random functions.

It referenced a made up a function I needed (that should probably exist lol) in BrightScript, the letdown after realizing as much was painful.

It did the same thing to me with docker compose the other day.

For features that probably should exist but don't it does a really good job of sending you on a wild goose chase.

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#92

Post by OwenFM » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 10:41 PM UTC

If people get left behind, it mightn't be such a bad thing − the cheaper software will lower the cost of living, making UBI more feasible.

The glut of unemployed people will hopefully popularise UBI rather than trying to jump back on the treadmill of GDP maximisation, exploiting each other and destroying our planet.

https://nonhuman.party/post/replacing_capitalism/

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#93

Post by manicennui » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 10:41 PM UTC

It is difficult to take pieces like this seriously. "AI" is not ahead of people who are competent. And you should be worried if something that produces semi-correct boilerplate is ahead of you.

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#94

Post by pydry » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 10:43 PM UTC

coliveira wrote: post #82

moonchrome wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the worst part about generative AI IMO - it makes writing new code faster - it barely helps with editing existing code. So when someone eventually updates the code and forgets to update the comments I wouldn't be surprised if the misleading comments made AI hallucinate.

I believe that AI will get so good at creating new code that a lot of existing libraries will be let unused. What is the point of using lots of libraries if AI can generate the code we need directly? The AI will be the library itself, and the generated code will embed the knowledge about doing lots of things for which we used libraries.

>What is the point of using lots of libraries if AI can generate the code we need directly?

Theyve been debugged.

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#95

Post by gfodor » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 10:46 PM UTC

lumb63 wrote: post #84

gfodor wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you actually tried it? Copilot + vim for me is faster, and less frustrating tbh, than vim without Copilot. Typing obvious things is a PITA, and in code we type a lot of obvious things.

The hype around AI coding assistants has recently inspired me to improve my efficiency in writing code. I started using NeoVim instead of vim to get access to LSP, for autocomplete. I’ve found it actually slows me down because I can type nearly anything faster than the LSP can synthesize a response and I’m able to visually process the options, select one, and input it into the computer. I’ve never compared against an…

An AI coding assistant is different, it will write an entire loop, including the body, with proper guards, and so on, in 1-2 seconds.

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#96

Post by skeeter2020 » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 10:46 PM UTC

OwenFM wrote: post #92

If people get left behind, it mightn't be such a bad thing − the cheaper software will lower the cost of living, making UBI more feasible. The glut of unemployed people will hopefully popularise UBI rather than trying to jump back on the treadmill of GDP maximisation, exploiting each other and destroying our planet. https://nonhuman.party/post/replacing_capitalism/

Interesting take, ignoring the fact there will be far less people to pay into your magical UBI pool. How do you reconcile a huge glut of unemployed people and the resources to hand out extensive welfare benefits?

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#97

Post by pedalpete » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 10:55 PM UTC

Perhaps the title of the post has changed as it now reads "How Coders can Survive - and Thrive - in a ChatGPT world".

My initial reaction when looking at the HN post title "Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI" made me think "we don't want to stay ahead, we want to leverage the new capabilities".

Can you imagine a weaver thinking "how can I stay ahead of the loom?" It's crazy to try. Instead, figure out what the new technology enables you to do which you couldn't do before, and leverage that.

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#98

Post by analog31 » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 10:56 PM UTC

oofsa wrote: post #36

The current AI may improve coder performance by only 5%, but it can improve non-coders' learning speed by 1000%. Learning to code has become significantly easier because of ChatGPT, and many university students are already using it for learning. Not only can they let ChatGPT write boilerplate code, but they can also let ChatGPT write comments for code snippets they don't understand and explain unfamiliar syntax. I wo…

Imagine an organization that once depended on 10 million lines of code, now depends on 10 billion lines of code.

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#99

Post by antifa » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 10:59 PM UTC

ape4 wrote: post #11

It seems similar to off-shoring (a while ago). People in another country would bang together tons of inelegant code that somebody else had to check.

It'll at least look a lot nicer though

Re: Tips for programmers to stay ahead of generative AI

#100

Post by Kiro » Tue, Jul 04, 2023, 11:04 PM UTC

DonaldPShimoda wrote: post #56

Kiro wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the next sentence after your quote. The point is that you should include code and examples in your prompt (Copilot is so good since it includes the surrounding code and open files in the prompt to understand your specific context), not that you should craft an exceptional "act as rockstar engineer" prompt.

I did read it, but the whole premise is flawed due to an apparently incomplete understanding of how LLMs work. Including code samples in your prompt won't have the effect you think it will. LLMs are trained to produce results that are statistically likely to be syntactically well-formed according to assumptions made about how "language" works. So when you provide code samples, the model incorporates those into the re…

If it works it works and it definitely works for me. I've been using Copilot for about a year and I can't imagine coding without it again. I cannot recall any bugs slipping by because of it. If anything it makes me write less bugs, since it has no problem taking tedious edge cases into account.