Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Promising results from DeepSeek R1 for code

simonwillison.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 765 posts

Re: Promising results from DeepSeek R1 for code

#141

Post by fauigerzigerk »

jeswin wrote: post #31

> 99% of the code in this PR [for llama.cpp] is written by DeekSeek-R1 I hope we can put to rest the argument that LLMs are only marginally useful in coding - which are often among the top comments on many threads. I suppose these arguments arise from (a) having used only GH copilot which is the worst tool, or (b) not having spent enough time with the tool/llm, or (c) apprehension. I've given up responding to these.…

A long time ago, I held the grandiose title of software architect. My job was to describe in a mix of diagrams, natural language and method signatures what developers were supposed to do.

The back and forth was agonising. They were all competent software engineers but communicating with them was often far more work than just writing the damn code myself.

So yes I do believe that our trade has changed forever. But the fact that some of our coworkers will be AIs doesn't mean that communicating with them is suddenly free. Communcation comes with costs (and I don't mean tokens). That won't change.

If you know your stuff really well, i.e. you work on a familiar codebase using a familiar toolset, the shortest path from your intentions to finished code will often not include anyone else - no humans and no AI either.

In my opinion, "LLMs are only marginally useful in coding" is not true in general, but it could well be true for a specific person and a specific coding task.

Re: Promising results from DeepSeek R1 for code

#142

Post by withinboredom »

jvanderbot wrote: post #103
jeswin wrote: post #31

> 99% of the code in this PR [for llama.cpp] is written by DeekSeek-R1 I hope we can put to rest the argument that LLMs are only marginally useful in coding - which are often among the top comments on many threads. I suppose these arguments arise from (a) having used only GH copilot which is the worst tool, or (b) not having spent enough time with the tool/llm, or (c) apprehension. I've given up responding to these.…

This is great. Really! Buuut... How do you get these tools to not fall over completely when relying on an existing non-public codebase that isn't visible in just the current file? Or, how do you get them to use a recent API that doesn't dominate their training data? Combining the both, I just cannot for the life of me get them to be useful beyond the most basic boilerplate. Arguably, SIMD intrinsics are a one-to-one…

Hahaha. My favorite was when we bumped go up to use go 1.23 and our AI code review tool flagged it because “1.22 is actually the latest release.” Yesterday.

Re: Promising results from DeepSeek R1 for code

#143

Post by fragmede »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #46
jeswin wrote: post #31

> 99% of the code in this PR [for llama.cpp] is written by DeekSeek-R1 I hope we can put to rest the argument that LLMs are only marginally useful in coding - which are often among the top comments on many threads. I suppose these arguments arise from (a) having used only GH copilot which is the worst tool, or (b) not having spent enough time with the tool/llm, or (c) apprehension. I've given up responding to these.…

Who would the new applications be for? I figure that it’ll be far easier to build apps for use by LLMs than building apps for people to use. I don’t think there will be this large increase of induced demand, the whole world just got a lot more efficient and that’s probably a bad thing for the average person.

take some process that you, or someone you know does right now that involves spreadsheets and copy-pasting between various apps. hiring a software engineer to build an app so it's just a [do-it] button previously didn't make sense because software engineer time was too expensive. Now, that app can be made, so the HR or whatever person doesn't need to waste their time on automatable tasks.

Re: Promising results from DeepSeek R1 for code

#144

Post by antonislav »

simonw wrote: post #90
jeswin wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's why I'm not worried. There is already SO MUCH more demand for code than we're able to keep up with. Show me a company that doesn't have a backlog a mile long where most of the internal conversations are about how to prioritize what to build next. I worry about junior developers. It will be a while before vocational programming courses retool to teach this new way of writing code, and these are going to be te…

Yeah, it's going to suck for junior developers for a while. The ones who are self-starters will do fine - they'll figure out how to accelerate their way up the learning curve using these new tools. People who prefer classroom-learning / guided education are going to be at a disadvantage for a few years while the education space retools for this new world.

I think, seeing recordings of people using LLMs to accomplish non-trivial tasks would go a long way.

I’d love to watch, e.g. you Simon, using these tools. I assume there are so many little tricks you figured out over time that together make a big difference. Things that come to mind:

- how to quickly validate the output?

- what tooling to use for iterating back and forth with the LLM? (just a chat?)

- how to steer the LLM towards a certain kind of solutions?

- what is the right context to provide to the LLM? How do it technically?

Re: Promising results from DeepSeek R1 for code

#145

Post by LeFantome »

jeswin wrote: post #86
simonw wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Jobs are going to be lost unless there's somehow a demand for more applications." That's why I'm not worried. There is already SO MUCH more demand for code than we're able to keep up with. Show me a company that doesn't have a backlog a mile long where most of the internal conversations are about how to prioritize what to build next. I think LLM assistance makes programmers significantly more productive, which makes…

> That's why I'm not worried. There is already SO MUCH more demand for code than we're able to keep up with. Show me a company that doesn't have a backlog a mile long where most of the internal conversations are about how to prioritize what to build next. I worry about junior developers. It will be a while before vocational programming courses retool to teach this new way of writing code, and these are going to be te…

Think of how much easier it is to learn to code if you actually want to.

The mantra has always been that the best way to learn to code is to read other people’s code. Now you can have “other people” write you code for whatever you want. You can study it and see how it works. You can explore different ways of accomplishing the same tasks. You can look at the similar implementations in different languages. And you may be able to see the reasoning and research for it all. You are never going to get that kind of access to senior devs. Most people would never work up the courage to ask. Plus, you are going to become wicked good at using the AI and automation including being deeply in touch with its strengths and weaknesses. Honestly, I am not sure how older, already working devs are going to keep up with those that enter the field 3 years from now.

Re: Promising results from DeepSeek R1 for code

#146

Post by aomix »

simonw wrote: post #52
jeswin wrote: post #31

> 99% of the code in this PR [for llama.cpp] is written by DeekSeek-R1 I hope we can put to rest the argument that LLMs are only marginally useful in coding - which are often among the top comments on many threads. I suppose these arguments arise from (a) having used only GH copilot which is the worst tool, or (b) not having spent enough time with the tool/llm, or (c) apprehension. I've given up responding to these.…

"Jobs are going to be lost unless there's somehow a demand for more applications." That's why I'm not worried. There is already SO MUCH more demand for code than we're able to keep up with. Show me a company that doesn't have a backlog a mile long where most of the internal conversations are about how to prioritize what to build next. I think LLM assistance makes programmers significantly more productive, which makes…

I’m more bearish about LLMs but even in the extreme optimist case this is why I’m not that concerned. Every project I’m on is triaged as the one that needs the most help right now. A world when dozen projects don’t need to be left on the cutting room floor so one can live is a very exciting place.

Re: Promising results from DeepSeek R1 for code

#147

Post by LeFantome »

jeswin wrote: post #86
simonw wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Jobs are going to be lost unless there's somehow a demand for more applications." That's why I'm not worried. There is already SO MUCH more demand for code than we're able to keep up with. Show me a company that doesn't have a backlog a mile long where most of the internal conversations are about how to prioritize what to build next. I think LLM assistance makes programmers significantly more productive, which makes…

> That's why I'm not worried. There is already SO MUCH more demand for code than we're able to keep up with. Show me a company that doesn't have a backlog a mile long where most of the internal conversations are about how to prioritize what to build next. I worry about junior developers. It will be a while before vocational programming courses retool to teach this new way of writing code, and these are going to be te…

“ It's a difficult problem to solve, requiring new sets of books, courses etc.”

Instead of this, have you considered asking Deep Seek to explain it to you?

Re: Promising results from DeepSeek R1 for code

#148

Post by freshtake »

amarcheschi wrote: post #34

For what i can understand, he asked deepseek to convert arm simd code to wasm code. in the github issue he links he gives an example of a prompt: Your task is to convert a given C++ ARM NEON SIMD to WASM SIMD. Here is an example of another function: (follows a block example and a block with the instructions to convert) https://gist.github.com/ngxson/307140d24d80748bd683b396ba13b... I might be wrong of course, but ask…

This. For folks who regularly write simd/vmx/etc, this is a fairly straightforward PR, and one that uses very common patterns to achieve better parallelism.

It's still cool nonetheless, but not a particularly great test of DeepSeek vs. alternatives.

Re: Promising results from DeepSeek R1 for code

#149

Post by m3kw9 »

realo wrote: post #132
anotherpaulg wrote: post #61

> 99% of the code in this PR [for llama.cpp] is written by DeekSeek-R1 It's definitely possible for AI to do a large fraction of your coding, and for it to contribute significantly to "improving itself". As an example, aider currently writes about 70% of the new code in each of its releases. I automatically track and share this stat as graph [0] with aider's release notes. Before Sonnet, most releases were less than…

Hello... Is it possible to use aider with a local model running in LMStudio (or ollama)? From a quick glance i did not see an obvious way to do that... Hopefully i am totally wrong!

Yes and is easy

Re: Promising results from DeepSeek R1 for code

#150

Post by darkwater »

gmt2027 wrote: post #134
jeswin wrote: post #31

> 99% of the code in this PR [for llama.cpp] is written by DeekSeek-R1 I hope we can put to rest the argument that LLMs are only marginally useful in coding - which are often among the top comments on many threads. I suppose these arguments arise from (a) having used only GH copilot which is the worst tool, or (b) not having spent enough time with the tool/llm, or (c) apprehension. I've given up responding to these.…

If AI increases the productivity of a single engineer between 10-100x over the next decade, there will be a seismic shift in the industry and the tech giants will not walk away unscathed. There are coordination costs to organising large amounts of labour. Costs that scale non-linearly as massive inefficiencies are introduced. This ability to scale, provide capital and defer profitability is a moat for big tech and th…

This is a really interesting take that I don't see often in the wild. Actually, it's the first time I read someone saying this. But I think you are definitely onto something, especially if costs of AI are going to lower faster than expected even a few weeks ago.
Post reply on HN