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Chat is a bad UI pattern for development tools

danieldelaney.net

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Re: Chat is a bad UI pattern for development tools

#11

Post by wongarsu »

Edmond wrote: post #6

This is about relying on requirements type documents to drive AI based software development, I believe this will be ultimately integrated into all the AI-dev tools, if not so already. It is really just additional context. Here is an example of our approach: https://blog.codesolvent.com/2024/11/building-youtube-video-... We are also using the requirements to build a checklist, the AI generates the checklist from the r…

Now we just need another tool that allows stakeholders to write requirement docs using a chat interface

Re: Chat is a bad UI pattern for development tools

#12

Post by Take8435 »

m3kw9 wrote: post #7

There is a black box effect between when you press enter and it starts updating code in multiple places. Like wtf just happened, I have to find these changes, which code broke dependencies. It should be more step wise visually

Are you... not using git?

Re: Chat is a bad UI pattern for development tools

#13

Post by oxfordmale »

croes wrote: post #5

Natural language isn’t made to be precise that’s why we use a subset in programming languages. So you either need lots of extra text to remove the ambiguity of natural language if you use AI or you need a special precise subset to communicate with AI and that’s just programming with extra steps.

Yes, let's devise a more precise way to give AI instructions. Let's call it pAIthon. This will allow powers that be, like Zuckerberg to save face and claim that AI has replaced mid-level developers and enable developers to rebrand themselves as pAIthon programmers.

Joking aside, this is likely where we will end up, just with a slightly higher programming interface, making developers more productive.

Re: Chat is a bad UI pattern for development tools

#14

Post by empath75 »

croes wrote: post #5

Natural language isn’t made to be precise that’s why we use a subset in programming languages. So you either need lots of extra text to remove the ambiguity of natural language if you use AI or you need a special precise subset to communicate with AI and that’s just programming with extra steps.

AIs actually are very good at this. They wouldn't be able to write code at all otherwise. If you're careful in your prompting, they'll make fewer assumptions and ask clarifying questions before going ahead and writing code.

Re: Chat is a bad UI pattern for development tools

#17

Post by benatkin »

A chat room is an activity stream and so is a commit log of a version control system. A lot of the bad UI is waiting a fixed amount of time that had a minimum that was too high, and for some communicating by typing. Many will prefer chatting by voice. When responses are faster it will be easier to hide the history pane and ask if you need to be reminded of anything in the history pane and use the artifact pane. However not all responses from an LLM need be fast, it is a huge advancement that LLMs will think for minutes at a time. I agree about the usefulness of prose as an artifact while coding. Markdown can be edited in IDEs using LLMs and then referenced in prompts.

Re: Chat is a bad UI pattern for development tools

#18

Post by barrenko »

m3kw9 wrote: post #7

There is a black box effect between when you press enter and it starts updating code in multiple places. Like wtf just happened, I have to find these changes, which code broke dependencies. It should be more step wise visually

The next couple of years will be dedicated to working that out.
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