Live data from Hacker News

Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

kyrylo.org

11–20 of 150 posts

Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#11
post #5

Using LLMs to write code is a waste. If its rote code or boilerplate it sucks at writing it consistently. If its novel code, it's not in its training set. What LLMs don't suck as much is writing semi readable docs and commit messages.

We've got an LLM analyzing merge requests. While most of what it writes is too wordy for my liking and I'd prefer if people making MRs would actually write good descriptions and commit messages instead of saying "we use squash merges", one thing I do like it is that it suggests a better title. The title of an MR is used in the squash merge commit, and that commit is used in the changelog which is what users of our library rely on to consider what they need to check before upgrading.

On the one side, people should write good MR titles for this reason. On the other, sometimes you just don't know, and people's brains are already overflowing with all of the tasks they need to do in order to do their job properly.

But also, finally, it's just a suggestion; we don't have AIs writing our changelog yet, except ironically to make them worse / cringe.

Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#14
> Because if you can vibe code… so can everyone else.

That's really the money shot, right there.

CEOs have this dream of firing all their "obnoxious" engineers, and "vibe-coding" their own products. That's not something new. People have been selling this dream to gullible C-suiters since I first started coding in Machine Code (1980s).

The future will belong to the engineers that can leverage AI. Engineering is a lot more involved than "HAL, write me a Facebook," which is the C-suite dream.

It's just that engineering will move another level up, as it has, for hundreds of years.

Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#15
post #5

Using LLMs to write code is a waste. If its rote code or boilerplate it sucks at writing it consistently. If its novel code, it's not in its training set. What LLMs don't suck as much is writing semi readable docs and commit messages.

Your understanding of LLMs is wrong. Please read https://www.anthropic.com/news/tracing-thoughts-language-mod...

Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#16
post #9

The rise of tools like Cursor reminds me of the Industrial Revolution in France. When machines first appeared in factories, unskilled workers who didn’t understand how they operated often got injured - sometimes quite literally losing fingers. But for skilled craftsmen, these machines became force multipliers, dramatically increasing productivity and improving overall living standards. The same applies to software de…

Well it’s a good point that proves at least two things. First in the industrial world machine have not yet replaced man after decades. Still a force multiplier.

The second point is the one who control « what » produces value wins it all. In France we had amazing industries and some were deported offshore. Maybe some genius thought that only the brain mattered. Now countries have to rely on other countries to build or make products evolve and those countries can make their own products now and can charge us whatever they want (I’m simplifying) because we don’t know how to build things anymore, tools and craftsmanship is gone and not learned anymore. I feel the article pin points exactly the main idea behind AI : who will have control and who will be able to decide that the API price can be x100 ? If no one knows how to code, that is very dangerous and what happened in the industrial world shows it’s dangerous. Companies have an endgame of power and as a developer deciding to not learn or delegate my know how makes me at mercy in the end

Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#17
post #9

The rise of tools like Cursor reminds me of the Industrial Revolution in France. When machines first appeared in factories, unskilled workers who didn’t understand how they operated often got injured - sometimes quite literally losing fingers. But for skilled craftsmen, these machines became force multipliers, dramatically increasing productivity and improving overall living standards. The same applies to software de…

But the usual way of learning the craft is broken. Experienced developers will now work with AI instead of hiring junior developers. Some exceptional individuals might still learn on their own, but the path from junior to senior, learning by doing, could vanish. That's my worry.

Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#18
post #6

If you spend time on places that attract newbie programmers (some subreddits focused on game dev or game engines, for example) you’ll see the outcome of “I no longer think you should learn to code.” And it’s not pretty. Many, many posts of people looking for help fixing AI-generated code because the AI got it wrong and they have no idea what the code even does. Much of the time the problem is simply an invented metho…

IME these tend to be the same people arguing that programmers will all be out of a job in 10 years. It makes me wonder why they persist.

Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#20
I guess experience is widely varying with tools. I had no idea what WSS was. Cursor searched the web and docs and necessary and built a working program. Then we went over each conceptual blocks and it explained stuff to me. When I was confused about some parts, it decided I need to strip away the RealTime API component and just understand asynco in context of WSS so it created a new file with a toy example.

Could it have written some really, really bad and unmaintainable code and it was just justifying things? Very possible. I asked to strip some 60% of the code after I thought I understood, and it was still working. The original code was too abstract for me and hard to follow. Did I learn in this whole process? I think yes. Would I have learned more if I had worked without AI? I think yes.

In life, some people play games and figure out the best builds after a lot of sweat and tears while others prefer googling the meta and only doing those builds, it seems. Both approach seems fine.

Post reply on HN