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

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

#141

Post by parliament32 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #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…

Absolutely. Just like, I'm sure, plenty of engineers are starting to think about developing a cool product and vibe-marketing, vibe-salesing, vibe-accounting, etc their way into a functioning business. See: the plethora of SaaS platforms promising to automate away entire sections of business operations "with AI".

Both will fail, unfortunately, because it's easy to underestimate the complexities and intricacies of processes you do not understand in the first place. These various AI offerings are just making the situation worse, because they (as with most things in AI) give the appearance of being functional while falling apart under scrutiny -- the "confidently wrong" problem and all.

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

#142

Post by parliament32 »

bluGill wrote: post #120
dingnuts wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been programming for a few decades. I hate LLMs. They generate oodles of buggy shite that I have to fix by hand. They frequently steal my time and make me less productive because people on this site say I have to learn them or retire, and then I waste time looking up the details the bot got wrong. They're a slot machine and the people who think they are good are justifying an addiction and sunk costs. So retire…

The real answer is probably somewhere between the two. There is value in AI - and the versions that will come up in the future will be better. However it isn't nearly as valuable as the advocates say either. I've given up on the current rounds, but I'm still going to keep watching for when they get better. They might or might not get enough better before I retire (I'm likely older than you), but there are a lot of th…

I'd like to agree with you and remain optimistic, but so much tech has promised the moon and stagnated into oblivion that I just don't have any optimism left to give.

I don't know if you're old enough, but remember when speech-to-text was the next big thing? DragonSpeak was released in 1997, everyone was losing their minds about dictating letters/documents in MS Word, and we were promised that THIS would be the key interface for computing evermore. And.. 27 years later, talking to the latest Siri, it makes just as many mistakes as it did back then. In messenger applications people are sending literal voice notes -- audio clips -- back and forth because dictation is so unreliable. And audio clips are possibly the worst interface for communication ever (no searching, etc).

Remember how blockchain was going to change the world? Web3? IoT? Etc etc.

I've been through enough of these cycles to understand that, while the AI gimmick is cool and all, we're probably at the local maximum. The reliability won't improve much from here (hallucinations etc), while the costs to run it will stay high. The final tombstone will be when the AI companies stop running at a loss and actually charge for the massive costs associated with running these models.

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

#143

Post by shinycode »

MonkeyClub wrote: post #125
shinycode wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> machine have not yet replaced man after decades When I look at fields like car manufacturing, which is mostly robotic, it seems that nowadays humans are force multipliers for machines rather than the other way around.

Yeah but there isn’t one self operating supply chain that makes cars. We make more cars of ship them faster.

The day machines 100% replaced humans throughout the industries it will be an other problem because capitalism is built upon the premise that man is paid because he brings value. Once that’s over and you don’t have money the things you’ll consume less are the nice to have so whole countries might be in trouble. So either we all be able to bring other kinds of values, either the system will have to change not to collapse ?

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

#144

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

parliament32 wrote: post #141
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #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…

Absolutely. Just like, I'm sure, plenty of engineers are starting to think about developing a cool product and vibe-marketing, vibe-salesing, vibe-accounting, etc their way into a functioning business. See: the plethora of SaaS platforms promising to automate away entire sections of business operations "with AI". Both will fail, unfortunately, because it's easy to underestimate the complexities and intricacies of pro…

I was just talking to someone about this, this morning.

I will use ChatGPT (generally) to help me solve occasional issues. I'll come across some conundrum, and ask ChatGPT for a suggestion, which it confidently delivers.

The first suggestion is almost always wrong.

I'll say something like "That won't work," or "That answer is deprecated."

It will say "You're right!", followed by one that is more useful.

I suspect lots of folks run with the first answer.

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

#145

Post by fmxsh »

In a way, "vibe coding" is like what infants do when they give "error messages" of "hungry" to query mom for food.

Newcomers may be tempted to maintain the uttermost ignorance of what they are creating, as I imagine "vibe coding" implies, where the height of problem-solving is creating quicker pipes between errors and re-submission to AI to fix those errors.

I'm really glad I learned programming a long time ago, before AI. I use AI more like a tool for getting information (much like browsing manuals, forums, Stack Overflow), but it is, of course, magnitudes better. I still do the conceptual outlining and problem solving, and that is what programming is to me. If there's something I don't understand from the AI, I always query to know how it works. It's even easier now to understand how things work thanks to AI.

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

#146

Post by guappa »

ArthurStacks wrote: post #134
guappa wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43504924

I run a software development business. I know as good as anyone where things are headed

So you're not a software developer and can't really evaluate how useful it is?

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

#147

Post by nkrisc »

sharemywin wrote: post #100
adriand wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing how to code, and having a lot of experience and an "intuitive" sense of what is a good idea and what is a bad idea, also puts you in a position to question the advice the AI gives you. Just now I was asking Claude to help me with an issue with a React component and it told me to add useEffect with a timer. I am not a React expert, but that immediately felt like a code smell to me, so I followed up: > is it we…

that's the thing if your inquisitive and have an interest in learning things then you can still go far with AI coding. can you explain why this code works? is this the best way to do it or are there other solutions? what are the pros and cons? are there security problems with this? how could I make this code more secure? what are some things I should look out for with AI coding(meta question)? what does this error me…

> inquisitive and have an interest in learning things

Traits much less common than you might think among people who want to get into programming.

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

#148

Post by nkrisc »

NeutralCrane wrote: post #123
nkrisc wrote: 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…

> Now of course people learning the traditional way have these same problems, but they’re debugging code they wrote, not gobbledygook from an AI. I’m not sure this is true. Prior to AI you saw a lot of the same behavior, but it was with code copied and pasted from stack overflow, or tutorials, or what have you. I don’t think AI has changed much in terms of behavior. There has always been a subset of people who have j…

The difference is that code are copy-pasting isn’t randomly mutated for each person doing so, and likely if they take the time to go back to where they got it there is likely also an explanation or more info about if they care to take the time to read.

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

#149

Post by ArthurStacks »

guappa wrote: post #146
ArthurStacks wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run a software development business. I know as good as anyone where things are headed

So you're not a software developer and can't really evaluate how useful it is?

You should have spent more time in school

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

#150

Post by guappa »

ArthurStacks wrote: post #149
guappa wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're not a software developer and can't really evaluate how useful it is?

You should have spent more time in school

Is there any research that shows that failing years in school and remaining longer than expected is linked with blindly believing anything AI grifters say?
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