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The rise of judgement over technical skill

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Re: The rise of judgement over technical skill

#111

Post by esafak »

ben30 wrote: post #6

This echoes my experience with Claude Code. The bottleneck isn't the code generation itself—it's two critical judgment tasks: 1. Problem decomposition: Taking a vague idea and breaking it down into well-defined, context-bounded issues that I can effectively communicate to the AI 2. Code review: Carefully evaluating the generated code to ensure it meets quality standards and integrates properly Both of these require d…

You still need to be able to code to recognize when it's done poorly, and to write the technical specification.

Re: The rise of judgement over technical skill

#112

Post by coldpie »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #79
steveBK123 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So really the same two skills that a senior engineer needs to delegate tasks to juniors & review the results..

This is exactly how to use it and exactly why it’s a huge deal In my experience so far, the people that aren’t getting value out of LLM code assistants, fundamentally like the process of writing code and using the tooling All of my senior, staff, principals love it because we can make something faster than having to deal with a junior because it’s trivial to write the spec/requirement for Claude etc…

> In my experience so far, the people that aren’t getting value out of LLM code assistants, fundamentally like the process of writing code and using the tooling

> All of my senior, staff, principals love it because we can make something faster than having to deal with a junior because it’s trivial to write the spec/requirement for Claude etc…

Hm, interesting. As someone who has found zero joy and value in using LLMs, this rings true to me. Setting aside the numerous glaring errors I get every time I try to use one, even if the tools were perfect, I don't think I would enjoy using them. I enjoy programming, thinking about how to break down a problem and form abstractions and fit those into the tools the language I'm writing in gives me. I enjoy learning and using the suite of Unix tools like grep and sed and vim to think about how to efficiently write and transform code. The end product isn't the fun part, the fun part is making the end product. If software engineering just becomes explaining stuff in English to a machine and having some software pop out... then I think the industry just isn't for me anymore. I don't want to hand the fun part over to a machine.

It's like how I enjoy going to my wood shop to build tables instead of going to Ikea. It would be cheaper and faster and honestly maybe even better quality to go to Ikea, but the joy is in the knowledge and skill it takes to build the table from rough lumber.

Re: The rise of judgement over technical skill

#113

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

gavmor wrote: post #104
tingle wrote: post #94

Chap. CCCLXIV. — On the Judgment of Painters. When the work is equal to the knowledge and judgment of the painter, it is a bad sign; and when it surpasses the judgment, it is still worse, as is the case with those who wonder at having succeeded so well. But when the judgment surpasses the work, it is a perfectly good sign ; and the young painter who possesses that rare disposition, will, no doubt, arrive at great per…

> Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot…

I like to do a good job on small stuff.

It works nicely for me, but doesn't really bring accolades (but a hell of a lot of folks actually rely on stuff I authored; they just don't know it, or care -which is just fine).

Re: The rise of judgement over technical skill

#115

Post by tonyedgecombe »

coffeefirst wrote: post #65
prmph wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the heck, the code generation _is_ absolutely still a bottle-neck. I dare anyone who making these arguments that LLMs have removed the need for actual programming skill, for example, to share in a virtual pair programming session with me, and I will demonstrate their basic inability to do _any_ moderately complex coding in short order. Yes, I think that's the only way to resolve this controversy. If they have so…

Indeed. All this “productivity” has not resulted in one meaningful open source PR or one interesting indie app launch, and I can’t square my own experience with the hype machine. If it’s not all hat and no cattle, someone should be able to show me some cows.

>I can’t square my own experience with the hype machine.

Me neither. My gut feeling is it's the inexperienced who gain the most from generative AI. That does seem to be confirmed by papers like this:

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/workers-less-e...

At most I've found it helps with some of the routine work but saving a few minutes typing doesn't offset the problems it creates.

Re: The rise of judgement over technical skill

#116

Post by azeirah »

coffeefirst wrote: post #65
prmph wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the heck, the code generation _is_ absolutely still a bottle-neck. I dare anyone who making these arguments that LLMs have removed the need for actual programming skill, for example, to share in a virtual pair programming session with me, and I will demonstrate their basic inability to do _any_ moderately complex coding in short order. Yes, I think that's the only way to resolve this controversy. If they have so…

Indeed. All this “productivity” has not resulted in one meaningful open source PR or one interesting indie app launch, and I can’t square my own experience with the hype machine. If it’s not all hat and no cattle, someone should be able to show me some cows.

I dunno, as an engineer who likes to make side projects, I can say with high certainty that LLMs have helped me compensate for things I'm worse at when coding a product.

I'm good at the engineering side of things, I'm good at UI, I'm good at UX, I'm good at css, I'm just not good at design.

So I tell the LLM to do it for me. It works incredibly well.

I don't know if it's a net increase in productivity for me, but I am absolutely certain that it is a net increase in my ability to ship a more complete product.

Re: The rise of judgement over technical skill

#117

Post by CodeMage »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #79
steveBK123 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So really the same two skills that a senior engineer needs to delegate tasks to juniors & review the results..

This is exactly how to use it and exactly why it’s a huge deal In my experience so far, the people that aren’t getting value out of LLM code assistants, fundamentally like the process of writing code and using the tooling All of my senior, staff, principals love it because we can make something faster than having to deal with a junior because it’s trivial to write the spec/requirement for Claude etc…

> All of my senior, staff, principals love it because we can make something faster than having to deal with a junior because it’s trivial to write the spec/requirement for Claude etc…

How will you make new senior, staff, and principal engineers without "having to deal with a junior"?

Re: The rise of judgement over technical skill

#118

Post by AndrewKemendo »

coldpie wrote: post #112
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly how to use it and exactly why it’s a huge deal In my experience so far, the people that aren’t getting value out of LLM code assistants, fundamentally like the process of writing code and using the tooling All of my senior, staff, principals love it because we can make something faster than having to deal with a junior because it’s trivial to write the spec/requirement for Claude etc…

> In my experience so far, the people that aren’t getting value out of LLM code assistants, fundamentally like the process of writing code and using the tooling > All of my senior, staff, principals love it because we can make something faster than having to deal with a junior because it’s trivial to write the spec/requirement for Claude etc… Hm, interesting. As someone who has found zero joy and value in using LLMs,…

Software at scale is a business function

You’re describing a hobby/artistry process

You can still do all that, the same way that you can still build a table at your house.

But the number of number of handmade table builders is going to drop to effectively zero for the majority of table building going forward

Re: The rise of judgement over technical skill

#119

Post by SoftTalker »

Veen wrote: post #34
CleverLikeAnOx wrote: post #22

This blog post shows how not to use AI. The author would have been unlikely to write such a uselessly redundant conclusion if they had to type it themselves. Edit: I like the post, but it didn't need to be padded with fluff.

We shouldn't be too quick to jump to "AI did it." People write redundant paragraphs and sentences in articles all the time because they're led to believe that every article needs a conclusion that sums up what's already been said. Ironically, including one in this article showed a lack of good judgment, which isn't confined to AIs.

A certain amount of redundancy can be helpful. If you explain the same thing two different ways, one way might make more sense than the other to a particular reader. The judgement comes in because you should not just be doing this by rote or because you were "lead to believe" it was necessary, but in consideration of who you are writing for.

Re: The rise of judgement over technical skill

#120

Post by CodeMage »

skydhash wrote: post #69
steveBK123 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So really the same two skills that a senior engineer needs to delegate tasks to juniors & review the results..

Nope, dealing with juniors is way less frustrating because they learn. So overtime, you can increase the complexity of their tasks until they're no longer junior.

Bingo! Not to mention that "dealing with juniors" is one of the critical ways for a senior engineer to grow.
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