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Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

worksonmymachine.substack.com

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Re: Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

#101

Post by [deleted] »

logicchains wrote: post #37
karel-3d wrote: post #24

Reading articles like this feels like being in a different reality. I don't work like this, I don't want to work like this and maybe most importantly I don't want to work with somebody who works like this. Also I am scared that any library that I am using through the myriad of dependencies is written like this. On the other hand... if I look at this as some alternate universe where I don't need to directly or indirec…

>I don't work like this, I don't want to work like this and maybe most importantly I don't want to work with somebody who works like this. It suggests you've had very positive life experiences, that you trust human developers so much more than computers.

[deleted]

Re: Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

#102

Post by dingnuts »

miltonlost wrote: post #59
rafaelmn wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like people telling us there will be no more professional drivers on the road in 5-10 years 10 years ago. Agents are like lane assist, not even up to the current self driving levels.

So many people are hyping AI like it's Musk's FSD, with the same fraudulance in overestimating its capabilities.

it's exactly like this. we're 3 years into being told all white collar jobs are going to be gone next year, just like we're ten years into being told we'll have self driving cars next year

Re: Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

#103

Post by johannes1234321 »

prinny_ wrote: post #61
mnky9800n wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the agent stuff is impressive because we are giving the AI scaffold and tools and things to do. And that is why it is impressive because it has some directive. But it is obvious if you don't give it good directives it doesn't know what to do. So for me, I think a lot of jobs will be making agents do things, but a lot won't. i think its really strange that people are all so against all this stuff. it's cool ne…

A lot of people join this profession because they like building stuff. They enjoy thinking about a problem and coming up with a solution and then implementing and testing it. Prompting is not the same thing and it doesn't scratch the same itch and at the end of the day it's important to enjoy your job, not only be efficient at it. I have heard the take that "writing code is not what makes you an engineer, solving pro…

There is code which is interesting to write, even if it isn't the area with clever algorithms or big architecture decisions or something.

But there is also the area of boilerplate, where non-LLM-AI-based IDEs for a few decades already help a lot with templates and "smart" completion. Current AI systems widen that area.

The trouble with AI is when you are reaching the boundary of its capabilities. The trivial stuff it does well. For the complex stuff it fails spectacularly. In the in between you got to review carefully, which easily becomes less fun than simply writing by oneself.

Re: Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

#104

Post by richardw »

karel-3d wrote: post #24

Reading articles like this feels like being in a different reality. I don't work like this, I don't want to work like this and maybe most importantly I don't want to work with somebody who works like this. Also I am scared that any library that I am using through the myriad of dependencies is written like this. On the other hand... if I look at this as some alternate universe where I don't need to directly or indirec…

Scary part is: what if it’s inevitable? We don’t get to choose our environment, and toss one is forming around us.

A friend’s dad only knows assembly. He’s the ceo of his company and they do hardware, and he’s close to retirement now, but he finds this newfangled C and C++ stuff a little too abstract. He sadly needs to trust “these people” but really he prefers being on the metal.

Re: Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

#105

Post by theferret »

Loic wrote: post #27
lordnacho wrote: post #15

I'm loving the new programming. I don't know where it goes either, but I like it for now. I'm actually producing code right this moment, where I would normally just relax and do something else. Instead, I'm relaxing and coding. It's great for a senior guy who has been in the business for a long time. Most of my edits nowadays are tedious. If I look at the code and decide I used the wrong pattern originally, I have to…

> What junior devs will do, I'm not so sure. They somehow have to jump to the top of the mountain, but the stairs are gone. Exactly my thinking, nearly 50, more than 30 years of experience in early every kind of programming, like you do, I can easily architect/control/adjust the agent to help me produce great code with a very robust architecture. By I do that out of my experience, both in modelling (science) and prog…

I feel like we've been here before, and there was a time when if you're going to be an engineer, you needed to know core equations, take a lot of derivatives, perform mathematical analysis on paper, get results in an understandable form, and come up with solutions. That process may be analogous to what we used to think of as beginning with core data structures and algorithms, design patterns, architecture and infrastructure patterns, and analyzing them all together to create something nice. Yet today, much of the lower-level mathematics that were previously required no longer are. And although people are trained in their availability and where they are used, they form the backbone of systems that automate the vast majority of the engineering process.

It might be as simple as creating awareness about how everything works underneath and creating graduates that understand how these things should work in a similar vein.

Re: Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

#106

Post by reactordev »

Congratulations, you just passed project management class.

What you describe is exactly what a project manager does. Refines the technical, stories, organizes the development towards a goal.

This doesn’t feel like programming because it isn’t. It doesn’t NOT feel like programming because you’re supervising. In the end, you are now a project manager.

Re: Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

#107

Post by lordnacho »

dingnuts wrote: post #91
Benjammer wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you paying for the higher end models? Do you have proper system prompts and guidance in place for proper prompt engineering? Have you started to practice any auxiliary forms of context engineering? This isn't a magic code genie, it's a very complicated and very powerful new tool that you need to practice using over time in order to get good results from.

guy 1: I put money in the slot machine everyone says wins all the time and I lose you: HAVE YOU PUT MORE TOKENS IN???? ARE YOU PUTTING THEM IN THE EXPENSIVE MACHINES??? super compelling argument /s if you want to provide working examples of "prompt engineering" or "context engineering" please do but "just keep paying until the behavior is impressive" isn't winning me as a customer it's like putting out a demo program…

The way I ended up paying for Claude max was that I started on the cheap plan, it went well, then it wanted more money, and I paid because things were going well.

Then it ran out of money again, and I gave it even more money.

I'm in the low 4 figures a year now, and it's worth it. For a day's pay each year, I've got a junior dev who is super fast, makes good suggestions, and makes working code.

Re: Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

#108

Post by layer8 »

fmbb wrote: post #4

That time dilation feels a bit like what METR reported: https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-o... Developers believe they complete tasks 25% faster with AI but when measured they are 19% slower when using AI.

That’s reminiscent of how when people are “in the flow”, they feel productive but also tend to not notice how quickly time passes.

Re: Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

#109

Post by kellyjprice »

lordnacho wrote: post #33
karel-3d wrote: post #24

Reading articles like this feels like being in a different reality. I don't work like this, I don't want to work like this and maybe most importantly I don't want to work with somebody who works like this. Also I am scared that any library that I am using through the myriad of dependencies is written like this. On the other hand... if I look at this as some alternate universe where I don't need to directly or indirec…

But you also can't not swim with the tide. If you drove a horse-buggy 100 years ago, it was probably worth your while to keep your eye on whether motor-cars went anywhere. I was super skeptical about a year ago. Copilot was making nice predictions, that was it. This agent stuff is truly impressive.

I'm not trying to discount it the analogy, but I'd much rather live without cars (or a lot less).

Re: Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

#110

Post by Fade_Dance »

ivanjermakov wrote: post #32
Flatcircle wrote: post #22

My theory on AI is it's the next iteration of google search, a better more conversational, base layer over all the information that exists on the internet. Of course some people will lose jobs just like what happened to several industries when search became ubiquitous. (newspapers, phone books, encyclopedias, travel agents) But IMHO this isn't the existential crisis people think it is. It's just a tool. Smart, clever…

> Search has just become Chat I think chat-like LLM interfacing is not the most efficient way. There has to be a smarter way.

There is certainly much innovation to come in this area.

I'm thinking about Personal Knowledge Systems and their innovative ideas regarding visual representations of data (mind maps, website of interconnected notes, things like that). That could be useful for AI search. What elements are doing in a sense is building concept web, which would naturally fit quite well into visualization.

The ChatBot paradigm is quite centered around short easily digestible narratives, and will humans are certainly narrative generating and absorbing creatures to a large degree, things like having a visually mapped out counter argument can also be surprisingly useful. It's just not something that humans naturally do without effort outside of, say, a philosophy degree.

There is still the specter of the megacorp feed algo monster lurking though, in that there is a tendency to reduce the consumer facing tools to black-box algorithms that are optimized to boost engagement. Many of the more innovative approaches may involve giving users more control, like dynamic sliders for results, that sort of thing.

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