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Engineers who dismiss AI

terriblesoftware.org

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Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#21

Post by miningape »

TimorousBestie wrote: post #14
ryandv wrote: post #5

What I want to see is a Destroy All Software style screencast where somebody actually demonstrates their AI workflow on legacy code.

That would be fantastic. I’ve seen so many claims like the author’s > [Claude Code and Cursor] can now work across entire codebases, understand project context, refactor multiple files at once, and iterate until it’s really done. But I haven’t seen anyone doing this on e.g. YouTube? Maybe that kind of content isn’t easy to monetize, but if it’s as easy to use AI as everyone says surely someone would try.

> if it’s as easy as everyone says surely someone would try.

Yeah, 18 months ago we were apparently going to have personal SaaSes and all sorts of new software - I don't see anything but an even more unstable web than ever before

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#23

Post by addlatt »

We are moving up an abstraction layer. From the perspective of the business, my job is not to write code, my job is to ship products. The language you use to ship products is your tool of choice. Sure, it could be Python or Typescript, but my tool of choice is natural language.

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#24

Post by harimau777 »

yunwal wrote: post #8
harimau777 wrote: post #4

What worries me is how AI impacts neurodivergent programmers. I have ADHD and it simply doesn't work for me to constantly be switching context between the code I'm writing and the AI chat. I am terrified that I will be forced out of the industry if I can't keep up with people who are able to use AI.

I find that any additional overhead caused by the separate AI chat is saved 20x over by basically never having to use a browser to look at documentation and S/O while coding.

That makes sense. I do use AI for questions like "what's the best way to flatten a list of lists in Python" or "what is the interface for this library function". I just don't use it the way I see some people do where they have it write the rough draft of their code or identify where a bug is.

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#25

Post by timbaboon »

ericlamb89 wrote: post #10

> "The engineers refusing to try aren’t protecting themselves; quite the opposite, they’re falling behind. The gap is widening between engineers who’ve integrated these tools and engineers who haven’t. The first group is shipping faster, taking on bigger challenges. The second group is… not." Honest question for the engineers here. Have you seen this happening at your company? Are strong engineers falling behind when…

If anything I’ve learnt more because I’m having to go and find bugs in areas that I’m not super clued up on… yet ;)

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#26

Post by elzbardico »

If you don't see the limitations of vibe coding, I shudder on the idea of maintaining your code even pre-AI.

Do I use it? Yes, a lot, actually. But I also spend a lot of tunning prunning its overly verbose and bizantine code, my esc key is fading from the amount of times I've interrupted it to steer it towards a non-idiotic direction.

It is useful, but if you trust it too much, you're creating a mountain of technical debt.

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#27

Post by nottorp »

Some engineers don't dismiss LLMs.

They dismiss the religion like hype machine.

You want to market to engineers, stick to provable statements. And address some of their concerns. With something other than "AI is evolving constantly, all your problems will be solved in 6 months, just keep paying us."

Oh by the way, what is the OP trying to sell with these FOMO tactics? Yet another ChatGPT frontend?

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#28

Post by pjm331 »

ryandv wrote: post #5

What I want to see is a Destroy All Software style screencast where somebody actually demonstrates their AI workflow on legacy code.

IMO Those screencasts work because they are painstakingly planned toy projects from scratch

Even without AI you cannot do a tight 10 minute video on legacy code unless you have done a lot of work ahead of time to map it out and then what’s the point

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#29

Post by sothatsit »

TGower wrote: post #7

"AI coding is so much better now that any skepticism from 6 months ago is invalid" has been the refrain for the last 3 years. After the first few cycles of checking it out and realizing that it's still not meeting your quality bar, it's pretty reasonable to dismiss the AI hype crowd.

A year ago I could get o1-mini to write tests some of the time that I would then need to fix. Now I can get Opus 4.5 to do fairly complicated refactors with no mistakes.

These tools are seriously starting to become actually useful, and I’m sorry but people aren’t lying when they say things have changed a lot over the last year.

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#30

Post by miningape »

the-smug-one wrote: post #18

I wonder how many of us are like me: Just waiting for AI to get Good Enough (TM). The skill required to use AI is probably decreasing, and the AI getting better, so why not just wait? Time will tell.

Exactly, if these tools are going to be so revolutionary and different within the next 6 months and even more so beyond that - there's no advantage to being an early adopter since your progress becomes invalid, may as well wait until it is good enough.
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