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Engineers who dismiss AI

terriblesoftware.org

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Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#101

Post by halfcat »

Fred27 wrote: post #74

I just don't find it interesting. The only thing less interesting is the constant evangelism about it. I also find that the actual coding is important. The typing may not be the most ineresting bit, but it's one of the steps that helps refine the architecture I had in my head.

100% agree. My only super power is weaponized “trying to understand”, spending a Saturday night in an obsessive fever dream of trying to wrap my head around some random idea.

That happens to produce good code as a side effect. And a chat bot is perfect for this.

But my obsession is not with output. Every time I use AI agents, even if it does exactly what I wanted, it’s unsatisfying. It’s not sometning I’m ever going to obsess over in my spare time.

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#102

Post by everdrive »

This story ends up being relevant in a metaphorical way.

My aunt was born in the 1940s, and was something of an old fashioned feminist. She didn't know why wasn't allowed to wear pants, or why she had to wait for the man to make the first move, etc. She tells a story about a man who ditched her at a dance once because she didn't know the "latest dance." Apparently in the 1950s, some idiot was always inventing a new dance that everyone _just had follow_. The young man was so embarrassed that he left her at the dance.

I still think about this story, and think about how awful it would have been to live in the 40s. There always has been social pressure and change, but the "everyone's got to learn new stupid dances all the time" sort of pressure feels especially awful.

This really reminds me of the last 10-20 years in technology. "Hey, some dumb assholes have built some new technology, and you don't really have the choice to ignore it. You either adopt it too, or are left behind."

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#103

Post by hu3 »

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.

Fellow diagnosed ADHD here. And I know every ADHD is different and people are different.

What helps me is:

- Prefer faster models like VSCode's Copilot Raptor Mini which, despite the name, is like 80% capable of what Sonnet 4.5 is. And is much faster. It is a fine tunned GPT 5 mini.

- Start writting the next prompt while LLMs work or keep pondering about the current problem at hand. This helps our chaotic brain to keep focused.

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#104

Post by true2octave »

Many have the attitude of finding one edge case that it doesn’t work well and dismiss AI as useful tool

I’m an early adopter and nowadays all I do is to co-write context documents so that my assistant can generate the code I need

AI gives you an approximated answer, it depends on you how to steer it to a good enough answer and this takes time and learning curve … and evolves really fast

Some people are just not good at constantly learning things

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#105

Post by mythz »

I like learning, I like programming, primarily because it lets me create whatever App I want. I'm continually choosing the most productive languages, IDEs and tooling that lets me be the most productive. I view AI in the same regard, where it lets me achieve whatever I want to create, but much faster.

Sure if you want to learn programming languages for programming sake, then yeah don't Vibe Code (i.e. text prompting AI to code), use AI as a knowledgeable companion that's readily on hand to help you whenever you get stuck. But if your goal is to create Software that achieves your objectives then you're doing yourself a disservice if you're not using AI to its maximum potential.

Given my time on this earth is finite, I'm in the camp of using AI to be as productive as possible. But that's still not everything yet, I'm not using it for backend code as I need to verify every change. But more than happy to Vibe code UIs (after I spend time laying down a foundation to make it intuitive where new components/pages go and API integration).

Other than that I'll use AI where I can (UIs, automation & deployment scripts, etc), I've even switched over to using React/Next.js for new Apps because AI is more proficient with it. Even old Apps that I wouldn't normally touch because it used legacy tech that's deprecated, I'll just rewrite the entire UI in React/Next.js to get it to a place where I can use text prompts to add new features. It took about ~20mins for Claude Code to get the initial rewrite implemented (using the old code base as a guide) then a few hours over that to walk through every feature and prompt it to add features it missed or fix broken functionality [1]. I ended up spending more time migrating it from AWS/ECS/RDS to Hetzner w/ automated backups - then the actual rewrite.

[1] https://react-templates.net/docs/vibe-coding/rewrite-legacy-...

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#106

Post by nottorp »

hulitu wrote: post #97
nottorp wrote: post #27

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?

> You want to market to engineers, stick to provable statements. And that's where the "AI" is lacking. "AI can write a testcase". Can it write a _correct_ test case (i.e. one that i only have to review, like i review my colleague work) ? "AI can write requirements". Now, that i'm still waiting to see.

> Can it write a _correct_ test case

And is the test case useful for something? On non textbook code?

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#107

Post by Tripping5292 »

emp17344 wrote: post #100
Tripping5292 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The productivity improvements speak for themselves. Over time, those who can use ai well and those who cannot will be rewarded or penalized by the free market accordingly.

If there’s evidence of productivity improvements through AI use, please provide more information. From what I’ve seen, the actual data shows that AI use slows developers down.

The sheer number of projects I've completed that I truly would never have been able to even make a dent in is evidence enough for me. I don't think research will convince you. You need to either watch someone do it, or experiment with it yourself. Get your hands dirty on an audacious project with Claude code.

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#108

Post by falcor84 »

cons0le wrote: post #63
nottorp wrote: post #27

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?

I think we should label devs overreliant on AI as "Engineers who dismiss themselves"

I'll take that, but don't see how it's so different from the intent I've always had of "automating myself out of the job". When I want to do "engineering", I can always spin up Factorio or Turing Complete. But for the rest of the time, I care about the result rather than the process. For example, before starting to implement a tool, I'll always first search online for whether there is already a good tool that would address my need, and if so, I'll generally utilize that.

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#109

Post by true2octave »

plastic-enjoyer wrote: post #6

> 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. For me, however, there is one issue: how can I utilize AI without degenerating my own abilities? I use AI sparingly because, to be honest, every time I use AI, I feel like I'm getting a little dumber. I fear that excess…

Regular coding gyms and problem solving drills

As humans we have developed tools to ease our physical needs (we don’t need to run, walk or lift things) and now we have a tool that thinks and solve problems for us

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#110

Post by jeppester »

Meanwhile I'm getting a 5000 lines PR with code that's all clearly AI generated.

It's full of bloat; Unused http endpoints, lots of small utility functions that could have been inlined (but now come with unit tests!), missing translations, only somewhat correct design...

The quality wasn't perfect before, now it has taken a noticeable dip. And new code is being added faster than ever. There is no way to keep up.

I feel that I can either just give in and stop caring about quality, or I'll be fixing everyone else's AI code all of my time.

I'm sure that all my particular colleagues are just "holding it wrong", but this IS a real experience that I'm having, and it's been getting worse for a couple of years now.

I am also using AI myself, just in a much more controlled way, and I'm sure there's a sweet spot somewhere between "hand-coding" and vibing.

I just feel that as you inch in on that sweet spot, the advertised gains slowly wash away, and you are left with a tangible, but not as mindblowing improvement.

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