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Engineers who dismiss AI

terriblesoftware.org

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Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#241

Post by rsynnott »

> "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."

This is kind of the core belief of the AI enthusiast, but there's really very little evidence that it is the case. I mean, it's all very well to state it as an argument of faith, but without hard evidence (not lines of code, please; we are not 1980s IBM) the claim is really quite difficult to take seriously.

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#242

Post by rsynnott »

miningape wrote: post #30
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.

Well, yes, this is the thing. I'm somewhat sceptical that these things are going to get good enough to be useful to me on a daily basis, but if they do, then, well, I can just start using them. I'm not going to use a bad tool on the basis that it may one day metamorphose into a good tool.

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#243

Post by rsynnott »

Tripping5292 wrote: post #94
japhyr wrote: post #52

> I copy from Stack Overflow constantly. I'm so tired of this kind of reference to Stack Overflow. I used SO for about 15 years, and still visit plenty these days. I rarely, if ever, copied from Stack Overflow. But I sure learned a great deal from SO.

That's great, but millions of others copy from it.

Yeah, but, I mean, those people generally aren't great programmers. "Why does it do that?" "Dunno, it was on stack overflow." was a fairly common code review problem long before "Why does it do that?" "Dunno, robot says so."

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#244

Post by rsynnott »

fluxusars wrote: post #50

As someone whose stance is to be extremely skeptical of AI, I threw Claude at a complex feature request in a codebase I wasn't very familiar with, and it managed to come up with a solution that was 99% acceptable. I was very impressed, so I started using it more. But it's really a mixed bag, because for the subsequent 3-4 tasks in a codebase that I was familiar with, Claude managed to produce over-commented, over-eng…

I mean, this sounds like the Gell-Mann amnesia effect. If it only 'works' in codebases you're unfamiliar with, that may be a signal that it doesn't work there either.

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#245

Post by abishek89 »

rsynnott wrote: post #240
Tripping5292 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is, at this point, rather suspect that there are mountains of anecdata, but pretty much no high quality quantitive data (and what there is is mixed at best). Fun fact; worldwide, over 200 million people use homeopathy on a regular basis. They think it works. It doesn't work.

I don't suppose anything will change your mind, but here you go.

https://youtu.be/1OzxYK2-qsI a 6-12% increase in pull requests per developer per month.

"But those diffs are AI slop and rework" you will object. Oh well, I tried.

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#246

Post by abishek89 »

emp17344 wrote: post #142
Tripping5292 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Research is the only thing that will convince me. That’s the way it should be.

https://youtu.be/1OzxYK2-qsI a 6-12% increase in pull requests per developer per month.

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#247

Post by abishek89 »

mmcnl wrote: post #157
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.

Do you have evidence?

https://youtu.be/1OzxYK2-qsI

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#248

Post by Izkata »

Tripping5292 wrote: post #225
rurp wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're building a lot of prototypes or small projects, which yes LLMs can be amazingly helpful at. But that is very much not what many/most professional engineers spend their time on, and generalizing from that former case often doesn't hold up in my experience.

It sounds like you're assuming I'm not a professional engineer and I only work on prototypes.

They're basing it on what you described in your previous comment. I got the same impression.

Re: Engineers who dismiss AI

#250

Post by Tripping5292 »

Izkata wrote: post #248
Tripping5292 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're assuming I'm not a professional engineer and I only work on prototypes.

They're basing it on what you described in your previous comment. I got the same impression.

Finishing projects makes me sound unprofessional?

I've been at it multiple decades. TC $1M+. Forever beginner I guess.

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