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Karpathy on Programming: “I've never felt this much behind”

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Re: Karpathy on Programming: “I've never felt this much behind”

#191

Post by simonw »

merlincorey wrote: post #185
simonw wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The $200/month plan doesn't have limits either - they have an overage fee you can pay now in Claude Code so once you've expended your rate limited token allowance you can keep on working and pay for the extra tokens out of an additional cash reserve you've set up.

> The $200/month plan doesn't have limits either... once you've expended your rate limited token allowance... pay for the extra tokens out of an additional cash reserve you've set up You're absolutely right! Limited token allowance for $200/month is actually unlimited tokens when paying for extra from a cash reserve which is also unlimited, of course.

I think you may have misunderstood something here.

When paying for Claude Max even at $200/month there are limits - you have a limit to the number of tokens you can use per five hour period, and if you run out of that you may have to wait an hour for the reset.

You COULD instead use an API key and avoid that limit and reset, but that would end up costing you significantly more since the $200/month plan represents such a big discount on API costs.

As-of a few weeks ago there's a third option: pay for the $200/month plan but allow it to charge you extra for tokens when you reach those limits. That gives you the discount but means your work isn't interrupted.

Extra Usage for Paid Claude Plans: https://support.claude.com/en/articles/12429409-extra-usage-...

Re: Karpathy on Programming: “I've never felt this much behind”

#192

Post by layer8 »

coldpie wrote: post #127
jsk2600 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you pivoting to?

I'm also interested in hearing this. For me, I'm planning to ride out this industry for another couple years building cash until I can't stand it, then pivot to driving a city bus.

> then pivot to driving a city bus.

You seem to be counting on Waymo not obsoleting that occupation. ;)

Re: Karpathy on Programming: “I've never felt this much behind”

#193

Post by packetlost »

wakeywakeywakey wrote: post #141
flumpcakes wrote: post #130

> There's a new programmable layer of abstraction to master (in addition to the usual layers below) involving agents, subagents, their prompts, contexts, memory, modes, permissions, tools, plugins, skills, hooks, MCP, LSP, slash commands, workflows, IDE integrations, and ... This sounds unbearable. It doesn't sound like software development, it sounds like spending a thousand hours tinkering with your vim config. It…

> ... or how it's supposed to make any programmer worth their weight in salt 10x better. It doesn't. The only people I've seen claim such speedups are either not generally fluent in programming or stand to benefit financially from reinforcing this meme.

Our ops guy has thrown together several buggy dashboards using AI tools. They're passable but impossible to maintain.

Re: Karpathy on Programming: “I've never felt this much behind”

#195

Post by johnfn »

techblueberry wrote: post #170
johnfn wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel Karpathy is smart enough to deserve a less dismissive response than this.

You think we should appeal to authority rather than address the ideas on their own merits?

How is saying the author has “slopbrain” is “addressing the idea on its own merits”? It’s just name calling.

Re: Karpathy on Programming: “I've never felt this much behind”

#196

Post by neoromantique »

roadside_picnic wrote: post #160
simonw wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think AI-assisted programming may be having the opposite effect, at least for me. I'm now incentivized to use less abstractions. Why do we code with React? It's because synchronizing state between a UI and a data model is difficult and it's easy to make mistakes, so it's worth paying the React complexity/page-weight tax in order for a "better developer experience" that allows us to build working, reliable software…

> If an LLM is typing that code - and it can maintain a test suite that shows everything works correctly - maybe we don't need that abstraction after all. I've had plenty of junior devs justify massive code bases of random scripts and 100+ line functions with the same logic. There's a reason senior devs almost always push back on this when it's encountered. Everything hinges on that "if". But you're baking a tautolog…

I'm sorry, but I don't agree.

Current dependency hell that is modern development, just how wide the openings are for supply chain attacks and seemingly every other week we get a new RCE.

I'd rather 100 loosely coupled scripts peer reviewed by a half a dozen of LLM agents.

Re: Karpathy on Programming: “I've never felt this much behind”

#197

Post by baq »

roadside_picnic wrote: post #160
simonw wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think AI-assisted programming may be having the opposite effect, at least for me. I'm now incentivized to use less abstractions. Why do we code with React? It's because synchronizing state between a UI and a data model is difficult and it's easy to make mistakes, so it's worth paying the React complexity/page-weight tax in order for a "better developer experience" that allows us to build working, reliable software…

> If an LLM is typing that code - and it can maintain a test suite that shows everything works correctly - maybe we don't need that abstraction after all. I've had plenty of junior devs justify massive code bases of random scripts and 100+ line functions with the same logic. There's a reason senior devs almost always push back on this when it's encountered. Everything hinges on that "if". But you're baking a tautolog…

> "LLM as abstraction" might be a possible future, but it assumes LLMs are significantly more capable than a junior dev at managing a growing mess of complex code.

Ignoring for a second they actually already are indeed, it doesn’t matter because the cost of rewriting the mess drops by an order of magnitude with each frontier model release. You won’t need good code because you’ll be throwing everything away all the time.

Re: Karpathy on Programming: “I've never felt this much behind”

#198

Post by jeltz »

llmslave2 wrote: post #154
anthonypasq wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we're 10 months into agentic coding. Claude code came out in march. I dont understand how you are so unimaginative to think what this might look like in 5 years even with slow progress.

It might be genuinely useful in 5 years, my issue is how it's being marketed now. We're 6 months into "AI will be writing 90% of code in three months" among other ridiculous statements.

Agreed. It is very similar to gambling in how it tricks the human mind. I am sure some of this AI technology will prove yo be useful but the breakthrough has been just around the corner since soon after ChatGPT was released.

Re: Karpathy on Programming: “I've never felt this much behind”

#199

Post by CamperBob2 »

reconnecting wrote: post #79

> OpenAI's sales and marketing expenses increased to _$2 billion_ in the first half of 2025. Looks like AI companies spend enough on marketing budgets to create the illusion that AI makes development better. Let's wait one more year, and perhaps everyone who didn't fall victim to these " slimming pills ” for developers' brains will be glad about the choice they made.

Let's wait one more year, and perhaps everyone who didn't fall victim to these "slimming pills” for developers' brains will be glad about the choice they made.

In that year, AI will get better. Will you?

Re: Karpathy on Programming: “I've never felt this much behind”

#200

Post by jeltz »

nextworddev wrote: post #32
design2203 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“We just both feel this sense of possibility, and the fact that we can't make AI help us more is frustrating” The mirage is alluring.

The real mirage is the utility of median developers

I think with better processes and training they could be. It is just that right now we do not train them and put them through scrum and other horrible processes. Median developers are bad due to bad management.
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