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AI Tribalism

nolanlawson.com

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Re: AI Tribalism

#61

Post by soulofmischief »

sph wrote: post #11

> I see a lot of my fellow developers burying their heads in the sand, refusing to acknowledge the truth in front of their eyes, and it breaks my heart because a lot of us are scared, confused, or uncertain, and not enough of us are talking honestly about it. Imagine if we had to suffer these posts, day in and day out, when React or Kubernetes or any other piece of technology got released. This kind of proselyting th…

I don't think you understand how much things are about to change in a relatively short time. A lot of people are rightfully confused and concerned.

Many people are seeing this as an existential moment requiring careful navigation and planning, not just another language or browser or text editor war.

Re: AI Tribalism

#62

Post by wvenable »

themafia wrote: post #21

> I can already hear the cries of protest from other engineers who (like me) are clutching onto their hard-won knowledge. You mean the knowledge that Claude has stolen from all of us and regurgitated into your projects without any copyright attributions? > But I see a lot of my fellow developers burying their heads in the sand That feeling is mutual.

> You mean the knowledge that Claude has stolen from all of us and regurgitated into your projects without any copyright attributions?

You can't, and shouldn't be able to, copyright and hoard "knowledge".

Re: AI Tribalism

#63

Post by soulofmischief »

mirsadm wrote: post #51
simonw wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do think there's a bit of an experience divide here, where people more experienced have been down the path of a codebase degrading until it's just too much to salvage – so I think that's part of why you see so much pushback. When I look back over my career to date there are so many examples of nightmare degraded codebases that I would love to have hit with a bunch of coding agents. I remember the pain of upgradin…

I've used Claude Code to do the same (large refactor). It has worked fairly well but it tends to introduce really subtle changes in behaviour (almost always negative) which are very difficult to identify. Even worse if you use it to fix those issues it can get stuck in a loop of constantly reintroducing issues which are slightly different leading to fixing things over and over again. Overall I like using it still but…

Yes, if you don't stay on top of things and rule with an iron fist, you will take on tons of hidden tech debt using even Opus 4.5. But if you manage to review carefully and intercede often, it absolutely is an insane multiplier, especially in unfamiliar domains.

Re: AI Tribalism

#64

Post by wvenable »

cdata wrote: post #27

AI has pushed me to arrive at an epiphany: new technology is good if it helps me spend more time doing things that I enjoy doing; it's bad if it doesn't; it's worse if I end up spending more time doing things that I don't enjoy. AI has increased the sheer volume of code we are producing per hour (and probably also the amount of energy spent per unit of code). But, it hasn't spared me or anyone I know the cost of test…

I've been using it to do big refactors are large changes that I would simply avoid because, before, the benefits don't outweigh the costs of the doing it. I think half the problem people have is just using AI for the wrong stuff.

I don't see why it doesn't help with reviewing, testing, or refining code either. One of the advantages I find is that an LLM "thinks" differently from me so it'll find issues that I don't notice or maybe even know about. I've certainly had it develop entire test harnesses to ensure pre/post refactoring results are the same.

That said, I have "held it wrong" and had it done the fun stuff instead and that felt bad. So I just changed how I used it.

Re: AI Tribalism

#65

Post by satisfice »

The post isn’t about tribalism. He barely mentions it.

It is another post that advocates for AI assisted coding without addressing the question of responsibility and trust. It makes claims without offering test data or even talking about testing.

Re: AI Tribalism

#66

Post by kranner »

retrac98 wrote: post #33
lins1909 wrote: post #20

What if I just enjoy how I work at the moment and don't really care about this stuff? Why do I _have_ to give it a go? Why don't LLM evangelists accept this as an option? Choosing not to use AI agents is maybe the only tool position I feel I've had to defend or justify in over a decade of doing this, and it's so bizarre to me. It almost reeks of insecurity from the Agent Evangelists and I wonder if all the "fear" and…

You don’t have to, of course, but you probably will if you want to be competitive in a professional capacity in the future. Not doing so seems a bit like a farmer ploughing fields and harvesting crops by hand while seeking to remain competitive with modern machinery, surely?

It remains to be seen whether these analogies will still hold in the longer term, or whether agentic code will come to be seen as cheap but buggy and mediocre.

Re: AI Tribalism

#67

Post by cdata »

wvenable wrote: post #64
cdata wrote: post #27

AI has pushed me to arrive at an epiphany: new technology is good if it helps me spend more time doing things that I enjoy doing; it's bad if it doesn't; it's worse if I end up spending more time doing things that I don't enjoy. AI has increased the sheer volume of code we are producing per hour (and probably also the amount of energy spent per unit of code). But, it hasn't spared me or anyone I know the cost of test…

I've been using it to do big refactors are large changes that I would simply avoid because, before, the benefits don't outweigh the costs of the doing it. I think half the problem people have is just using AI for the wrong stuff. I don't see why it doesn't help with reviewing, testing, or refining code either. One of the advantages I find is that an LLM "thinks" differently from me so it'll find issues that I don't n…

I read a lot of AI generated code these days. It makes really bad mistakes (even when the nature of the change is a refactor). I've tried out a few different tools and methodologies, but I haven't escaped the need to babysit the "agent." If I stepped aside, it would create more work for me and others on the backend of our workflow.

I read anecdotes of teams that push through AI-driven changes as fast as possible with awe. Surely their AIs are no more capable than the ones I'm familiar with.

Re: AI Tribalism

#68

Post by wvenable »

cdata wrote: post #67
wvenable wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using it to do big refactors are large changes that I would simply avoid because, before, the benefits don't outweigh the costs of the doing it. I think half the problem people have is just using AI for the wrong stuff. I don't see why it doesn't help with reviewing, testing, or refining code either. One of the advantages I find is that an LLM "thinks" differently from me so it'll find issues that I don't n…

I read a lot of AI generated code these days. It makes really bad mistakes (even when the nature of the change is a refactor). I've tried out a few different tools and methodologies, but I haven't escaped the need to babysit the "agent." If I stepped aside, it would create more work for me and others on the backend of our workflow. I read anecdotes of teams that push through AI-driven changes as fast as possible with…

I read all the code and it sometimes make mistakes -- but I wouldn't call it really bad. And often merely pointing it out will get a correction. Sometimes it is funny. It's not perfect but nothing is perfect. I have noticed that the quality seems to be improving.

I still think whether you see sustained value or not depends a lot on your workflow -- in what you choose to do or decide and what you let it choose to do or decide.

I agree with you that this idea of just pushing out AI code -- especially code written from scratch -- by an AI sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. But honestly a lot of organizations let a lot of crappy code into their code-base long before AI came long. Those organizations are just doing the same now at scale. AI didn't change the quality, it just changed the quantity.

Re: AI Tribalism

#69

Post by sixtyj »

mkozlows wrote: post #23
lins1909 wrote: post #20

What if I just enjoy how I work at the moment and don't really care about this stuff? Why do I _have_ to give it a go? Why don't LLM evangelists accept this as an option? Choosing not to use AI agents is maybe the only tool position I feel I've had to defend or justify in over a decade of doing this, and it's so bizarre to me. It almost reeks of insecurity from the Agent Evangelists and I wonder if all the "fear" and…

Nobody pushed you to use git when you were comfortable with svn? Nobody pushed you to use Docker when you were comfortable running bare metal? Nobody pushed you to write unit tests when you were comfortable not? Nobody pushed you to use CSS for layout when you were happy using tables? Some of those are before your time, but: The only time you don't get pushed to use new technologies is when a) nothing is changing and…

Some people don’t like to be pushed. They want their own rhythm.

But when you stop trying new stuff (“because you don’t want to”), it is a sign that your inner child got lost. (Or you have a depression or burnout.)

Re: AI Tribalism

#70

Post by lins1909 »

sixtyj wrote: post #69
mkozlows wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody pushed you to use git when you were comfortable with svn? Nobody pushed you to use Docker when you were comfortable running bare metal? Nobody pushed you to write unit tests when you were comfortable not? Nobody pushed you to use CSS for layout when you were happy using tables? Some of those are before your time, but: The only time you don't get pushed to use new technologies is when a) nothing is changing and…

Some people don’t like to be pushed. They want their own rhythm. But when you stop trying new stuff (“because you don’t want to”), it is a sign that your inner child got lost. (Or you have a depression or burnout.)

Lol. Surely this depends on what the new stuff is? Looks like all nuance goes out of the window when agents are involved.
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