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I am happier writing code by hand

abhinavomprakash.com

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Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#151

Post by morshu9001 »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #141

> Even if I generate a 1,000 line PR in 30 minutes I still need to understand and review it. Since I am responsible for the code I ship, this makes me the bottleneck. I am not responsible for choosing whether the code I write using a for loop or while loop. I am responsible for whether my implementation - code, architecture, user experience - meets the functional and non functional requirements. It’s been well over a…

When I got my first job long ago, I found that code review does involve arguing over things like for vs while loop, or having proper grammar in comments. Thought about quitting for a sec.

Now that I have more experience and manage other SWEs, I was right, that stuff was dumb and I'm glad that nobody cares anymore. I'll spend the time reviewing but only the important things.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#152

Post by tomaskafka »

freeopinion wrote: post #59

I think it is pretty indisputable that there is a valuable place for AI. I recently had to interact with a very horrible db schema. The best approach I came up with to solve my challenge involved modelling a table with 300 columns. Converting some sql ddl to a Rust struct was simple but tedious work. A prompt with less than 15 words guided an AI to produce the 900+ loc for me. It took a couple seconds to scan it to s…

You’d have consumed probably 2+ magnitudes of energy or more just for coffee (and its growth and supply chain) to write that piece of code. Not counting the building, food, transportation…

Us humans are expensive part of the machine.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#153

Post by morshu9001 »

woeirua wrote: post #5

This is no different then carpentry. Yes, all furniture can now be built by machines. Some people still choose to build it by hand. Does that make them less productive? Yes. Will they ever carve furniture by hand for a business? Probably not. Can they still enjoy the act of working with the wood? Yes. If you want to code by hand, then do it! No one's stopping you. But we shouldn't pretend that you will be able to do…

If I'm using the right tools for the job, I don't feel like the LLM helps outside of minor autofilling or writing quick one-off scripts. I do use LLMs heavily at work, but that's cause half the time I'm forced to use cumbersome tooling like Java w/ some boilerplatey framework or writing web backends in C++ for no performance reason.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#154

Post by [deleted] »

woeirua wrote: post #5

This is no different then carpentry. Yes, all furniture can now be built by machines. Some people still choose to build it by hand. Does that make them less productive? Yes. Will they ever carve furniture by hand for a business? Probably not. Can they still enjoy the act of working with the wood? Yes. If you want to code by hand, then do it! No one's stopping you. But we shouldn't pretend that you will be able to do…

[deleted]

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#155

Post by northfield27 »

boredemployee wrote: post #140

every day there's a thread about this topic and the discussions always circle around the same arguments. I think we should be worrying about more urgent things, like a worker doing the job of three people with ai agents, the mental load that comes with that, how much of the disruption caused by ai will disproportionately benefit owners rather than employees, and so on.

Agreed but sadly, many people are too optimistic with AI and are completely forgetting that they can be the part of next layoffs.

And others are not able to believe the (not extreme) but visible speed boost from pragmatic use of AI.

And sadly, whenever the discussion about the collective financial disadvantage of AI to software engineers will start and wherever it goes…

The owners and employers will always make the profits.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#156

Post by blks »

woeirua wrote: post #5

This is no different then carpentry. Yes, all furniture can now be built by machines. Some people still choose to build it by hand. Does that make them less productive? Yes. Will they ever carve furniture by hand for a business? Probably not. Can they still enjoy the act of working with the wood? Yes. If you want to code by hand, then do it! No one's stopping you. But we shouldn't pretend that you will be able to do…

Not sure why you are so sure that using LLMs will be a professional requirement soon enough.

Eg in my team I heavily discourage generating and pushing generated code into a few critical repositories. While hiring, one of my points was not to hire an AI enthusiast.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#157

Post by FeteCommuniste »

sgarland wrote: post #133
zozbot234 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good project managers (with a technical focus) are not low-paid at all, even compared to SWE's.

Sure, but you need 1/10th the amount of PMs as you do SWEs.

But (the thinking) goes, with AI in the mix, spinning up a new project or feature will be so low-friction that there will be 10x as many projects created. So our jobs are saved!

(Color me skeptical.)

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#158

Post by NateEag »

orphea wrote: post #125
echelon wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not dogshit if you're steering. That's what so many of you are not getting. Look at the pretty pictures AI generates. That's where we are with code now. Except you have ComfyUI instead of ChatGPT. You can work with precision. I'm a 500k TC senior SWE. I write six nines, active-active, billion dollar a day systems. I'm no stranger to writing thirty page design documents. These systems can work in my domain just f…

> Look at the pretty pictures AI generates. That's where we are with code now. Oh, that is a great analogy. Yes, those pictures are pretty! Until you look closer. Any experienced artist or designer will tell you that they are dogshit and don't have value. Don't look further than at Ubisoft and their Anno 117 game for a proof. Yep, that's where we are with code now . Pretty - until you look close. Dogshit - if you car…

I've developed a new hobby lately, which I call "spot the bullshit."

When I notice a genAI image, I force myself to stop and inspect it closely to find what nonsensical thing it did.

I've found something every time I looked, since starting this routine.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#159

Post by mrits »

brulard wrote: post #75
falloutx wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only cutting of the furniture is automated. Still designed and assembled by humans. There is no machine which spits out a sofa.

That is not a technical constraint and may be automated if it made sense financially. Same with software - for some time software won't be all designed, coded, tested, deployed to production without human supervision or approval. But the pieces in between are more and more filled by AI, as are the logistics of designing, manufacturing and distributing sofas.

If it wasn't a technical constraint it would make sense financially.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#160

Post by andyfilms1 »

tux1968 wrote: post #105
agentultra wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve heard this metaphor before and I don’t think it works well. For one, a power tool like a bandsaw is a centaur technology. I, the human, am the top half of the centaur. The tool drives around doing what I tell it to do and helping me to do the task faster (or at all in some cases). A GenAI tool is a reverse-centaur technology. The algorithm does almost all of the work. I’m the bottom half of the centaur helping t…

It seems like you're doing a lot of work to miss the actual point. Focusing on the minutiae of the analogy is a distraction from the over arching and obvious point. It has nothing to do with how you feel , it has to do with how you will compete in a world with others who feel differently. There were carpenters who refused to use power tools, some still do. They are probably happy -- and that's great, all the power to…

I don't think he's missing the point at all. A band saw is an immutable object with a fixed, deterministic capability--in other words, a tool. An LLM is a slot machine. You can pull keep pulling the lever, but you'll get different results every time. A slot machine is technically a machine that can produce money, but nobody would ever say it's a tool for producing money.
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