I hear it a lot but this gambling analogy breaks when you look at actual outcomes. If you went to Vegas and after a few pulls on a one-armed bandit could _reliably_ walk away with the jackpot we wouldn’t even call it gambling anymore.
AI coding is gambling
241–250 of 471 posts
Re: AI coding is gambling
#242Fascinating how HN is torn about vibe coding still. Everybody pretty much agrees that it works for some use cases, yet there is a flamewar (I mean, cultured, HN-type one) every time. People seem to be more comfortable in a binary mindset.
For my part at least, I get the most riled up against the binary thinkers!
Re: AI coding is gambling
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well for one, programming actually sucks. Punching cards sucks. Copywriting sucks. Why? Well, implementation for the sake of implementation is nothing more than self-gratifying, and sole focus on it is an academic pursuit. The classic debate of which programming language is better is an argument of the best way to translate human ideas of logic into something that works . Sure programming is fun but I don't want to d…
> Well for one, programming actually sucks Speak for yourself. Programming is awesome. I love it so much and I hate that AI is taking a huge steaming dump on it > So, when I encounter someone who doesn't pin value into building something that performs useful work, only the actual journey of it, regardless of usefulness of said work, I take them as seriously as an old man playing with hobby trains Growing and building…
Your cancer cell analogy is moot unless you paint all AI generated applications to be unusable trash, which is not the case, and I wouldn't describe my own work with it. It's true that standards have dropped to the floor where anyone can "ship" something but doesn't mean it's good. I think I have a better handle on how to steer GenAI versus the average linkedinbro. But the divide between journey and destination is valid, I guess it's something that hasn't been explored until GenAI.
Re: AI coding is gambling
#244I think this article makes a valid point. However, if AI coding is considered gambling, then being a project manager overseeing multiple developers could also be seen as a form of gambling to a certain degree. In reality, there isn't much difference between the two. AI models are non-deterministic, and humans are also non-deterministic. You could assign the same task to two different developers and end up with entire…
It absolutely is. I did some consulting work for an environment where they have to churn out code to meet certain unchanging schedules, usually you can dumb down the process to make it more deterministic.
These guys had to manage very complex calculation engine based on we’ll just let it changes every year had to be correct had to be delivered by a certain date every year.
They had an army (100-200 people depending on various factors) of marginally skilled coding drones that were able to turn out the Java, COBOL or whatever it was predictably on that schedule without necessarily understanding any of the big picture or have any having any hope of so. Basically a software factory. There was about a dozen people who actually understood everything.
Re: AI coding is gambling
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
What theory is that? My experience is the absolute opposite. I am much more in control of quality with Ai agents. I am never letting junior to midlevels into my team again. In fact, I am not sure I will allow any form of manual programming in a year or so.
> I am never letting junior to midlevels into my team again Exactly. You control the quality of the people in your team. You can train, fire, hire, etc until you get the skill level you want. You have effectively no control over the quality of the output from an LLM. You get what the frontier labs give you and must work with that.
That is not correct.
It is much easier to control quality of an Ai than of inexperienced developers.
Re: AI coding is gambling
#246Totally agree, wrote something similar last year: https://cjlm.ca/posts/it-feels-like-gambling/
Re: AI coding is gambling
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
What theory is that? My experience is the absolute opposite. I am much more in control of quality with Ai agents. I am never letting junior to midlevels into my team again. In fact, I am not sure I will allow any form of manual programming in a year or so.
Eh. You want a good mix of experience levels, what really matters is everyone should be talented. Less experienced colleagues are unburdened by yesterday’s lessons that may no longer be relevant today, they don’t have the same blind spots. Also, our profession is doomed if we won’t give less experienced colleagues a chance to shine.
Our profession is likely doomed not because we don't train people, but by the lack of demand
Re: AI coding is gambling
#248All of this new capability has made me realize that the reason i love programming _isn't_ the same as the OP. I used to think (and tell others) that I loved understanding something deeply, wading through the details to figure out a tough problem. but actually, being able to will anything I can think of into existence is what I love about programming. I do feel for the people who were able to make careers out of falli…
> but I finally feel like I'm _good_ at programming, which is insane Yes, it is insane. You couldn't torture this confession out of me. But that's the drug they're selling you, isn't it? You don't even write code, but you're getting a self-inflated sense of worth. It must be addicting! Of course, whether or not the programs you prompt are actually good surely has no relation to whether you feel they're good, since yo…
A lot of this is also missing understanding the software we're creating. I have a deep knowledge of our SaaS because I've spent years working on coding it. If I had been prompting an LLM this entire time, I can't imagine I would actually have near the same understanding. That is assuming purely planning and prompting could actually result in a product that's in active use for years and not just a pile of prototypes which apparently desperately needed to be created and were just waiting for AI to come along to make it possible.
I've been using AI tools more but this idea of never actually writing any code seems way too black and white to be serious.
Re: AI coding is gambling
#249All of this new capability has made me realize that the reason i love programming _isn't_ the same as the OP. I used to think (and tell others) that I loved understanding something deeply, wading through the details to figure out a tough problem. but actually, being able to will anything I can think of into existence is what I love about programming. I do feel for the people who were able to make careers out of falli…
> but I finally feel like I'm _good_ at programming, which is insane Yes, it is insane. You couldn't torture this confession out of me. But that's the drug they're selling you, isn't it? You don't even write code, but you're getting a self-inflated sense of worth. It must be addicting! Of course, whether or not the programs you prompt are actually good surely has no relation to whether you feel they're good, since yo…
> Anyone can be an "ideas guy". We laughed at those people, because having ideas is not the hard part.
Sure it's easy to create bad ideas. Not easy at all to create good ones.
Re: AI coding is gambling
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but I finally feel like I'm _good_ at programming, which is insane, because I literally haven't written a line of code myself in months This is exactly the sort of mentality that makes me hate this technology You finally feel good at programming despite admitting that you aren't actually doing it Please explain why anyone should take this seriously?
Well for one, programming actually sucks. Punching cards sucks. Copywriting sucks. Why? Well, implementation for the sake of implementation is nothing more than self-gratifying, and sole focus on it is an academic pursuit. The classic debate of which programming language is better is an argument of the best way to translate human ideas of logic into something that works . Sure programming is fun but I don't want to d…
> Well for one, programming actually sucks.
I'll never understand those in a field who hate the day-to-day details of their job. You're intelligent, why not do something you actually enjoy engaging with?
Maybe now with the advancement of the field you're finally enjoying yourself, but why were you subjecting yourself to daily misery for so long in the first place? I don't get it.