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I created my first AI-assisted pull request

nelson.cloud

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Re: I created my first AI-assisted pull request

#51

Post by echelon »

ryandrake wrote: post #45
largbae wrote: post #8

This is the wrong way to think about tool use. You wanted this feature for years. You understood the problem, but the amount of time that it would have taken to properly implement and test it held you back from doing it. Obviously, anyone else who wanted this feature came to the same conclusion. This new tool reduced the amount of time that it would take. So you used the tool. You used the tool to bring the feature i…

> When you eat a strawberry do you feel like an impostor for not growing it yourself? No, but if I asked an intern to eat it for me, I wouldn't feel like I did anything or experienced anything at all. That's what LLM coding feels like--like I'm not doing anything meaningful. It's like hiring someone to love my kid for me.

> No, but if I asked an intern to eat it for me, I wouldn't feel like I did anything at all.

That's a poor analogy.

If I asked an intern to implement a function, I know I did the instruction and that I worked through them. The intern did work, but I did fancy high level work and killed several birds with one stone.

Even better analogy: if I'm a film director, I'm working through a lot of people. The DP, the cast, the crew, the AD (though they're my boss, telling me what I can/can't budget for)...

The best analogy for AI is the "film director" analogy.

There are good directors and bad directors, good films and bad films. No director works alone (unless it's some kind of avant-garde film school project).

You wouldn't say a film director isn't doing work. That they can't be uniquely felt through their work. That what they're doing isn't hard, doesn't require talent/taste, and doesn't get better over time.

We're all basically becoming film directors.

Re: I created my first AI-assisted pull request

#52

Post by rickydroll »

tptacek wrote: post #11
largbae wrote: post #8

This is the wrong way to think about tool use. You wanted this feature for years. You understood the problem, but the amount of time that it would have taken to properly implement and test it held you back from doing it. Obviously, anyone else who wanted this feature came to the same conclusion. This new tool reduced the amount of time that it would take. So you used the tool. You used the tool to bring the feature i…

We grew tomatoes last summer. Over the last 2 years, something about tomatoes (and BLTs in particular) really clicked for me; we'd grown tomatoes many previous summers, and I could give a shit, but last summer I cared a lot about our home-grown tomatoes. And I totally did feel less good about BLTs I made with supermarket heirloom tomatoes! It was irrational, but I did feel that way. I get where people are coming from…

try these varities

Cherokee Purple. Black Krim Black from Tula. Brandywine heck, Almost any black tomato is a richer flavor than traditional hybrids.

Heirloom tomatoes are also fantastic for flavors, but they are difficult to grow. Consistent watering, pruning lower leaves to keep disease away, proactive treatment of fungus and bacteria. It's a lot of work, but the results you get when it all comes together, yeah, it makes a fantastic tomato soup, sauce, Caprese salad.

I'm starting seedlings this week. I'm probably going to have more tomato seedlings than I know what to do with. Of course, as problems go, I could have worse ones. The problem I'd like to have is growing too many mini watermelons. For some reason, I just can't get any yield, and the squirrels/mice gnaw on them as soon as they are vaguely ripe.

My partner is not going to be happy when I rip up most of the lawn in the backyard. She'll probably buy me overalls and a straw hat.

Re: I created my first AI-assisted pull request

#53

Post by tayo42 »

echelon wrote: post #51
ryandrake wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you eat a strawberry do you feel like an impostor for not growing it yourself? No, but if I asked an intern to eat it for me, I wouldn't feel like I did anything or experienced anything at all. That's what LLM coding feels like--like I'm not doing anything meaningful. It's like hiring someone to love my kid for me.

> No, but if I asked an intern to eat it for me, I wouldn't feel like I did anything at all. That's a poor analogy. If I asked an intern to implement a function, I know I did the instruction and that I worked through them. The intern did work, but I did fancy high level work and killed several birds with one stone. Even better analogy: if I'm a film director, I'm working through a lot of people. The DP, the cast, the…

Making movies is hard. Ai basically made the smaller personal sized things easy, but substantial projects are still out of reach. There isn't anything for an individual to feel good about.

Re: I created my first AI-assisted pull request

#54

Post by senectus1 »

largbae wrote: post #8

This is the wrong way to think about tool use. You wanted this feature for years. You understood the problem, but the amount of time that it would have taken to properly implement and test it held you back from doing it. Obviously, anyone else who wanted this feature came to the same conclusion. This new tool reduced the amount of time that it would take. So you used the tool. You used the tool to bring the feature i…

i like the exosuit analogy..

if you cant lift something because its heavy, but have an exo suit that will let you lift it... does that make you feel like a fraud?

AI is like that its a tool. you;re still responsible for the use of it and the output of it. you need to understand that if you use that exo suit to hurt someone or use it poorly and damage something/someone.. thats entirely on you. just like a knife in your hand is a tool to prep food or to attack someone. your actions with it are on you.

Re: I created my first AI-assisted pull request

#55

Post by acjohnson55 »

aroman wrote: post #27
worthless-trash wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you reinforced the point.

I think you missed the point. produce : chef :: code : programmer chefs use produce to create dishes of food; chefs do not generally grow their own food. the point they were making is that the code is actually the means to the end, not the end in itself. to wit: i do not write assembly.

This may be more correct than you know. Chefs actually don't cook food customers eat. They plan the menu and manage the operations. The cooks cook.

Re: I created my first AI-assisted pull request

#56

Post by automatoney »

I feel similarly to the author, and I appreciate the links to other authors with similar sentiments - "hirirng a taskrabbit to solve a puzzle" or "feeling nothing about the results". I don't enjoy using LLMs, and I'm sad that it feels like we are a shrinking minority of programmers. It feels like a growing gulf that I increasingly don't want to try and reach across - I do not have fun with this tool, and I don't really want to hang around somewhere people are frequently pedaling it.

At the very least the change has made me reduce the amount of time I spend here. But I'm still a bit bummed about it.

Re: I created my first AI-assisted pull request

#57

Post by ryandrake »

echelon wrote: post #51
ryandrake wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you eat a strawberry do you feel like an impostor for not growing it yourself? No, but if I asked an intern to eat it for me, I wouldn't feel like I did anything or experienced anything at all. That's what LLM coding feels like--like I'm not doing anything meaningful. It's like hiring someone to love my kid for me.

> No, but if I asked an intern to eat it for me, I wouldn't feel like I did anything at all. That's a poor analogy. If I asked an intern to implement a function, I know I did the instruction and that I worked through them. The intern did work, but I did fancy high level work and killed several birds with one stone. Even better analogy: if I'm a film director, I'm working through a lot of people. The DP, the cast, the…

Directors do work, but a different kind of work. Not really what most people would consider hands-on filmmaking. They're more like managers--telling others what to do, how to light this, how to shoot that, where the characters should be. It's work but it's not "making." If I want to make a film, I'm going to grab a camera and point it at something. If I wanted to tell other people to make a film, I'd become a director.

That's the major difference I feel between writing code and having an LLM do it. We're all being asked to become directors when we just want to make movies.

Re: I created my first AI-assisted pull request

#58

Post by ki4kf »

akerl_ wrote: post #46
ki4kf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There's really no part of the transaction that meaningfully involves how much fun you're personally having building it." Funny. Steve Jobs was all about fun. Seems to have worked out well given Apple has maintained much of the culture Steve left behind.

> Steve Jobs was all about fun By every account I’ve seen, Steve Jobs cared that the users of the product were having fun. He did not care at all how much fun the people building the product had.

It's well documented that people enjoyed working at Apple under Steve - pain and pleasure come together when working on stuff that's insanely great.

If your idea of fun is doing no work then you're delusional.

Now that we're here, it should also be noted Steve did not make decisions based on 'maximizing shareholder wealth'.

Rather doing the right things on the top line (creating great products and telling people about them), the bottom line would follow.

Thats the difference between a visionary CEO and a bozo-CEO (enter Zuckerberg, Nadella et al).

Re: I created my first AI-assisted pull request

#59

Post by rmunn »

what wrote: post #50
rmunn wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you buy the variety most often found in American grocery stores (usually labeled as Roma tomatoes), they're terrible. Try the variety labeled as "tomatoes on the vine" (four-digit produce code 4664, which I know from memory, having punched it in to so many self-checkout scanners over the years). They're actually juicy and tasty the way tomatoes should be. Avoid Roma tomatoes, they're cardboard masquerading as a to…

Roma are not the “normal” tomatoes sold fresh in American grocery stores.

What are they called, then? Since I took a job overseas over ten years ago, I haven't been in American grocery stores much. What's the "normal" variety called? I distinctly remember Roma being the cheapest, and also worst-tasting, variety, and learned to buy the "on the vine" style instead, but those are the only two that stuck in my memory. What is the one I'm forgetting about?

Re: I created my first AI-assisted pull request

#60

Post by tptacek »

rickydroll wrote: post #52
tptacek wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We grew tomatoes last summer. Over the last 2 years, something about tomatoes (and BLTs in particular) really clicked for me; we'd grown tomatoes many previous summers, and I could give a shit, but last summer I cared a lot about our home-grown tomatoes. And I totally did feel less good about BLTs I made with supermarket heirloom tomatoes! It was irrational, but I did feel that way. I get where people are coming from…

try these varities Cherokee Purple. Black Krim Black from Tula. Brandywine heck, Almost any black tomato is a richer flavor than traditional hybrids. Heirloom tomatoes are also fantastic for flavors, but they are difficult to grow. Consistent watering, pruning lower leaves to keep disease away, proactive treatment of fungus and bacteria. It's a lot of work, but the results you get when it all comes together, yeah, it…

We did Cherokee Purples (like everyone else), Buffalo Suns, and Indigo Roses.

The Buffalo Suns were great, by the way.

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