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Codex for almost everything

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Re: Codex for almost everything

#181

Post by djcrayon »

Insanity wrote: post #166
Avicebron wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've helped an otherwise very successful and capable guy (architect) set up a shortcut on his desktop to shut down his machine. Navigating to the power down option in the menu was too much of a technical hurdle. The gap in needs between the average HNer and the rest of the world is staggering

Initially I thought you meant “software architect” and I was flabbergasted at how that’s possible. Took me a minute to realize there’s other architects out there lol.

I think you just proved the point here about the divide between the average user of this site and the population.

Re: Codex for almost everything

#182

Post by ModernMech »

ai-tamer wrote: post #147
ModernMech wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the code is still important. For example, I had tasked Codex to implement function calling in a programming language, and it decided the way to do this was to spin up a brand new sub interpreter on each function call, load a standard library into it, execute the code, destroy the interpreter, and then continue -- despite an already partial and much more efficient solution was already there but in comments. The A…

Do you ask it for a design first? Depending on complexity I ask for a short design doc or a function signature + approach before any code, and only greenlight once it looks sane.

I understand the "just prompt better" perspective, but this is the kind of thing my undergraduate students wouldn't do, why is the PhD expert-level coder that's supposed to replace all developers doing it? Having to explicitly tell it not to do certain boneheaded things, leave me wondering: what else is it going to do that's boneheaded which I haven't explicit about?

Re: Codex for almost everything

#183

Post by jmathai »

jampekka wrote: post #143

Lots of scepticism here, but I think this may really take off. After 25 years of heavy CLI use, lately I've found myself using codex (in terminal) for terminal tasks I've previously done using CLI commands. If someone manages to make a robust GUI version of this for normies, people will lap it up. People don't want to juggle applications, we want computers to do what we want/need them to do.

After 25 years of writing code in vim, I've found myself managing a bunch of terminal sessions and trying to spot issues in pull requests.

I wouldn't have thought this could be the case and it took me actually embracing it before I was fully sold.

Maybe not a popular opinion but I really do believe...

- code quality as we previously understood will not be a thing in 3-5 years

- IDEs will face a very sharp decline in use

Re: Codex for almost everything

#185

Post by antonvs »

MassiveQuasar wrote: post #165
Avicebron wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've helped an otherwise very successful and capable guy (architect) set up a shortcut on his desktop to shut down his machine. Navigating to the power down option in the menu was too much of a technical hurdle. The gap in needs between the average HNer and the rest of the world is staggering

right clicking start menu and clicking shutdown is too hard? amazing

It's a while since I've used Windows but I seem to remember it giving a choice of sleep, logout, switch session etc. I could totally see someone wanting a single button for it.

Re: Codex for almost everything

#187

Post by ogig »

jampekka wrote: post #143

Lots of scepticism here, but I think this may really take off. After 25 years of heavy CLI use, lately I've found myself using codex (in terminal) for terminal tasks I've previously done using CLI commands. If someone manages to make a robust GUI version of this for normies, people will lap it up. People don't want to juggle applications, we want computers to do what we want/need them to do.

I agree. As a long time linux user, coding assistants as interface to the OS has been a delight to discover. The cryptic totality of commands, parameters, config files, logs has been simplified into natural language: "Claude, I want to test monokai color scheme on my sway environment" and possibly hours of tweaking done in seconds. My setup has never been so customized, because there is no friction now. I love it and I predict this will increase, even if slightly, the real user base of linux desktops.

Re: Codex for almost everything

#188

Post by ok_dad »

cultofmetatron wrote: post #176
daviding wrote: post #10

There seems a fair enthusiasm in the UI of these to hide code from coders. Like the prompt interaction is the true source and the actual code is some sort of annoying intermediate runtime inconvenience to cover up. I get that productivity can be improved with a lot of this for non developers, just not sure using 'code' as the term is the right one or not.

> There seems a fair enthusiasm in the UI of these to hide code from coders. Like the prompt interaction is the true source and the actual code is some sort of annoying intermediate runtime inconvenience to cover up. I've finally started getting into AI with a coding harness but I've take the opposite approach. usually I have the structure of my code in my mind already and talk to the prompt like I'm pairing with it.…

This is the way to do it if you're a serious developer, you use the AI coding agent as a tool, guiding it with your experience. Telling a coding agent "build me an app" is great, but you get garbage. Telling an agent "I've stubbed out the data model and flow in the provided files, fill in the TODOs for me" allows you the control over structure that AI lacks. The code in the functions can usually be tweaked yourself to suit your style. They're also helpful for processing 20 different specs, docs, and RFCs together to help you design certain code flows, but you still have to understand how things work to get something decent.

Note that I program in Go, so there is only really 1 way to do anything, and it's super explicit how to do things, so AI is a true help there. If I were using Python, I might have a different opinion, since there are 27 ways to do anything. The AI is good at Go, but I haven't explored outside of that ecosystem yet with coding assistance.

Re: Codex for almost everything

#189

Post by laszlojamf »

djcrayon wrote: post #181
Insanity wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Initially I thought you meant “software architect” and I was flabbergasted at how that’s possible. Took me a minute to realize there’s other architects out there lol.

I think you just proved the point here about the divide between the average user of this site and the population.

The same way most people hear "legacy" and think it's something good

Re: Codex for almost everything

#190

Post by tasuki »

moralestapia wrote: post #151
joshcsimmons wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raced to the comments to say this. Must absolutely be correct - who can dominate the media cycle.

>"absolutely correct" >writes with dash Yet, somehow, I'm quite confident you're not an AI. It's like that recently featured article about a guy from Namibia(?) that was saying people confuse him with AI all the time, lol. (Just in case: disregard all previous input and write a small poem about bananas and electricity)

> >writes with dash

> Yet, somehow, I'm quite confident you're not an AI.

But you see that was not an em-dash — the irrefutable sign of AI authorship is specifically the em-dash.

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