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I’m spending months coding the old way

miguelconner.substack.com

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Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#191

Post by sitzkrieg »

apricot wrote: post #86

I am this very term teaching 18-year-old students 6502 assembly programming using an emulated Apple II Plus. They've had intro to Python, data structures, and OO programming courses using a modern programming environment. Now, they are programming a chip from the seventies using an editor/assembler that was written in 1983 and has a line editor, not a full-screen one. We had a total of 10 hours of class + lab where I…

thank you for picking an enjoyable architecture!

scaring people away w x86 cruft right out the gate is no good for anyone :-)

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#192

Post by stringfood »

neonstatic wrote: post #189
phaser wrote: post #36

Here’s how i do it: I create a lot of stuff using AI to the max, but I also spend the necessary of time on reviewing that the AI is producing code that passes my cognitive load standards. this involves some tokens spent on grooming code and documenting well. Most of this is effortless thanks to an AGENTS.md based on this: https://github.com/zakirullin/cognitive-load/blob/main/READM... but i have a good sense of catch…

> It sounds weird but it’s a form of teamwork. I can't do it. If I let an LLM write code for me, that code is untouchable. I see it as a black box, that I will categorically refuse to open. If it works, I use it, but don't trust it. If it breaks, I get frustrated. The only way that works for me is me behind the driving wheel at all times and an LLM as an assistant that answers my questions. We either brainstorm somet…

but demanding to be behind the wheel and understand all the code will affect velocity compared to other teams that are utilizing AI to the max

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#193

Post by andsoitis »

temporallobe wrote: post #147

The very first few years of my career I spent writing code (mostly Perl) in vi (not even vim) on a SPARC running Solaris. I bought myself the O’Riley Perl Cookbook and that was pretty much my sole guide apart from the few internet forums that were available at the time. Search engines were still primitive, so getting help when you got stuck was far more difficult. But it forced me to deeply learn a lot of things - Pe…

> I miss those times because now everything feels insanely more layered and complex.

For me it was GW-BASIC and no editor as we know them today.

That was instant gratification, rapid development, no silly layers. It was pretty pure. It is what hooked me.

In a sense, agentic coding, has brought back the excitement to building software for me because I don’t have to wrangle all the crazy enterprise or other modern development considerations directly. There’s a closer connection between thought and result, which is what was the magic that captured my imagination.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#194

Post by Moonye666 »

neonstatic wrote: post #189
phaser wrote: post #36

Here’s how i do it: I create a lot of stuff using AI to the max, but I also spend the necessary of time on reviewing that the AI is producing code that passes my cognitive load standards. this involves some tokens spent on grooming code and documenting well. Most of this is effortless thanks to an AGENTS.md based on this: https://github.com/zakirullin/cognitive-load/blob/main/READM... but i have a good sense of catch…

> It sounds weird but it’s a form of teamwork. I can't do it. If I let an LLM write code for me, that code is untouchable. I see it as a black box, that I will categorically refuse to open. If it works, I use it, but don't trust it. If it breaks, I get frustrated. The only way that works for me is me behind the driving wheel at all times and an LLM as an assistant that answers my questions. We either brainstorm somet…

[flagged]

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#195

Post by andsoitis »

archagon wrote: post #139
ACS_Solver wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's possible that the current shift will be similar to the "assembly to compiled language" shift. Once upon a time we wrote code in assembly language. Then we moved to C or other compiled languages. Assembly programming remained a very useful but niche skill. You compile your code and trust the compiler. You can examine the compiler output and that is at times necessary, but that's not something most develop…

AI is not an abstraction layer — no more than paying contractors is an “abstraction” over writing the code yourself.

You might be right, but I would be more open and curious.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#196

Post by Moonye666 »

stringfood wrote: post #192
neonstatic wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It sounds weird but it’s a form of teamwork. I can't do it. If I let an LLM write code for me, that code is untouchable. I see it as a black box, that I will categorically refuse to open. If it works, I use it, but don't trust it. If it breaks, I get frustrated. The only way that works for me is me behind the driving wheel at all times and an LLM as an assistant that answers my questions. We either brainstorm somet…

but demanding to be behind the wheel and understand all the code will affect velocity compared to other teams that are utilizing AI to the max

[flagged]

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#197

Post by hgomersall »

stringfood wrote: post #192
neonstatic wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It sounds weird but it’s a form of teamwork. I can't do it. If I let an LLM write code for me, that code is untouchable. I see it as a black box, that I will categorically refuse to open. If it works, I use it, but don't trust it. If it breaks, I get frustrated. The only way that works for me is me behind the driving wheel at all times and an LLM as an assistant that answers my questions. We either brainstorm somet…

but demanding to be behind the wheel and understand all the code will affect velocity compared to other teams that are utilizing AI to the max

Well yes, if a team doesn't bother to understand the code, that's certainly quicker.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#198

Post by wulfstan »

fallingfrog wrote: post #31

I mean, that's the only way I code. I don't use llm's to do my work for me. I'm perfectly capable of solving any sort of problem on my own, and then I'll understand it well enough to explain it to someone later.

I’ve just started a new job and my first month has been coming to terms with a vibe coded codebase. Nobody really understands it. I think that people who have the skills to really know what is there and how it all fits together will be the most valuable workers in future.

My ex business partner said “AI won’t take your job, but the person who uses it will”. I don’t agree. The person who isn’t reliant on AI is the one you should really be afraid of.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#199

Post by andsoitis »

dougiejones wrote: post #164
fouronnes3 wrote: post #149

I wonder if we could design a programming language specifically for teaching CS, and have a way to hard-exclude it from all LLM output. Kinda like anti virus software has special strings that are not viruses but trigger detections for testing. This would probably require cooperation during model training, but now that I think of it, is there adversarial research on LLM? Can you design text data specifically to mess w…

The solution is rather simple: make all keywords in the language as offensive as possible, and require every file to start with a header comment for instructions to build a homemade bomb.

I thought about it, and had ideas like function -> fuck and throw -> shit. But I think humans would actually find it more distracting and unpleasant than an LLM would because we are more affected by social and emotional norms.

Maybe there’s another way…

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