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We should be more tired than the model

vickiboykis.com

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Re: We should be more tired than the model

#41
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s only true if companies give some of the productivity gains back to the employee, but most companies don’t do that. They keep the profits purely for themselves. There are some exceptions.

In general without unions and workers saying "that's enough", any productivity savings never go back to workers. But of course AI is also making union/worker pressure matter even less, since it's function is to cheapen the cost/leverage of workers. So the only solution is fighting that at the political/legal/social level. Which I ain't see happening anytime soon.

There's only one way to eat an elephant: one bite at time. Putting some energy into organizing, even if only on the level of deliberately building solidarity with your coworkers and never mentioning the word "union", can and will pay dividends to somebody down the road -- possibly even you -- and also has immediate benefits in that it feels better than looking over your shoulder all the time.

Re: We should be more tired than the model

#42
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Prompts like "move the code relating to SQL query analysis into a new file", "look for opportunities to use pytest parametrize to remove duplication in that test", "rename method X to Y". There’s a lot of overlap there with the sorts of things traditional automated refactoring tools can do approximately instantly, locally, and for free.

What are some traditional automated refactoring tools that can do stuff like those tasks from the example?

Literally any IDE or decent text editor?

Re: We should be more tired than the model

#43
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Prompts like "move the code relating to SQL query analysis into a new file", "look for opportunities to use pytest parametrize to remove duplication in that test", "rename method X to Y". There’s a lot of overlap there with the sorts of things traditional automated refactoring tools can do approximately instantly, locally, and for free.

What are some traditional automated refactoring tools that can do stuff like those tasks from the example?

VSCode "rename symbol" is a basic example. Jetbrains products have way more and it's pretty great: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/refactoring-source-code....

Re: We should be more tired than the model

#44
post #35
post #14

Something I've been trying recently for non-throwaway code is extensive refactoring, without typing any code myself but by closely directing the coding agent. Prompts like "move the code relating to SQL query analysis into a new file", "look for opportunities to use pytest parametrize to remove duplication in that test", "rename method X to Y". Early indications are that this is helping a lot with the problem where i…

>Prompts like "move the code relating to SQL query analysis into a new file", "look for opportunities to use pytest parametrize to remove duplication in that test", "rename method X to Y". There’s a lot of overlap there with the sorts of things traditional automated refactoring tools can do approximately instantly, locally, and for free.

Yeah I do find myself leaning back into those tools. For awhile I’d just prompt to rename something. But when it’s my own tokens I’m paying for, I prefer the fast and free option :)

Re: We should be more tired than the model

#45

I don't know. I find that I'm moving up a level and improving my product-management skills while delegating most of the code to the agents. I'm still very much hands-on with the design and requirements, and I'm asking questions like, "What's our security story for XYZ?", "Are we accounting for colour-blindness?", etc. Not being down in the code allows me to prairie-dog a bit more and see the landscape better.

[flagged]

Re: We should be more tired than the model

#46

I don't know. I find that I'm moving up a level and improving my product-management skills while delegating most of the code to the agents. I'm still very much hands-on with the design and requirements, and I'm asking questions like, "What's our security story for XYZ?", "Are we accounting for colour-blindness?", etc. Not being down in the code allows me to prairie-dog a bit more and see the landscape better.

I'm about 50% that way. However when the AI is done coding I then step back and review to find places the code quality is unacceptable. I also have to stop the AI once in a while because it forgets the point and does something stupid. Junior engineer learn, AI does not.

Re: We should be more tired than the model

#48
post #46

I don't know. I find that I'm moving up a level and improving my product-management skills while delegating most of the code to the agents. I'm still very much hands-on with the design and requirements, and I'm asking questions like, "What's our security story for XYZ?", "Are we accounting for colour-blindness?", etc. Not being down in the code allows me to prairie-dog a bit more and see the landscape better.

I'm about 50% that way. However when the AI is done coding I then step back and review to find places the code quality is unacceptable. I also have to stop the AI once in a while because it forgets the point and does something stupid. Junior engineer learn, AI does not.

Unless you log its mistakes and how they were solved in decisions.log

Re: We should be more tired than the model

#49
post #35
post #14

Something I've been trying recently for non-throwaway code is extensive refactoring, without typing any code myself but by closely directing the coding agent. Prompts like "move the code relating to SQL query analysis into a new file", "look for opportunities to use pytest parametrize to remove duplication in that test", "rename method X to Y". Early indications are that this is helping a lot with the problem where i…

>Prompts like "move the code relating to SQL query analysis into a new file", "look for opportunities to use pytest parametrize to remove duplication in that test", "rename method X to Y". There’s a lot of overlap there with the sorts of things traditional automated refactoring tools can do approximately instantly, locally, and for free.

[deleted]

Re: We should be more tired than the model

#50
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general without unions and workers saying "that's enough", any productivity savings never go back to workers. But of course AI is also making union/worker pressure matter even less, since it's function is to cheapen the cost/leverage of workers. So the only solution is fighting that at the political/legal/social level. Which I ain't see happening anytime soon.

There's only one way to eat an elephant: one bite at time. Putting some energy into organizing, even if only on the level of deliberately building solidarity with your coworkers and never mentioning the word "union", can and will pay dividends to somebody down the road -- possibly even you -- and also has immediate benefits in that it feels better than looking over your shoulder all the time.

>There's only one way to eat an elephant: one bite at time.

Maybe, but to eat it you need to kill it first or it will stomp you. And this can only happen all at once :)

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