241–250 of 326 posts
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Writing Specs that are thousands of lines wrong without formalism, type and correctness checking is a major PITA. Wish we had a..compiler that can check our code..err I mean spec.
Oh, are you still handwriting your specs? How Q2 2026. Handcrafted artisan specs are obsolete and you will be left behind in the dust if you still insist on them.
I think that, even among those who have had the ability to code since before LLMs, the skill of coding has been in atrophy, and will continue to be so over the next 10 or 20 years. Learning to code, over the same period of time, will not be worthwhile. At the end of that process, cracks in the system will start to show: Namely, we will have nothing but LLM-generated code to train future LLMs on, and codebases for pro…
It is a bit like in "Profession" by Isaac Asimov. We will still have the need for some people who will write code manually, fix the craft. We will need the "Feeble Minded" asylum that is actually a secret sanctuary for society's true creators. Because everyone else relies on generated code, they can only repeat what is already known. Only the people who learn the hard way through actual studying possess the creativit…
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LLMs are trained with a large corpus of commercially available source code. However, intentional training on individual skills such as medicine, finance, mathematics, and software engineering is conducted to the tune of a few billion dollars per year. Your scenario would only unfold if frontier labs decided not to compete on capabilities. It sounds unlikely.
How will they hire experts from those professions on whose output to train on, if they destroy the skills currently extant in those professions? Maybe lawyers will still read contracts every once in a while. Certainly, programmers around me no longer bother with reading code. ...and you can make an argument that a similar effect will happen that is widely observed in language-learners: Namely, if you only ever use a…
We still have COBOL programmers for a reason. The economic incentive to keep the skill never left.
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>linkregister: LLMs are trained with a large corpus of commercially available source code. However...
This concedes your point. Hence the following "however". It's bizarre to argue against it.
> Code is a beautiful form of creative expression, as rich as literature or music I think this is overstating it and makes me wonder how familiar the author is with literature and music. Most programming is closer to plumbing. We come in, gripe about the guy who did the prior job, and solve a puzzle with some unique constraints. The reason LLMs are good at coding is because with coding we want boring, banal code.
The point of art (like music and litterature) is the art itself. Code is a craft, it is means to an end. It can still be beautiful and impressive and creative, but it is a different thing. It is not a value judgement. Art can be bad or bland and code can be a work of genius. But the moon lander or a handmade watch are beautiful because they actually work. It can’t really be compared to music.
Now, is the demoscene "high art"? For the most part, perhaps not. But some of it definitely is.
But I hate waste, I hate dead code, I hate byzantine constructions and reinventing the wheel, and thus, most of the time, I keep a close eye on reasoning traces, frequently interrupt and steer the agent, and prefer to review the diffs as they are done in very small increments.
And everytime I am lazy, and try to just vibe code stuff, inevitably the old "all abstractions are leaky" adage rear its ugly head and I see myself reviewing a fucking giant delta and asking the agent: "but, why? when you could just..."
It is not possible that all those famous people are wrong and I am right. If my results when giving full autonomy to an agent are usually sub-optimal under my point of view, well, what if the problem is with MY point of view?
I am starting to get depressed thinking that maybe I have some personality flaw that will prevent me from truly reaping the fruits of this new age. At one side I think it is absurdly fantastic that I have this pair programmer so productive and with fantastic recall, but on the other side, I can't really relinquish control, I feel like it can't build a coherent architecture, I am still attached to the idea that engineering principles like low coupling, information hiding, high cohesion, low cyclomatic complexity, modularity, sound typing are important, and maybe I am just a fucking old curmudgeon that can't get up with the times.
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It is a bit like in "Profession" by Isaac Asimov. We will still have the need for some people who will write code manually, fix the craft. We will need the "Feeble Minded" asylum that is actually a secret sanctuary for society's true creators. Because everyone else relies on generated code, they can only repeat what is already known. Only the people who learn the hard way through actual studying possess the creativit…
The reason LLMs seem powerful is that they can churn out the Nth variation of a CRUD app in minutes. But it’s hard to imagine they’ll ever independently develop a compiler for a truly novel programming language, for instance. They don’t have creativity. They are pattern generators.
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How will they hire experts from those professions on whose output to train on, if they destroy the skills currently extant in those professions? Maybe lawyers will still read contracts every once in a while. Certainly, programmers around me no longer bother with reading code. ...and you can make an argument that a similar effect will happen that is widely observed in language-learners: Namely, if you only ever use a…
Your argument assumes premises that are hardly certain. We use automobiles to travel, yet tens of thousands can still ride horses today. Hell, there are thousands of blacksmiths and glass blowers. If there's a several hundred million dollar market for programming language experts, this will provide sufficient incentive for some people to remain sharp. We still have COBOL programmers for a reason. The economic incenti…
Also: Saying that "learn to code" has been reduced from a meme about a surefire ticket to economic security to the equivalent of glassblower, is not really refuting what, in broad strokes, the original point actually was; is it?
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The demo scene — as cool as it is — is an obscure hobby for a particular kind of nerd. The business side of programming puts food on the table for tens of millions of people.
Can't the same thing be said about literature and music?
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It is a bit like in "Profession" by Isaac Asimov. We will still have the need for some people who will write code manually, fix the craft. We will need the "Feeble Minded" asylum that is actually a secret sanctuary for society's true creators. Because everyone else relies on generated code, they can only repeat what is already known. Only the people who learn the hard way through actual studying possess the creativit…
The reason LLMs seem powerful is that they can churn out the Nth variation of a CRUD app in minutes. But it’s hard to imagine they’ll ever independently develop a compiler for a truly novel programming language, for instance. They don’t have creativity. They are pattern generators.