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AI is a bad tool

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Re: AI is a bad tool

#71

Post by butlike »

n4r9 wrote: post #41
wmichelin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoy building things. I do not enjoy the act typing out code by hand. > Do you not enjoy coding? I'm not trying to be snarky, just a genuine question To follow this debate through, to maximize coding enjoyment, shouldn't we be avoiding compilers? They take away a lot of the code we need to write. Frameworks as well?

I don't think the joy of coding comes simply from writing lots of code. It's the act of precisely expressing one's internal thoughts into an physical medium, and watching it take effect. Using AI as an intermediary makes it less enjoyable. It's like a painter telling his speedy assistant what he wants to paint, and reviewing every attempt until it looks like what he was aiming for. Obviously the painter won't find th…

Idk, when you have nothing to prove just let the assistant do it. As the painter I can give direction then take a nap since I'm not getting any younger.

Re: AI is a bad tool

#72

Post by zahlman »

jrockway wrote: post #52

I don't really agree with this. I was VERY skeptical about AI, but then I started using frontier models everyday, and my feelings have changed dramatically. I use AI to refine designs. I use AI for "where are all the codepaths where we return an HTTP 499 error". I use AI to write code (in "manually accept edits" mode, and I am picky about every single diff) and the results are really good. Most of the time, exactly w…

> Editing Go templates that generate YAML is absolutely miserable, it is my least favorite task. Claude gets it right without fuss every time.

As I understood it, the article's thesis is that your system shouldn't require "Go templates that generate YAML" in the first place.

Which is the sort of thing I'm very sympathetic to, but seems overstated here. There's a balance to strike.

Re: AI is a bad tool

#73

Post by m_w_ »

devin wrote: post #49
adamddev1 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you writing code for end-user applications, or for tools or libraries that other stuff is built with?

Judging by parent's CV, it kind of looks like they are relatively new to the industry and working in areas where they are heavy on the greenfield side of the equation. I get the sense that they've probably had some good success on smallish projects where they are in charge of keeping it all in their head. That's not to say that isn't earned or otherwise valuable experience, but it surely is not the way a lot of softw…

Yes - this is certainly true. I would have to concede that I could not speak to how my thesis would map onto a truly colossal codebase.

That said - I would (again, maybe naively) suppose it's not hugely different - much of the work I do occurs in code where many people have and will work on it, and where the size of the codebase dwarfs model context windows.

In that case, I feel the same - current frontier models, when properly oriented to a task, with some assist on the big-picture thinking - are more than capable of generating good code that can slot into big codebases with many moving pieces. Of course, I'd have to point to other people's work to defend this, but I think that's still pretty reasonable especially against the declared "LLMs are worse than useless for generating code".

Re: AI is a bad tool

#74

Post by orangecat »

sodafountan wrote: post #51

Yes. AI (in its current state) is phenomenal for research on just about any topic; you can dive deep and cross-reference the material more easily than ever. AI (in its current state) is not so good at actually doing things; we're a long ways off from simply speaking software into existence.

we're a long ways off from simply speaking software into existence

I wanted a Chinese language tutor that uses a local LLM to generate sentences and evaluate my translations. I asked Claude to build that, and an hour later it was working pretty much exactly how I imagined it.

It's true that there's a lot more to shipping serious projects than getting the code to work, but you can absolutely speak software into existence today.

Re: AI is a bad tool

#75

Post by butlike »

jwpapi wrote: post #46
datakan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not enjoy coding? I'm not trying to be snarky, just a genuine question. People used to enjoy it but lately all I see are people talking about they "no longer have to do it" I see both sides of the argument people endless have over this. I have been hesitant to take a solid position, first because I suck at coding and second because I dont really have a dog in this fight. The only context I have is my friend in…

I don’t know but to me it seems a bunch of people should learn proper typing. There is no way in world that AI is faster in solving/writing problems than you are when you can maneuver your idea/vim properly and have proper domain knowledge and mental model of your codebase. I think it’s genuinely 10x as fast. Just on execution and then if you write it you keep mental model, decide details and you don’t lose context.…

Coding for other people is like playing tennis for other people. You're signed as a tennis player to win. If a robot could play for you and win more games for you, you might consider using it. Now, I'm not saying AI tools let you "win," but I am saying a lot of people don't code "for the love of the game;" they code to keep the lights on.

Also the jury's out on if they're losing market value. We have yet to see which way the wind blows, but I personally think the genie might be out of the bottle on this one.

Full disclosure: I'm personally working up the courage to quit, take a fat paycut (maybe) and do something bucholic with the rest of my working life. I don't find much enjoyment in the tech landscape anymore (I'm 37).

Re: AI is a bad tool

#76

Post by bensyverson »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #57
bensyverson wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are certain things I enjoy coding by hand, in exactly the same way I like using a manual coffee grinder. Coding can be enjoyable. But most of the time coding is a means to an end. I bet your friend in HVAC was not told to use a manual drill to have a deeper understanding of how to make holes for installation. AI is simply a power tool.

> AI is simply a power tool I could not disagree more strongly Using a power tool does not erode your ability to think about how to build a shelf. Using AI to write for you absolutely erodes your ability to think about what you're writing, be it software or blog posts

People have said this about virtually every new writing technology, from pencils to typewriters, from computers to spell-check.

Personally I would never use AI for writing, but it's absolutely a power tool for coding. I still need to think about what needs to be generated, and why. For now, I still need to guide the model based on my experience. And in the end, I'm on the hook to approve what's created. If anything, I have more time to think about what I'm making, because I'm not busy building the CRUD for a web app for the 100th time.

Re: AI is a bad tool

#77

Post by doug_durham »

bakugo wrote: post #63
wmichelin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The finished product alone does not have to be the reward. The reward can still be building a great tool, a great application, etc. With AI we can build it 100x faster, freeing us up to think deeper about our test coverage, our design, our scaling, our observability. There is no excuse for lazy execution using AI, that is, IMO, equivalent to shoddy software engineering. it's just faster and more accessible now. "AI s…

How can building an application feel like a reward when you're not the one who built it? And before you post the obvious response, no, if you're truly "100x faster", you're not reading or even thinking about anything the AI is outputting. The time math doesn't add up.

You seem to have a narrow definition of "build it". LLMs don't have agency. If I build software using an LLM I built it. Just like if I build a house out of lumber from a lumber mill, I built it even though I didn't hand carve the 2x4s.

Re: AI is a bad tool

#78

Post by doug_durham »

jwpapi wrote: post #46
datakan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not enjoy coding? I'm not trying to be snarky, just a genuine question. People used to enjoy it but lately all I see are people talking about they "no longer have to do it" I see both sides of the argument people endless have over this. I have been hesitant to take a solid position, first because I suck at coding and second because I dont really have a dog in this fight. The only context I have is my friend in…

I don’t know but to me it seems a bunch of people should learn proper typing. There is no way in world that AI is faster in solving/writing problems than you are when you can maneuver your idea/vim properly and have proper domain knowledge and mental model of your codebase. I think it’s genuinely 10x as fast. Just on execution and then if you write it you keep mental model, decide details and you don’t lose context.…

Sorry but you are just wrong. Perhaps if you are working on tiny problems in very small projects. Beyond that AI is simply many times faster regardless of how fast you type.

Re: AI is a bad tool

#79

Post by doug_durham »

champagnepapi wrote: post #14
m_w_ wrote: post #2

I can only imagine that people who say things like: > If you use AI for anything else, and in particularly if you use it to generate code, you're wasting your time. Have not used frontier models in at least a year. It is nearly inconceivable to me that I would ever go back to writing code by hand, in any context. Even if no new model was ever released, the combination of GLM 5.2 and DeepSeek V4 flash is more than suf…

How are you verifying all the code that's generated? Do you think that verifying properly would take you as much effort as the original implementation would've?

The same way that I verified all of the code that was written before AI. Just because you hand type the code doesn't mean that you don't have to test and verify. I can test much more thoroughly with AI that without.

Re: AI is a bad tool

#80

Post by [deleted] »

Sevii wrote: post #28
datakan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not enjoy coding? I'm not trying to be snarky, just a genuine question. People used to enjoy it but lately all I see are people talking about they "no longer have to do it" I see both sides of the argument people endless have over this. I have been hesitant to take a solid position, first because I suck at coding and second because I dont really have a dog in this fight. The only context I have is my friend in…

I enjoy getting into the zone while listening to synthwave and banging out code. But I'm not going to ignore that I can code most programs 100x as fast using claude code. I don't enjoy coding so much that I will spend 8 hours getting a side project together when I could get more done in 30 minutes with AI.

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