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AI is a bad tool

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Re: AI is a bad tool

#81

Post by mrob »

CrimsonRain wrote: post #54
n4r9 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The problem with your argument is that it's the same argument machine coders used against high level languages :)

High level languages are analogous to airbrushes or paint rollers, not assistants. They let you paint faster, at the cost of making some things impossible that you would be able to do with a fine paintbrush. Unlike the assistant/LLM, they do not make artistic decisions for you, and their behavior is predictable.

Re: AI is a bad tool

#82

Post by [deleted] »

doug_durham wrote: post #78
jwpapi wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: AI is a bad tool

#83

Post by jrockway »

zahlman wrote: post #72
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.

Yeah. I would personally refuse to add Helm to a system but the complicating factors are 1) customers ask for it by name (why I relented at my last job where we made self-hosted k8s software) 2) people we hire know how to use it. So while I find it unpleasant from a computer science purity standpoint, it is pretty popular and gets the job done. I have to save my energy for things that matter and improve the experiences of the customers, not design the 900th way to deploy stuff to Kubernetes. So ... I am happy to let Claude double-check my {{ brace }} nesting or whatever. If something is Objectively Terrible but tooling smooths over it, I can let it live without a fight.

Re: AI is a bad tool

#84

Post by ImprobableTruth »

doug_durham wrote: post #77
bakugo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Now, what if you order a construction crew for building your house? What if you also hire an architect to design the plan? And an overseer who manages everything?

Surely at some point you would stop saying "I built this house", even if you ordered and financed it?

Re: AI is a bad tool

#85

Post by couchdb_ouchdb »

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…

1000% this person has no idea what they are talking about.

Re: AI is a bad tool

#86

Post by distalshores »

I think a lot of people who write about AI haven't been regular old, run-of-the-mill software devs in a while.

For small companies, or large companies broken into small teams, I'm not really sure why there's this assumption that AI will "take care of all the trivial code." Someone has to transmute the project manager's wishes into working code, and it's never going to be the product manager. From that point of view, whether I'm cobbling the code together from Stack Overflow snippets or using AI to generate it, my job hasn't changed all that much.

I neither fear the reaper nor do I dismiss the impact GPTs have had on the industry. I just don't think small development teams' mandates have changed that much, apart from a somewhat faster pace of development (work expands to fill the vacuum, after all).

Re: AI is a bad tool

#87

Post by atq2119 »

ImprobableTruth wrote: post #84
doug_durham wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Now, what if you order a construction crew for building your house? What if you also hire an architect to design the plan? And an overseer who manages everything? Surely at some point you would stop saying "I built this house", even if you ordered and financed it?

This is getting a bit off-topic, but there are certainly people who will still say that they built it. That is, in a nutshell, how people try to reconcile desert theory with the existence of the super-wealthy.

Re: AI is a bad tool

#88

Post by kaycey2022 »

datakan wrote: post #16
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…

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…

Does a sculptor enjoy the act of chiseling stone more than be driven and desperate enough to uncover the statue within. Both are valid ways of thinking. Who am I to say otherwise? One just has more social rewards associated.

Re: AI is a bad tool

#89

Post by jwpapi »

doug_durham wrote: post #78
jwpapi wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s exactly the opposite. On small projects I can use heavily because maintanability doesn’t matter on big projects you’ll end up in a deadlock. That’s why we have so many dead projects. People end up with 10x the needed LOCs and changes get incredible slow and tedious.

If i want to have a script that does sth trivial I’m happy to let AI do it, but if I’m building a house that doesnt break hell no.

Re: AI is a bad tool

#90

Post by jwpapi »

m_w_ wrote: post #69
jwpapi wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Obviously I'm just one guy, but I maintain what I said w/ typing happily at 120+wpm. I think I could break 150 if I switched to colemak or dvorak, which I've been considering. I don't think my job was ever to type fast, nor do I make any claim that I'm ontologically better than someone writing code by hand - but for what I need to do, I'm way faster now. You might think he's an AI shill, but I was pretty compelled by…

I’m using NEO layout with all the coding keys on layer 3. I’m using both pinkys to jump into layer 3. I can therefore code a lot on home row. I use intellij with two two stroke keybinds (f.e. => Alt + E -> M => Extract Method) and vim motions in editor. I use ai next edit and autocomplete inside editor as I’m right on the loop.

Most changes I need to do are few lines of codes or big architectural changes. I’m at 40k lines of code after 24 months of working that’s 1.5k lines per month and 50 lines a day. If you can write 50 lines a day would you let AI write those or write them yourself.

I challenge anyone to show me a project with a good codebase where the actual loc output is so high that a human couldn’t write it in one hour a day.

I’m not working for a company so my job is to deliver a platform that works for users not to get a paycheck.

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