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AI makes programming differently difficult

cacm.acm.org

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Re: AI makes programming differently difficult

#81

Post by gofreddygo »

mostlysimilar wrote: post #11
bnfcl wrote: post #7

Quote of the main point in the article: In other words, the hard part moves from recall (“How do I write this?”) to judgment (“Does this actually make sense?”) This is very true. But to evaluate if it makes sense, you first need experience writing the code. I am glad I learned software development over 15 years ago, and not today. AI is a super power, but without the experience to guide it, it can go horribly wrong r…

That's where I've landed too. Maybe I'm just delusional and telling myself a comfortable story, but I think my ~15 years of experience building software by hand lets me utilize these robots in a way that people lacking it simply can't. I still absolutely loathe talking to them and using them. But I feel less scared about losing my career these days. Work wants me to use it, I'm using it at work. In my hobby projects…

> hobby projects I still code by hand

So true. I was too blinded to not notice the joy of my hobby getting sucked away by not doing it by hand.

Re: AI makes programming differently difficult

#82

Post by noodlescb »

nasretdinov wrote: post #74

Definitely not my experience. No matter the model, if I'm working on something important (and there is little reason on working on something not important) I do care about correctness and understandability. While LLMs are great for throwaway one-time code (although that's also debatable), they cannot compete with code written by a seasoned professional. No matter how many times I've tried delegating writing code to L…

After 18+ months of this, LLMs are incredible for getting rid of the work I hated most: Updating JIRA tickets, tedious little cleanup jobs, refactoring, etc. They are great at finding infosec issues.

They are also GREAT at writing code based on standards and patterns established by an actual human engineers. They are STILL trash at anything meaningfully complex from the ground up. I will go through hours of planning where I have to kick the hell out of its plans in ways that I don't think someone without a ton of real world experience could do. Even in the fancy new Fable models that remains true. They are not creative and any engineering worth doing requires creativity.

Re: AI makes programming differently difficult

#83

Post by gofreddygo »

georgemcbay wrote: post #79
asdfman123 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, that's definitely true... for now. The thing that concerns me, however, is that just a year ago it was only useful for doing things like reminding me how to read in a file. Now it's at the level of a competent junior, who can almost do the whole task from start to finish but needs a little supervision. All the AI companies are retaining the messages we're sending to their agents to train the next models. I would…

> UPDATE: I'm getting a lot of replies to this thread and while I'm not trying to be argumentative here, I have to ask if a lot of them aren't rooted in denial... I do think there is a very common denialism that is rampant causing many people to believe on what is essentially faith that AI is going to get just good enough to be a perfect assistant to them, but then magically halt on progress right before it entirely…

in a decade, we're all going to say how developers job is so different and yet still the same as it was 10 years ago.

Re: AI makes programming differently difficult

#84

Post by contextfree »

snerbles wrote: post #32
FinnLobsien wrote: post #3

It’s the same with writing: AI writing is coherent on the surface, but is impossible to edit because it’s built on no real insight. Now the sharpening of a coherent point, challenging one’s assumptions, and editorial decisions of what (not) to include are super important because they’re no longer a byproduct of the writing process.

Human insight can emerge from attacking the semblance of sense in the LLM's output. Much of the cognitive work in writing emerges in the labor of writing prose and challenging assumptions against the model you build in your head as you go. I've found this process is inverted when working with an LLM: it in effect emits a provisional structure first, and I discover what I actually think by finding where its output is…

Yeah I've written some docs using the following process:

1. Throw some notes, PR links, etc. into copilot and ask for a first draft

2. Go back and forth for a while asking for revisions

3. Trash all of the AI-generated text and rewrite the whole thing myself from scratch, which I can do quickly in a typing frenzy because I now have a clear idea what I want, by way of seeing what I don't want.

Re: AI makes programming differently difficult

#85

Post by echelon »

nasretdinov wrote: post #74

Definitely not my experience. No matter the model, if I'm working on something important (and there is little reason on working on something not important) I do care about correctness and understandability. While LLMs are great for throwaway one-time code (although that's also debatable), they cannot compete with code written by a seasoned professional. No matter how many times I've tried delegating writing code to L…

You're moving too slow.

Over the last four days I've few shotted a 1:1 clone (and improvement) of Fal, OpenRouter, and Replicate in Rust. It's going to be open source.

I've lined up $300k of monthly commitments for it that land at launch. Might apply to YC with it.

Moving "organic" is too slow for the world today.

Re: AI makes programming differently difficult

#87

Post by georgemcbay »

gofreddygo wrote: post #83
georgemcbay wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> UPDATE: I'm getting a lot of replies to this thread and while I'm not trying to be argumentative here, I have to ask if a lot of them aren't rooted in denial... I do think there is a very common denialism that is rampant causing many people to believe on what is essentially faith that AI is going to get just good enough to be a perfect assistant to them, but then magically halt on progress right before it entirely…

in a decade, we're all going to say how developers job is so different and yet still the same as it was 10 years ago.

If in a decade we are discussing that online as opposed to tips on how to survive the most recent wet bulb event, then... wonderful, I'll take it.

I am less optimistic than you, but would love to be wrong.

Re: AI makes programming differently difficult

#88

Post by webdood90 »

runarberg wrote: post #30
asdfman123 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, that's definitely true... for now. The thing that concerns me, however, is that just a year ago it was only useful for doing things like reminding me how to read in a file. Now it's at the level of a competent junior, who can almost do the whole task from start to finish but needs a little supervision. All the AI companies are retaining the messages we're sending to their agents to train the next models. I would…

People were saying the exact same thing exactly a year ago. “Last years models were no good, but this year we can do anything; so what about next years models?” the people said in July of 2025. Well... Now we have next years models, and people are still saying: “Last years models were no good, but this year we can do anything; so what about next years models?” And I am pretty sure in July 2027 (if this whole thing ha…

You must really have your head in the sand if you truly believe AI will not soon be very close to, if not better than, humans at writing code.

Re: AI makes programming differently difficult

#89

Post by ozim »

echelon wrote: post #85
nasretdinov wrote: post #74

Definitely not my experience. No matter the model, if I'm working on something important (and there is little reason on working on something not important) I do care about correctness and understandability. While LLMs are great for throwaway one-time code (although that's also debatable), they cannot compete with code written by a seasoned professional. No matter how many times I've tried delegating writing code to L…

You're moving too slow. Over the last four days I've few shotted a 1:1 clone (and improvement) of Fal, OpenRouter, and Replicate in Rust. It's going to be open source. I've lined up $300k of monthly commitments for it that land at launch. Might apply to YC with it. Moving "organic" is too slow for the world today.

Should have get some AI for bait posts :D

Re: AI makes programming differently difficult

#90

Post by overgard »

nasretdinov wrote: post #74

Definitely not my experience. No matter the model, if I'm working on something important (and there is little reason on working on something not important) I do care about correctness and understandability. While LLMs are great for throwaway one-time code (although that's also debatable), they cannot compete with code written by a seasoned professional. No matter how many times I've tried delegating writing code to L…

One thing that I find frustrating/disturbing about LLM generated code is that wrong stuff doesn't usually look wrong, so you almost have to review it even closer than what you'd review from a person. Like in the past when a developer was being sloppy, usually you could kind of tell superficially, but with LLM code it's usually well documented and superficially well structured, all while doing batshit insane things. Like today I noticed some code that it had written was just silently returning on errors without logging a warning or returning an error code. It "worked" but it was a major foot-gun!
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