It'd be embarrassing if you have to spend $10 in AI tokens for it to fix one line that you could have fixed quicker yourself for free. Not sure if the savings add up enough to offset the investment in learning to program.
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Teach yourself programming in ten years (1998)
61–70 of 142 posts
Re: Teach yourself programming in ten years (1998)
#62It'd be embarrassing if you have to spend $10 in AI tokens for it to fix one line that you could have fixed quicker yourself for free. Not sure if the savings add up enough to offset the investment in learning to program.
I wonder if people writing these comments actually do this hands on. That's because I do and a one line fix rarely costs anything but cents. Unless you first need to let it figure out which line it is, but that's not a fair comparison because you'd also first need to find out. And if it takes you an hour then instead paying $10 could be a reasonable price to pay.
Only way it's costing $10 is if you're putting your whole code base in without without any work or guidance, which is what people who don't use AI day to day think is what happens.
Re: Teach yourself programming in ten years (1998)
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do! A lot of the work I do is not simple CRUD, and I have to think about what's going on. Reading code doesn't do that to the same degree.
Cutting-edge models are capable of much more than generating CRUD apps and understanding the details is orthogonal to whether you wrote the lines yourself or not.
Yeah, I disagree on the latter point by a lot :-). Really, is it truly "orthogonal"? Not really, you will understand the details better by writing them yourself. On your first point, they are pretty good at a lot of stuff, given that they have seen it before. A lot of the time, I'm writing code that no LLM has seen before. That sounds super smug, but it's "da tru tru".
Re: Teach yourself programming in ten years (1998)
#64Why is this marked as 1998 when it references Khan Academy and Go, among other things?
On Wayback machine references to this post (a much shorter version though) go back to 1998, this is the oldest reference: https://web.archive.org/web/19980206223800/https://www.norvi...
So he changed the text as time went on, since the 1998 version doesn't reference Khan Academy. Though the "(1998)" might still be justified if the changes are minor.
Re: Teach yourself programming in ten years (1998)
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did AI take it away, or did you give it away? Now that you've made the Faustian bargain at this low low introductory price, how long until they start ratcheting up the price? How long will you be able to bear it? You're still allowed to do things the old fashioned way you know. Given the rapid skill degradation that results from LLM-driven coding usage, I'd recommend it if you want to retain any skill at all.
One thing AI did take away; I love reading source code written by other people. Node modules, plugins, LUA, python scripts... whatever. I loved seeing how people organized their logic, named their variables, the flavor of their comments... all of it. I learned so much diving through the source code of all the major tools. Now it's all AI generated. You don't know if you're reading a novel human's take on a pattern or…
> Now it's all AI generated.
I can assure you, it's not. You just need to avoid the areas where this is prevalent.
> You don't know if you're reading a novel human's take on a pattern or an LLM's attempt to reproduce.
In the end of the day, if it's an elegant solution why does it matter! If anything then it sharpens your senses to check whether it's great or trash. A sense that one should have had with human code already, now it just feels more important (but it really isn't because it was important before too).
Re: Teach yourself programming in ten years (1998)
#66One of may favorite things to do was to spend some time tinkering around to learn a new programming language. I collected quite a few and it was fun to learn new paradigms and how to organize programs. But now since AI… idk I just can’t do it, it seems just completely useless in the age of AI. Like getting better at the technical aspects of programming just doesn’t feel important anymore. I don’t think I’ll ever be a…
> learn a new programming language. I collected quite a few and it was fun to learn new paradigms
Let's be honest here: how many actually distinct paradigms are we really talking about here? I challenge you to name more than 5 which are not just flavors of the same core approach. Bonus if they are actually all relevant for production software.
Re: Teach yourself programming in ten years (1998)
#67It'd be embarrassing if you have to spend $10 in AI tokens for it to fix one line that you could have fixed quicker yourself for free. Not sure if the savings add up enough to offset the investment in learning to program.
I wonder if people writing these comments actually do this hands on. That's because I do and a one line fix rarely costs anything but cents. Unless you first need to let it figure out which line it is, but that's not a fair comparison because you'd also first need to find out. And if it takes you an hour then instead paying $10 could be a reasonable price to pay.
Does their comment not read as hyperbole from someone frustrated at the state of the industry?
Re: Teach yourself programming in ten years (1998)
#68One of may favorite things to do was to spend some time tinkering around to learn a new programming language. I collected quite a few and it was fun to learn new paradigms and how to organize programs. But now since AI… idk I just can’t do it, it seems just completely useless in the age of AI. Like getting better at the technical aspects of programming just doesn’t feel important anymore. I don’t think I’ll ever be a…
> learn a new programming language. I collected quite a few and it was fun to learn new paradigms Let's be honest here: how many actually distinct paradigms are we really talking about here? I challenge you to name more than 5 which are not just flavors of the same core approach. Bonus if they are actually all relevant for production software.
> Bonus if they are actually all relevant for production software.
Why it should be relevant for production software?
Re: Teach yourself programming in ten years (1998)
#69FWIW, Peter Norvig also gave an updated take on what programming will look like with LLMs around 2 years ago. It did give me some hope back then, but with the development of Fables and Kimis and Sols I think it's truly anyone's guess where the art of programming will go. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia6aJIplmtc
What most miss today is DX - Developer Experience, many (most?) devs don't want to become Prompt Engineers. Another thing is that not many can afford Fable or similar and I don't think prices will go down, since it is already heavily subsidized?
What is the difference between a prompt engineer but a manager who talks with his charges to get some stuff designed?
There's a difference between charges and AI, in that the charges can be promoted to become managers and eventual decision makers which AI cannot be.
Re: Teach yourself programming in ten years (1998)
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
What most miss today is DX - Developer Experience, many (most?) devs don't want to become Prompt Engineers. Another thing is that not many can afford Fable or similar and I don't think prices will go down, since it is already heavily subsidized?
Another thing is that not many can afford a power loom or similar and I don't think prices will go down, since it is already heavily subsidized?
It's just energy and chips, and both can be made cheaper.