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Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

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Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#141

Post by skydhash »

bonoboTP wrote: post #139
skydhash wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With AI, our role also shifts. It's mainly to know what to spend effort on, to set priorities and, to be able to verbalize requirements, missing social context and unwritten rules, to anticipate what additional documents the agent needs, to prioritize deadlines, feature necessity, and other judgment calls. Did you not do that before AI? It’s so strange to me when people are calling out these kind of tasks like they…

> Did you not do that before AI? It’s so strange to me when people are calling out these kind of tasks like they were not already a requirement for the job. What were you doing before? No, you didn't have to explicitly say it in words. My mind doesn't run on internal monologue. Many people can just do their work without ever having reflected on it in words. Tacit knowledge, routines, shared assumptions and culture in…

> No, you didn't have to explicitly say it in words. My mind doesn't run on internal monologue. Many people can just do their work without ever having reflected on it in words.

Were you a solo developer? I think the amount of reports and explanations (either written or verbal) dwarfs by large the amount of code I’ve written. From training juniors to drafting a design specs for a feature. That is why people say code is the trivial part of the job because it’s easy. I’m pretty sure the mailing list of the Linux kernel is bigger than the code itself.

Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#142

Post by jasonjmcghee »

I don't manually retype the code from pull requests of other engineers.

It's important to retain the what why and how as a team to the degree that development can be efficient, extensible, and maintainable. (And ideally a good devx)

Needing to manually touch every line of code is not scalable.

This was true 10 years ago. It's still true today.

Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#143

Post by jader201 »

npras1 wrote: post #120

Big no for retyping llm generated code by hand. But a big yes for still typing code by hand, and not leaving it to the llm. Except it has to be the code generated by your brain. That is what will create new neurons and new connections, which is what will keep away the cognitive decline. And the constraint of not having to use llms will enhance creativity. Actually, the constraints llms add to your code are more in nu…

> But a big yes for still typing code by hand, and not leaving it to the llm. Except it has to be the code generated by your brain.

> That is what will create new neurons and new connections, which is what will keep away the cognitive decline.

100% agree with this.

The problem is, your employer doesn’t care whether your brain is creating new neurons and connections. They care about productivity and profit.

I feel like the folks that believe we can continue to write code by hand are either in denial that LLMs will eventually (if not already) outperform handwritten code, or are in denial that employers will be ok with lower levels of productivity.

If you have the luxury of working for an employer that either doesn’t care or is oblivious to this, then 100% continue writing code by hand.

Or if you do work on the side (whether for fun or for profit) and are ok with lower productivity, then yes, stick to handwritten code.

But just because handwriting code is better for your brain and cognitive development, doesn’t mean that the industry will be in support of it.

Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#145

Post by coffeefirst »

jader201 wrote: post #143
npras1 wrote: post #120

Big no for retyping llm generated code by hand. But a big yes for still typing code by hand, and not leaving it to the llm. Except it has to be the code generated by your brain. That is what will create new neurons and new connections, which is what will keep away the cognitive decline. And the constraint of not having to use llms will enhance creativity. Actually, the constraints llms add to your code are more in nu…

> But a big yes for still typing code by hand, and not leaving it to the llm. Except it has to be the code generated by your brain. > That is what will create new neurons and new connections, which is what will keep away the cognitive decline. 100% agree with this. The problem is, your employer doesn’t care whether your brain is creating new neurons and connections. They care about productivity and profit. I feel lik…

Well there’s a lot of middle ground between “don’t use AI” and “generate everything, exclusively.”

When the bill for the latter lands with a heavy thud, moderation and common sense start to look like a pretty good idea.

Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#147

Post by jader201 »

coffeefirst wrote: post #145
jader201 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But a big yes for still typing code by hand, and not leaving it to the llm. Except it has to be the code generated by your brain. > That is what will create new neurons and new connections, which is what will keep away the cognitive decline. 100% agree with this. The problem is, your employer doesn’t care whether your brain is creating new neurons and connections. They care about productivity and profit. I feel lik…

Well there’s a lot of middle ground between “don’t use AI” and “generate everything, exclusively.” When the bill for the latter lands with a heavy thud, moderation and common sense start to look like a pretty good idea.

> Well there’s a lot of middle ground between “don’t use AI” and “generate everything.”

Sure, but again, this assumes both that handwriting code sometimes outperforms LLMs, and also that your employer agrees with this.

I think it’s only a matter of time (again, if we’re not already there) before LLMs outperform handwritten code nearly all of the time.

And, even if that’s not the case, I’m pretty convinced nearly all employers believe this is true, whether it is or not.

So your employer only sees a “middle ground” as room for higher productivity.

Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#148

Post by ErroneousBosh »

jader201 wrote: post #143
npras1 wrote: post #120

Big no for retyping llm generated code by hand. But a big yes for still typing code by hand, and not leaving it to the llm. Except it has to be the code generated by your brain. That is what will create new neurons and new connections, which is what will keep away the cognitive decline. And the constraint of not having to use llms will enhance creativity. Actually, the constraints llms add to your code are more in nu…

> But a big yes for still typing code by hand, and not leaving it to the llm. Except it has to be the code generated by your brain. > That is what will create new neurons and new connections, which is what will keep away the cognitive decline. 100% agree with this. The problem is, your employer doesn’t care whether your brain is creating new neurons and connections. They care about productivity and profit. I feel lik…

> I feel like the folks that believe we can continue to write code by hand are either in denial that LLMs will eventually (if not already) outperform handwritten code, or are in denial that employers will be ok with lower levels of productivity.

Cooking a steak and then flushing it straight down the toilet outperforms all the slow and tedious business of eating and digesting it, too.

Why should I use an LLM to write code? It cannot do the job I want it to. It cannot type the code I've already written and it cannot generate correct code.

Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#149

Post by ToucanLoucan »

jader201 wrote: post #143
npras1 wrote: post #120

Big no for retyping llm generated code by hand. But a big yes for still typing code by hand, and not leaving it to the llm. Except it has to be the code generated by your brain. That is what will create new neurons and new connections, which is what will keep away the cognitive decline. And the constraint of not having to use llms will enhance creativity. Actually, the constraints llms add to your code are more in nu…

> But a big yes for still typing code by hand, and not leaving it to the llm. Except it has to be the code generated by your brain. > That is what will create new neurons and new connections, which is what will keep away the cognitive decline. 100% agree with this. The problem is, your employer doesn’t care whether your brain is creating new neurons and connections. They care about productivity and profit. I feel lik…

> The problem is, your employer doesn’t care whether your brain is creating new neurons and connections. They care about productivity and profit.

Which is why businesses, tech and otherwise, are falling apart constantly unless they achieve gigafuck scale status, at which point they're unkillable no matter how much of this cancer infests their management.

I don't know how we arrived at a social norm where it's just completely fine that leadership in massive companies is just absolutely useless at their jobs, but the firms that last another hundred years are going to be the ones that figure out how to fire them all.

Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#150

Post by jader201 »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #148
jader201 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But a big yes for still typing code by hand, and not leaving it to the llm. Except it has to be the code generated by your brain. > That is what will create new neurons and new connections, which is what will keep away the cognitive decline. 100% agree with this. The problem is, your employer doesn’t care whether your brain is creating new neurons and connections. They care about productivity and profit. I feel lik…

> I feel like the folks that believe we can continue to write code by hand are either in denial that LLMs will eventually (if not already) outperform handwritten code, or are in denial that employers will be ok with lower levels of productivity. Cooking a steak and then flushing it straight down the toilet outperforms all the slow and tedious business of eating and digesting it, too. Why should I use an LLM to write…

> Cooking a steak and then flushing it straight down the toilet outperforms all the slow and tedious business of eating and digesting it, too.

That would be more equivalent to writing the code and immediately deleting it.

Except this code is being deployed, and it is still (mostly) functional, at least functional enough to satisfy your employer (their “hunger” in your analogy).

> Why should I use an LLM to write code? It cannot do the job I want it to.

Because your employer is convinced that it can do the job they want it to (whether it does the job you want it to do is irrelevant, unless you're the employer, in which case 100% handwrite your code).

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