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Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage

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Re: Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage

#191

Post by janalsncm »

QuantumNoodle wrote: post #4

A hobby is something you enjoy the process of doing, not just the end result. Everybody likes a clean home, but cleaning is rarely a hobby. LLMs expedite achieving the end result. Take from that what you will.

And to extend the analogy, before there were house cleaning machines the people who enjoyed cleaning were lumped in with the people who like having a clean house.

I will say that there are a lot of parts of programming I enjoy, but I used to spend an inordinate amount of time chasing down obscure errors or learning arcane systems just to get to the parts I personally enjoy: the feedback loop of making a thing, seeing the result, and improving it.

There is a reason stack overflow is dead. LLMs are a strictly better product.

Re: Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage

#192

Post by robalni »

I think another reason to write code by hand is that you want to know what you get. If you have an idea, then you can implement it better than an LLM, just like you can implement it better than another person, because you are the only one who understands what you mean exactly. Details are always lost and misunderstood in communication; this is a weakness of LLMs.

Similarly, even if I don't write the code but I let someone else who I trust do it for me, there is value for me in that person not using LLMs, because only if they don't, I can know that the only spirit that lives in the code is of the person of my choice. It's like a social thing; I can know and trust a human, but I'm not sure I can do that with an LLM.

It's similar to how you wouldn't want to use LLMs in politics: the whole point of expressing your ideas is that they are your ideas and if you let someone (or something) else do it for you, details will be missed and misunderstood.

So this is one reason that I think hobby communities don't like LLMs; they care too much about what they build.

Re: Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage

#193

Post by janalsncm »

anematode wrote: post #86
Aurornis wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LLMs expedite achieving the end result. Take from that what you will. It's an age-old debate in every hobby. Some people are in it for the process. Others are in it for the end result, which is what they want to use or play with. In woodworking there are some circles who will sneer at you for using certain power tools instead of hand tools. I do think it's more impressive when someone makes something entirely with…

> Some times that's appropriate, like if there's a competition for hand-made or human-written something. Indeed, and this is the problem: unlike woodworking, where my power-assisted creation is independent of, or complements, your handcraft, this engine is directly competing with other engines. Twiss is being disingenuous when he says he has no interest in submitting it to competitions; it plays on a rated account on…

Now that we can mass produce tables and chairs I would imagine there are far fewer people whose career is hand crafting tables and chairs. So machines literally did out compete them.

In fact handicraft people were out competed so hard many people forget that used to be a respectable career.

Re: Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage

#194

Post by nullsanity »

Schnitz wrote: post #166

Because people that enjoy programming for programming's sake don't want an LLM to do the programming for them - isn't it obvious? It's just like with any other hobby, people who like car racing created rules that force you to drive yourself, even though they'd get faster lap times with electronic driver aids. People who enjoy grappling created rules that force you to grapple, even though striking could win a fight fa…

[dead]

Re: Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage

#195

Post by AnthonyMouse »

bilkow wrote: post #161
Aurornis wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean-room_design There is a lot of legal history of doing new designs with influence from reverse engineered sources. The basic rule is that you can't have someone familiar with the original code involved with writing the new code. LLMs are a new area, but I would expect that feeding the original source into an LLM context and saying "Write this, but different" wouldn't qualify as a cle…

Specifically about "humans": my understanding is that Clean-room design is not a requirement and the "Case law" section on your Wikipedia link explains that and has examples. How and whether the same principles can be applied to LLMs, I have no idea. I imagine it would involve discussions about creativity, for example. Not a lawyer.

The thing that happened with "clean-room design" is that one company did it and the court said it was allowed. Companies are risk averse. Once they know one thing is yes and something else is maybe, they go with the yes, right? With the result that the supply of court cases where something other than that happened tends to dry up, leaving the other alternatives to stay as maybe.

If some people have now decided they're not going to blink in the face of a risk, we might get to find out whether some of the maybes turn out to be a yes or a no.

Re: Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage

#196

Post by draftsman »

Schnitz wrote: post #166

Because people that enjoy programming for programming's sake don't want an LLM to do the programming for them - isn't it obvious? It's just like with any other hobby, people who like car racing created rules that force you to drive yourself, even though they'd get faster lap times with electronic driver aids. People who enjoy grappling created rules that force you to grapple, even though striking could win a fight fa…

Writing code without an LLM is akin to cooking a meal yourself, as opposed to something in between hiring a private chef and pulling a slot machine lever. When I cook a meal for myself or my loved ones, I become deeply familiar with the ingredients and the recipe. I am a good cook. Every decision, small and large, I make myself. Using feedback, I can tweak the components and the process. However, if I order food and call it my own creation, I’ll be speechless when my nut-allergic friend asks me if I used peanut oil or olive oil. And does it taste good? The end result is subjective, not binary, like your three similes. What if the food sucks? Must I now micromanage the chef? I don’t want to make them cook it again and again, hoping each time it’ll taste little more like how I want it to. I’d rather just cook it myself; I am a good cook, afterall.

Re: Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage

#197

Post by kombookcha »

croes wrote: post #173
Schnitz wrote: post #166

Because people that enjoy programming for programming's sake don't want an LLM to do the programming for them - isn't it obvious? It's just like with any other hobby, people who like car racing created rules that force you to drive yourself, even though they'd get faster lap times with electronic driver aids. People who enjoy grappling created rules that force you to grapple, even though striking could win a fight fa…

Or Warhammer figurines painting, let’s buy them already painted

If you don't want to paint, and also don't want to pay somebody else to paint them, there's always various alternatives like printed out papercraft stands. Fold them, stick them on the base and you are ready to roll.

There's also a myriad of other creative ways to proxy your way out of the general costs (time, space and money) if you check out the term "poorhammer".

Re: Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage

#198

Post by truncate »

robalni wrote: post #192

I think another reason to write code by hand is that you want to know what you get. If you have an idea, then you can implement it better than an LLM, just like you can implement it better than another person, because you are the only one who understands what you mean exactly. Details are always lost and misunderstood in communication; this is a weakness of LLMs. Similarly, even if I don't write the code but I let so…

Depending what you are making; coding slows you down and think as you build stuff step by step. Its kind of like speaking vs writing. Generating code through LLM for me is like talking -- I love talking, but when I write something down, I'm more structured, think more about things etc etc.

People say, if you you write elaborate well spec'ed prompts, it will do the right thing. Coding in a way is doing that.

Re: Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage

#200

Post by GPerson »

Programming is nice because you have lots of different scales of structure to think about, and your program slowly comes together. You see it improving over time as a result of your efforts. You also build your skills and learn. It’s really a nice activity.

AI systems basically change that whole formula. I’m not sure how people get joy out of constantly vibe coding new projects. It feels like binge watching Netflix shows. I feel like there’s no material value in my 50th vibecoded demo since everyone in this world can vibecode now. Sure I’ve got my custom todo app which is nice, and my custom game plug-in with some neat features for the game I like, and a few other custom apps. Those are mildly useful to me. But every second I spend vibe coding something that’s supposed to be a success for others is just invaded by the thought that even if this thing is any good, someone with real capital can just direct a future AI at it to take it from me, so I’m not really gaining.

So I think I’ll just stick to using AI occasionally, without letting it ruin the programming activity I love by spoiling it. Due solely to AI, I don’t expect I’ll ever do anything in my life which will impact another person. That’s a personal tragedy, but in a sense I was going to die anyways and so will everyone else, so it doesn’t really matter.

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