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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

#411

Post by WolfeReader »

ransom1538 wrote: post #321
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…

"Because people that enjoy programming for programming's sake don't want an LLM to do the programming for them - isn't it obvious? " How do we filter out these people during an interview?

Offer low pay and start using lines of code as a metric. Not only will you not hire such people, you'll also filter out any who might already be on your team!

(Assuming "these people" is a euphemism for "skilled engineers")

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

#412

Post by SoftTalker »

trollbridge wrote: post #404
lp4v4n wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It certainly doesn't feel like craftsmanship has gained any kind of higher social standing in our time though. The Zeitgeist of the modern times seems to be one of 'try to do the cheapest sellable thing while paying people the least possible'. Real craftsmanship, the kind that leaves you in awe and feels like an exceptional display of human capacity, seems to be relegated, from my point of view, to a minority of well…

Every craftsman I know expresses discomfort that the only way they can turn a profit is to sell goods to wealthy people.

That seems odd. I'd rather turn a profit selling goods to people who can easily afford them than selling goods to people who will have to make hard choices or struggle to find the money.

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

#413

Post by doug_durham »

pigpop wrote: post #284
shiomiru wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the economic problem that programmers had until recently been highly regarded because steps 2-3 were hard. "Open source" solved this partially by utilizing the labor such (relatively) well-paid people gave away "for the love of it", but it was not nearly enough to put most out of work. Now there is a plagiarism machine built on top of decades of this work that seemingly solves 3 and promises to solve 2 (…

Maybe I'm just old but people talking about being in programming for "status" or to be "highly regarded" really irks me. I'd rather see the entire field burnt to the ground and replaced by robots than to have it become a status profession like lawyering.

I could not agree more. Thank you for stating this. Software Engineering is about building things. You don't do it for status, you do it for passion. There are a lot of unhappy individuals who got into CS because of the money or status.

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

#414

Post by SoftTalker »

darkwater wrote: post #297
alkonaut wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's where the important difference is: unless you actually finished the wordpress thing, or ever had active users etc, it would never have become a maintenance burden. If it's not fun to maintain, I burn it. For me, the reason I don't have that is because I never ship anything. I never want to maintain that. I never cared about solving an _actual_ business problem, making a dollar, or pleasing a user. As a tinkere…

It's your vision and you are completely free to have it, obviously, but you should not project it on every tinkerer out there - like you did in your initial message. Yours is actually an extreme position that's probably exacerbated by the digital and immaterial world, where you can accumulate cruft and unfinished projects easily. But many tinkerers, especially in the physical world, do projects to use them personally…

Lots of physical world tinkerers also have a garage or workshop full of uncompleted projects that went from being fun and interesting to boring and abandoned.

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

#415

Post by stronglikedan »

Tade0 wrote: post #338
shiomiru wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the economic problem that programmers had until recently been highly regarded because steps 2-3 were hard. "Open source" solved this partially by utilizing the labor such (relatively) well-paid people gave away "for the love of it", but it was not nearly enough to put most out of work. Now there is a plagiarism machine built on top of decades of this work that seemingly solves 3 and promises to solve 2 (…

I'm not concerned. Never in my life have I experienced stakeholders just going "hmm, yes - this is enough software for our purposes - we won't be needing your services any more". There's always another feature that can be implemented or a new problem to be solved. Tools only ever accelerated the pace at which we were able to follow this insatiable hunger for more software. Right now people are getting fired left and…

> Right now people are getting fired left and right

FWIW, it's just a few large companies laying off large groups, not so much people getting fired left and right at a lot of companies. What is happening at a lot of companies is that they aren't hiring juniors, because, why would you when LLMs are cheaper and fill that role perfectly (if you actually treat them like juniors).

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

#416

Post by Nextgrid »

stackghost wrote: post #355
Nextgrid wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also missing step 6: when your solution breaks in production or needs to be extended. Having done step 2 & 3 by hand is the difference between being able to fix/extend it quickly with no further damage or fumbling around like an idiot and sometimes breaking more stuff in the process.

>Having done step 2 & 3 by hand is the difference between being able to fix/extend it quickly with no further damage or fumbling around like an idiot and sometimes breaking more stuff in the process. Plenty of shitty spaghetti code has been written by human hands. LLMs can write good, maintainable code too, but they need to be kept on a shorter leash with focused goals.

I'm not talking about code quality (though indeed that could be a problem too), I'm talking about understanding the code - having written the code by hand means you don't need to rediscover it from scratch.

(with human-written code I can reach out to the person who wrote it and let them deal with it, and they will have the understanding of said code, even if it is bad by quality measures. With LLMs there is nobody who understands said code, regardless of its quality)

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

#417

Post by dosisking »

jckahn wrote: post #361
draftsman wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is a good analogy. Also I hate cooking; it feels like a chore and waste of time. Given the means, I prefer to have someone else do it for me so I can focus on more interesting things.

LLMs are more like having someone else microwave something for you, rather than having someone else (who knows what they are doing) cook for you.

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

#418

Post by pigpop »

rayiner wrote: post #357
pigpop wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm just old but people talking about being in programming for "status" or to be "highly regarded" really irks me. I'd rather see the entire field burnt to the ground and replaced by robots than to have it become a status profession like lawyering.

Having done both, lots of lawyers are also nerds who just like to tinker with the law and words. Often very well paid tinkering, but that's true for programmers as well.

I don't disagree. You can add medical doctors to the list as well, lots of nerds but also a lot of clout chasers and money-grubbers who couldn't care less about the profession. I don't want to see programming take the same path.

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

#419

Post by doug_durham »

_luci_ wrote: post #384
shiomiru wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the economic problem that programmers had until recently been highly regarded because steps 2-3 were hard. "Open source" solved this partially by utilizing the labor such (relatively) well-paid people gave away "for the love of it", but it was not nearly enough to put most out of work. Now there is a plagiarism machine built on top of decades of this work that seemingly solves 3 and promises to solve 2 (…

100% agreed, especially that last line. What I do not understand is why so many people are entirely okay with this change. I'm not interested in working with LLM's and after having been forced to work with LLM's at my current job, I can pretty confidently say that this will not end well for most of these companies. The people in charge pushing for this new tech do not understand the rammifications, nor do they unders…

No one knows the ramifications. They won't be known for many years. That's the way software has always worked. No one knew the ramifications of the internet.

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

#420

Post by dosisking »

TeriyakiBomb wrote: post #272
danielbln wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An LLM is more akin to a staffed pro kitchen than a microwave.

Agents are effectively a full McDonalds kitchen, yes. ...and yes, I know you don't mean that. I just disagree.

> Agents are effectively a full McDonalds kitchen, yes.

You just insulted everybody that works at McDonalds.

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