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Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

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Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#181

Post by jayd16 »

LtWorf wrote: post #128
graemep wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of the "back in the day" furniture came from tearing down virgin woods. Sorting + shredding-recycling + making new "cheap particle board crap" furniture takes a lot of energy, but not a lot of non-renewable resources. It also lasted a lot longer. I have inherited furniture that must be around a 100 years old now and a lot that is over 50 years old and doing fine. A lot of my friends have older (even hundreds o…

You've never seen ikea furniture if you think it lasts less than a decade.

Doesn't last through undergrad in most cases. Mostly because you move a lot.

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#183

Post by akvadrako »

Jensson wrote: post #131
AndyMcConachie wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how many times can you take a piece of Ikea furniture apart and put it back together again? I have friends who have moved apartments with the same Billy bookshelf 2-3 times and if they tried it one more time the thing would collapse. Not to belabor the metaphor as heavily as my friend's Billy, but there's a maintenance corellary to be made here. Most Ikea furniture can be put together once, in one place, and left…

> But how many times can you take a piece of Ikea furniture apart and put it back together again? How many times can you take apart regular furniture and put it back together again? Most furniture doesn't come apart at all, just move the ikea furniture like you move any other furniture don't take it apart every time and you are fine, it would be weaker if it was possible to disassemble it without issue.

You also cannot move most Ikea furniture without it falling apart, so taking it apart is actually the least damaging option. (Some of the higher end lines are okay)

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#184

Post by Yizahi »

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #72
andai wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ikea cabinet is pleasant to look at, and its design makes sense.

But how many times can you take a piece of Ikea furniture apart and put it back together again? I have friends who have moved apartments with the same Billy bookshelf 2-3 times and if they tried it one more time the thing would collapse. Not to belabor the metaphor as heavily as my friend's Billy, but there's a maintenance corellary to be made here. Most Ikea furniture can be put together once, in one place, and left…

Depends on the models and your definitions of words. I've taken my Ikea table apart 3 times now and it is still absolutely rock solid, it has inserts for screws and they looks like can be re-assembled at least a few dozen times without any issue. I've also used an ultra cheap lowest tier possible, small table from Jysk which was absolutely a cardboard inside and weighed a like a feather, it was even cheaper than lowest Ikea tier. It worked for 3 years and I disassembled it's legs mounted on the self-tapping screws twice and gifted it to a neighbor recently so that would be a third time. It was still just fine, I didn't even need to drill new holes for the screws. Kitchen and wardrobes from Ikea will likely last decades without much issue.

Ikea sells cardboard things, they also sell wooden massive furniture too (surprise) and anything in between. The quality is appropriate for all tiers and they don't collapse after a single disassembly.

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#185

Post by camdenreslink »

Alien1Being wrote: post #38

AI generated code is like IKEA furniture. IKEA furniture embodies many elements of good cabinet making but skips many nonessential elements. And does this more consistently than cabinet makers who can be bored, incompetent, depressed, burnt out, resentful, tired, having a bad day. In the future AI code inevitably will embody most good software engineering practices. And will do this more consistently than software en…

LLM output is not like IKEA furniture at all. IKEA furniture is mass produced, identical, furniture that can be combined to accomplish some lifestyle goal.

LLM code is different every time. Sometimes it’s better than the finest custom carpentry. Frequently it is much worse than IKEA quality (in the metaphor).

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#186

Post by nsingh2 »

slopinthebag wrote: post #169
anon48293 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t we? We can build something which has all the output associated with reasoning. I’d say we’ve figured out the fundamentals behind reasoning.

First of all this isn't true. We cannot yet build something which has all the output associated with reasoning. But secondary to that, symbols != semantics. If I had a magical machine which could appear from the outside to be reasoning, but upon closer introspection was simply simulating reasoning, by definition it would not be reasoning. And yet that is the criterion you seem to think indicates reasoning ability. So…

You are making two different claims, and then treating them as one.

1. Mimicking a process may not prove that the system is truly preforming the same process. In this case, a "reasoning" process.

2. A system that simulates a process cannot, by definition, be doing the process.

The first claim can be defended, but the second doesn't follow from the first.

Calling it a "simulation" is assuming the conclusion. What makes it a simulation rather than some implementation of reasoning on a different substrate? I.e. transistors rather than neurons.

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#187

Post by [deleted] »

danielbln wrote: post #173
slopinthebag wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just pure unbridled reductionism. "Show me a single atom in the human body that is 'alive'. You can't? Therefore we're all zombies...." Reasoning is an emergent property of complex systems. Prediction is not. Thus you cannot claim reasoning drives prediction.

Why can't an emergent capability arise in service of a predictive objective?

[deleted]

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#188

Post by ozim »

samiv wrote: post #78
Alien1Being wrote: post #38

AI generated code is like IKEA furniture. IKEA furniture embodies many elements of good cabinet making but skips many nonessential elements. And does this more consistently than cabinet makers who can be bored, incompetent, depressed, burnt out, resentful, tired, having a bad day. In the future AI code inevitably will embody most good software engineering practices. And will do this more consistently than software en…

What a sad analogy. IKEA furniture is mostly cheap particle board crap and it's a shame that we as a humanity have cheapened our lives to the point where IKEA is some kind of standard (and the only thing) most people can afford. Back in the day furniture was artisanal and hand made yet people were able to afford and have it. Isn't that in fact weird, supposedly our societies are richer than ever before but most peopl…

Survivorship bias, you see only old tables or chairs that lasted, you don't see all the crap that didn't make it to present times.

False dichotomy "if it is not IKEA it is 'artisanal' great quality" — well — no our forefathers would be able to afford whatever quality had local woodworking shop and imagine that a lot of places didn't have best of te best... So IKEA made average quality much better.

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#189

Post by slopinthebag »

danielbln wrote: post #173
slopinthebag wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just pure unbridled reductionism. "Show me a single atom in the human body that is 'alive'. You can't? Therefore we're all zombies...." Reasoning is an emergent property of complex systems. Prediction is not. Thus you cannot claim reasoning drives prediction.

Why can't an emergent capability arise in service of a predictive objective?

How would it?

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#190

Post by camdenreslink »

mikgp wrote: post #163
user43928 wrote: post #31

The article says what many here like to hear, but in my opinion the core arguments are false. > Making software debuggable, maintainable, layered, and composable – that’s still quite a trick Not really. I have been working on a mobile app for months, and I stopped even glancing at the code about two months ago. 150k LOC, around half of that in tests, and the AI still has no problem maintaining the code on my behalf.…

“Debuggable? It can add extensive instrumentation in seconds. None of this requires expertise, prompting, or mention of TDD. It's the default.” I’m pretty sure it takes some level of expertise just to use the term “instrumentation” correctly in a sentence.

There are nasty things we can do in software that can indeed make debugging difficult (for instance in the “make everything reactive” craze, some random subscriber could trigger from some piece of state changing that isn’t obvious at all and fully asynchronous and in a totally different part of the code).
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