401–410 of 575 posts
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>My actual job also included non-coding work: Does this attempted solution even work at all? Is this solving the right problem? Even if it's a valid solution to the right problem, is it the best solution given the time constraints? This is not non-coding work. This is coding.
this is software development
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We have a product guy on the team who was in a deeply not technical role before AI who is trying to do the “hey Claude, read this Jira ticket, implement” thing. It doesn’t work for the vast majority of tickets he attempts because he doesn’t have the necessary understanding to even start thinking about if the solution that the autocomplete generates is even remotely workable. And that’s with fancy dev loops and whatno…
Probably worth not getting too comfortable. It's only a matter of time before a new generation of product people can do this. Also, I have said this before, instead of 1 product person and 10 engineers on a team, you may have 2-3 product+eng people and 3 engineers, etc.
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It doesn't matter if the LLM is not deterministic.. the OUTPUT of typed code is deterministic in the sense that it can be seen to be type safe, compiled, and run appropriate unit tests on it. If I use two LLM's to create some chunk of code and they both do it slightly differently but they both compile and pass appropriate tests.. it honestly doesn't matter if the LLM itself is not deterministic in exactly what it's g…
We don't run our own unit tests on compiled code because it generally can be trusted. LLMs are an extraordinarily leaky abstraction. Saying "as long as it works and tests pass" suggests that we can test for every possible scenario. We can't. And tests can be flawed on top of it. Which is why an LLM is no more a compiler than a human coder (as you say) is.
Stop the FUD for profit
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> cognitive friction is the engine of learning. I agree 100% too. This is why in order to understand new codebase or to ramp up to new projects, I use AI to generate a textbook style reading material for me along with "verify yourself" types of exercises along the way. Then I print them on a paper and read it using a pencil/pen and take notes. Because of my math training, I am in the habit of slowing down to read tex…
> I use AI to generate a textbook style reading material for me along with "verify yourself" types of exercises along the way This is fascinating . Any chance you have your workflow or prompts documented and would be willing to share them?
Coding expertise was on a downward trend way before AI arrived. Does nobody remember how most "engineers" were literally copying and pasting snippets from StackOverflow they didn't understand, and the snippets usually had tons of bugs? How many of you know Assembly well? How many of you can decompile a program, or write your own compiler or VM? How many of you could pass a computer science course (that you didn't tak…
Not in companies I worked for, no.
> How many of you know Assembly well? How many of you can decompile a program, or write your own compiler or VM? How many of you could pass a computer science course (that you didn't take at Uni)?
None of these was ever an expectation most coders. Some are bonkers as an expectation for all.
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> That sounds great until you realize that "hey Claude, read this Jira ticket and implement the feature in this code base" isn't really worth $200K/year. Nor even €50k/year. Two things are true: 1) The coding part of my career is over. LLMs are capable of doing everything I've ever been paid to *write*. 2) My actual job also included non-coding work: Does this attempted solution even work at all? Is this solving the…
Before, if I would start working / thinking on a problem and discover it was harder than anticipated, that often was a signal that the feature may not be worth it. Because implementing it doesn't fit the current model of how things work or similar. Then it was back to the drawing table and find a better way of solving the underlying issue. But an LLM just happily chugs along and does it, no one feels the friction, wh…
// The need for ongoing friction in long-term skill formation. The subtitle of the story tells it all. There are some people who seek out friction. Think about an athlete or a hardcore nerd. The best engineers are ones who were fascinated with computers and learning as kids and persued it at every opportunity. Found their own friction in other words. For those kinds of people, friction-seeking is the constant and wha…
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It is weird how it works with anyone there but the doctors... Do they have some type of cartel or mafia that nurses and other staff don't have?
They do, it’s called the AMA, American Medical Association. Very tight control of who can be a doctor, how many new doctors per year, etc. which ensures salaries stay high. They also fight against other roles like nurses doing too much doctor-like work, helping doctor pay while harming nursing pay.