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Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

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Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#291

Post by entrope »

entrope wrote: post #277
dofm wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to clean up or actually deploy everyone's half-baked MS Access app So we are switching to LLMs to be fucking miserable in our jobs?

The whole point of the MS Access reference is that similar situations have been tropes since at least the 1990s. Bad code generated by someone who doesn't know how to program well -- whether that person is supposed to be a professional programmer but is incompetent, or has a different job -- is nothing new, and neither is having competent programmers clean it up. LLMs probably generate more of it, but can also fix a…

Then I don't understand at all what point you were trying to make about being miserable in our jobs. Cleaning up after bad code has always been part of the job for decades; so has balancing the creation of new technical debt against resource availability.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#292

Post by hermitcrab »

suddenlybananas wrote: post #219
hermitcrab wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Herodotus wrote about finding people living in the ruins of a great city (Babylon) who had no idea who built it or how they built it.

I think that anecdote is from the Anabasis by Xenophon and refers to Assyrian city of Nineveh. Babylon was still occupied during the time of Herodotus and was one of the biggest cities in the world at the time. (the book spends some time discussing Cyrus's conquest of Babylon).

I thought it was Xenophon. MSCopilot assured me it was Herodotus. The irony! ;0)

(I spent a few minutes checking, but couldn't find the original quote)

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#293

Post by orangecat »

xyzsparetimexyz wrote: post #10

'Make sure you don't fall behind!!!' is my least favourite type of post about ai. There's resllt nothing to learn about ai. You're just typing and telling it what to do.

There's nothing to learn about being an engineering manager. You tell your developers to write code, go on vacation, and come back to a completed product.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#294

Post by Ekami »

PostOnce wrote: post #88

John Carmack is a personal hero of mine, so it pains me to say this: Carmack hasn't produced anything noteworthy since AI was invented, therefore, how productive can it really be? It could be he is doing incredible work in private... but it could also be that he's lost in the weeds, because AI is so counterproductive while feeling the opposite? I remain a skeptic.

Well said, Kung fu master

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#295

Post by Thanemate »

fooker wrote: post #87
zem wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but the solution, ironically, is not learning more about ai, but learning more about good software engineering, so you can tell when the ai is not doing it

No, software engineering is fundamentally changed because of AI. No amount of digging our heads in the sand is going to undo that. For example, the traditional best practice cycle of "small incremental change, code review, test, commit" is pretty much obsolete now. The way ten collaborating agents can make short work of a complex project is not something that fits in with our existing software engineering wisdom at a…

>No, software engineering is fundamentally changed because of AI. No amount of digging our heads in the sand is going to undo that.

Yet anyone who claims that fails to procure sufficient evidence or instruction on how exactly training the to-be software engineer in the age of AI should be. Until that happens, people still learn DSA, write code manually, and train their problem solving skills with programming exercises.

And I mean handwriting them, not ordering "one solution for Leetcode 1133 in Rust, please" so we can proclaim that we're writing Rust so fast that I don't have to read a book about it anymore.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#296

Post by jacquesm »

Yoric wrote: post #147
enraged_camel wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Is anyone actually seeing a shift towards improved structure rather than more code, faster? Yes. At work we recently finished a complete rewrite of the platform. The old codebase got abandoned and two new codebases got stood up. Previous stack was Phoenix LiveView and the new one is Phoenix API + Vue /w TypeScript. Zero code shared between the two. We took the opportunity to re-architect a lot of the core function…

That is interesting, but... is it actually improving structure? We're mid-way through a similar process at work. Rewriting a legacy app in a new language, with new architecture and new features. And it's a mess. We're at 10x loc (admittedly, the new programming language is more verbose than the old one), comments make no sense. Yes, we have ~100% coverage, but most of the tests are meaningless. The agent keeps removi…

10x loc? wow. That makes me wonder how it will perform. And how you will review that, since if it is physically impossible for a human then who will take responsibility for what you release?

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#297

Post by hermitcrab »

ghthor wrote: post #214
hermitcrab wrote: post #153

This resonated with me as someone who: has read the book of 5 rings (translated), has done quite a lot of martial arts and has been coding for ~50 years. I work for myself developing apps and selling online. So I have no employer pushing to use AI. But I feel a bit like a dinosaur watching the incoming comet. Currently, I just use MSCopilot as enhanced StackOverflow and I find it useful for that. But I have been nowh…

My suggestion would be just to try it. Get an openrouter account, add 50$ to it and setup pi agent to use it with a cheap and fast model; I personally use 5.6-Luna. Run it on a throwaway system, pick a codebase you’ve always wanted to fix something about but didn’t have the time. Like you wanted to do a major refactoring or do a library migration to a better maintained library. Or you want to rewrite part of a progra…

>Run it on a throwaway system, pick a codebase you’ve always wanted to fix something about but didn’t have the time.

Thanks for the suggestion. But I don't have a throwaway system. All 3 of my codebases are commercial software that I charge money for. Also, I don't trust an AI not to serve substantial parts of my codebase to a competitor. Maybe I will try it if I start a new project. I fancy a go doing some Webassembly graphics at some point.

>Or you want to rewrite part of a program in rust for performance/security improvements.

My code is battle tested and robust through years of use. I don't rewrite stuff unless there is a real need.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#298

Post by SoftTalker »

glimshe wrote: post #3

We are going from the era of manual, line-by-line mental model transcription to one where software engineers can focus on data structures, software architecture and algorithms. I love being able to quickly bring out the program that is already running in my head without having to worry about the grind of typing it into a format that the compiler understands. Dealing with API names. Syntax. Language quirks. Library go…

I'm exactly the opposite. I like knowing how the code works, what the data structures are, what APIs are being used, and yes even typing the code into the editor. When I'm working with LLMs there's less thinking. I'm bored. My brain is not fully engaged in the task. There's less sense of accomplishment in the finished product.

I also prefer to drive cars with manual transmissions.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#299

Post by sriram_malhar »

Razengan wrote: post #288
sriram_malhar wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can look up laws all night long. Check out all the laws broken by Potus, ICE (just to name a few) on a daily basis. The peasantry is not on the side that enforces the law. AI is. AI is a force multiplier. The more force you have, the more multiples of it you en up with. Flock uses AI to do surveillance at scale. Every cloud service has NSA backdoors.

So we stop AI, uninvent it, what then? We go back to how it was before AI And everyone will have a better life? Let's hear your plan

It isn't just AI. I would like a world without the poison of social media, without guns & bombs, without dangerous chemicals. Yes, in many many ways we'd be better off. We are accelerating the destruction of our planet.

I don't have a better plan for humanity. I only have fear.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#300

Post by orangecat »

tkel wrote: post #63
boshalfoshal wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Code in most organizations is a means to an end to produce an actual product. The job of a SWE is to not produce the most sublime readable code with cute language bells and whistles that you can show off to your other programmer friends. Yes its fun to do and interesting, but the main value in writing code is to express your intent so you and other people that are working with you can actually build something of valu…

You're reducing programming to its utility in producing exchange value in the captitalist political economy. That's what "value" means in this context. That's exactly what I'm pointing out. Programming is more than that, if you can think beyond your current economic constraints. Your life's activity ought to be more than just a tool for producing capitalist exchange value. Does cooking food serve any purpose beyond m…

You're reducing programming to its utility in producing exchange value in the captitalist political economy.

Well, yes? If you want to write code that isn't useful to anyone and just gives you warm fuzzies, go for it. I've done plenty of that. But it's exceptionally selfish to try to forbid technological improvements so that you can get paid to work exactly how you want to.

Does cooking food serve any purpose beyond mass producing food for restaurants to sell?

Should we ban industrial agriculture so that you can feel more proud of your rooftop garden?

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