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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

#301

Post by fisf »

tkel wrote: post #29

Ironically, this post comes off as out of touch. The purpose of the various martial arts isn't just to win in a life-or-death brawl or murder people as efficiently as possible. Similarly, the point of programming isn't just to generate as much code as possible, or only to be more "productive".

I think you are slightly missing the mark of the historical reference.

What you say is true for modernized budō disciplines. They have very different purposes.

But this this is not what Musashi was concerned with. He was practicing kenjutsu (not kendo) / writing about hyōhō.

The primary criterion was absolutely murdering people as efficiently as possible in a life and death situation.

"The true Way of sword fencing is the craft of defeating the enemy in a fight, and nothing other than this"

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

#302

Post by SoftTalker »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #35
doctorpangloss wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, there is a 100% test coverage requirement in both server and client, combined with AI-driven review rules that say all tests must be non-vacuous, look, your application works, right? so it doesn't really matter what you or i think, and this is why AI matters. but this, your "100% test coverage" - that is pure slop. just 20 years ago, all the most popular software shipped with NO tests. are you getting…

And 80 years ago cars didn't have seatbelts. Your point?

Careless drivers got weeded out.

Cars today are safer than ever. Drivers (in my memory anyway) have never been worse.

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

#303

Post by scythe »

Razengan wrote: post #81
sriram_malhar wrote: post #31

Everyone who writes enthusiastically about AI already has the benefit of having worked without AI. They have been schooled in the basics. Enough of us know about data structures, concurrency, networks, language design etc. from the ground up that the knowledge is passed on. I worry about the world that we will be living in when a whole generation has skipped learning the basics the hard way. Given the attendance rate…

> I worry about the world that we will be living in when a whole generation has skipped learning the basics the hard way. Have you been schooled in farming? Raising livestock? Milking cattle? Does your ability to cook good food depend upon your ability to till soil and sow seeds? I don't mean that in ass way but re: what other comments said: > it feels like a rich getting richer scenario in all aspects of society Tha…

>Have you been schooled in farming? Raising livestock? Milking cattle?

You're equating life skills to professional skills. I was not taught to milk a cow, but my milk comes from someone who was. The topic is whether software engineers in a professional context learned certain things about software.

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

#304

Post by SoftTalker »

_zoltan_ wrote: post #138
stavros wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is painting for the sake of painting dumb too?

that's a dumb comparison. are you equating writing code to painting like Michaelangelo?

Did Michaelangelo paint his works himself, or did he buy a bunch of slaves and give them some prompting?

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

#305

Post by nsdkdkdkfk »

hermitcrab wrote: post #292
suddenlybananas wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

[dead]

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

#306

Post by GMoromisato »

evolve-maz wrote: post #83

It's interesting to see how over the span of just a few years a lot of people went from: > Architecture astronauts are out of touch and shouldn't give any advice because they haven't written code in ages. Only the hands on engineers can shape it since the design evolves in step with writing the code. To > I focus on the architecture patterns and high level goals and let the LLM take care of the rest. Similar commenta…

I'm one of (if not the) original architecture astronaut, so you may not want to listen to me, but you're sliding from "architecture astronauts are bad" (true) to "architecture doesn't matter" (false).

Arguably, architecture is the only thing that ever mattered. Below the level of architecture you're dealing either with algorithms or API calls. Algorithms can be validated by tests and API calls can be validated by tests and the type system.

But architecture is the one thing that could make or break a project and that you can't test for ahead of time. You either know how to create a good architecture or you don't. In fact, the whole point of the Spolsky's Architecture Astronauts' essay is that bad architecture (and bad architects) are a big problem.

AI works amazingly well below the level of architecture, but (I've found) it's not very good at architecture.

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

#307

Post by sriram_malhar »

Razengan wrote: post #201
rwmj wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing how to go from whatever is fresh today in the garden to a meal is a cooking skill, yes. And how to preserve gluts of fruit, also a skill.

I mean, if I grow my garden and just provide you with the vegetables, does that affect your cooking skills in any way? In fact, if you divide your time between growing your own produce AND honing your cooking, both of those skills may suffer compared to devoting your time to just focusing on one ability. Otherwise if you try to do everything you'll never be as good as a full-time farmer or a full-time chef. or how ab…

Constraints are a good thing. I'll get creative with what I have, instead of having to rely on a supply chain that makes everything available to everybody all the time. I don't have to have apples grown on the other side of the planet.

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

#308

Post by Seattle3503 »

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…

> one where software engineers can focus on data structures, software architecture and algorithms.

I see this a lot and I'm not sure why people don't think AI will be able to do this too. The self-play training that got them writing code can be used for this too.

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

#309

Post by unethical_ban »

Seattle3503 wrote: post #308
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…

> one where software engineers can focus on data structures, software architecture and algorithms. I see this a lot and I'm not sure why people don't think AI will be able to do this too. The self-play training that got them writing code can be used for this too.

In the long term, I think you're correct. In the medium term, AI still won't know your business-specific workflows and data relationships, and humans are needed to define those things and let the AI build the scaffolding around it.

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

#310

Post by glimshe »

lelanthran wrote: post #240
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…

> 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. Why? What makes you think your data structure design, architecture and algorithms are ever going to surpass AI in the near future? You honestly can't see a (near) future where those 3 elements are done by AI, not by you?

I can and I'd be okay with that too. The world doesn't have carriage makers anymore. Nobody is entitled to doing what they love or what they are good at. I certainly didn't as my job as a software engineer, despite being profitable, was far from what I like in the discipline.

That said, I think AI is still many years or decades away from completely replacing the Software Engineering profession. My kids are entering college right for a CS degree and that's what I tell them. I have skin in the game as I'm ultimately responsible for them.

I could be wrong, but anyone's opinion is at most an educated guess at this point.

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