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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

#351

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)

Given the context of the thread, what you have done here fits so perfectly.

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

#352

Really embarrassing to see Carmack fall so low and have such little respect for the art of programming he once advanced. Unlike swords and martial arts in combat, code is still needed. It’s not like there’s some new medium that doesn’t use code at all. It’s just a question of who is writing that code: a human or a statistical model. Guns superseded swords, cars superseded horses, but coding agents haven’t superseded…

Whatever his technical chops may be, Carmack has slid fully and comfortably into the role of “influencer” over the last decade.

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

#353
post #147

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…

>> That is interesting, but... is it actually improving structure?

Can you be more specific? "Improve structure" can mean different things to different people.

We've ensured that agents strictly adhere to code architecture rules, using both agentic review rules and deterministic CI gates. Everything from file naming, location and namespacing to the "shape" of each file that shares the same role are consistent. We can trace functions of the same role across the same set of modules, with abstractions and code reuse where they make sense. Once someone learns the code in one part of the codebase, their understanding of that "spine" translates to other areas - the only differences relate to the specific business rules governing those areas.

>> And of course, given the number of LoC (and the fact that the agent rewrites so much code all the time), it's physically impossible that all of them were reviewed by a human being.

Code review was difficult at the start due to the volume of code. One insight we gained midway through though is that the value humans bring to code review is judgment and business context. So we created a code-atlas skill that creates an artifact for PR reviewers. That artifact highlights the most important parts of the code. For example, if a PR author has made the choice to use soft-deletes when the product uses hard-deletes for everything else, that is flagged by the code atlas, and a human reviewer can use that to ask questions about it. Meanwhile, things like boilerplate are de-emphasized; any problems associated with them are reliably found and flagged by AI reviewers anyway. The refreshing part about this is that this has almost completely eliminated bike-shedding: people no longer argue about module naming or whether a comment is worded properly.

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

#354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get flamed here whenever I say it's a skill issue, but it absolutely is. Not everyone has what it takes to be a successful CTO but that's the role you play if have 20 agents working on something you designed. I see you got downvoted too.

It would be a skill issue if someone would show they’re able to use it to produce good software while showcasing that it’s due to their mastery. Till this day, I don’t think there’s any such demonstration. Any defects of the technology is always blamed on skill issue.

There's a ton of people out there in various unknown companies grinding away and managing a reasonable number of well-prompted, parallel agents with decent CI and deployment strategy making judicious use of human review.

But that's boring and you can't build a YouTube audience around it.

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

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For people without sufficient clarity I imagine it amplifies that lack of clarity, which is where it is factually unproductive while it still ‘seem’ to be productive Convenient way of saying "you're holding it wrong".

Then when asked for examples of what they built using AI, what they have to show is boring slop worse than "git cloning" a mature project.

People who build good software with AI don't gloat about it being built with AI because it's not the most relevant part of it.

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

#356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. I'd say it probably depends on the kind of work you do - if the low level details are exciting then that's totally understandable. But if you're dealing with more rote CRUD work or soul sucking enterprise bullshit, then probably less so and the low level details are obstacles to g…

> I'd say it probably depends on the kind of work you do - if the low level details are exciting then that's totally understandable.

Even those who work with CRUD apps need to know things like computational complexity of standard container types, and how to pick basic data structures or choose which basic algorithms to use. Otherwise you'll end up implementing things that have an unreasonably high computational cost that will rear its head at the wrong time.

> That said, AI will probably saturate most CRUD work first, which doesn't make for great job prospects.

I think so too. Today's AI models excel at makeshift plumbing. The boring CRUD jobs are the first ones to go with a prompt.

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

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> those who learn to use AI effectively are seeing massive benefits The massive benefits should be visible to outside observers as well, but where are they?

Yes. People see orgs tackling more problems and resolving bugs faster.

I don't agree that people do see that, and if they do, it's hardly an overwhelming trend.

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

#358
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like your constructive outlook and I want to believe that we can now focus on the bigger picture, but I'm not really seeing it around me. Most everyone I know that's "AI-pilled" has spent the newfound capacity on throughput instead of altitude. Is anyone actually seeing a shift towards improved structure rather than more code, faster? We seem to be living in the Gatling-gun version of the picture John Carmack drew…

The people who are using AI to improve what they were already doing anyway, aren't going around expounding "I made this with AI!" Like one of my personal projects is a sort of "middleware" for Godot, and it needs to be lean, precise and match certain rules, because it's meant to be used by many games, so I can't blindly trust AI to generate code for it, it'd be too sloppy, BUT Codex reviews have been a great help in…

I feel like using LLMs as a sort of deep search to find bugs and security issues is going to end up relatively uncontroversial all around, if the externalities of LLM use are ever taken care of.

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

#359

This post reminded me of the story about Jeet Kun Do [0] after Bruce Lee [1] died. JKD was supposed to be a martial art that adapted the best techniques from other martial arts. e.g. "have no style" because your style is constantly adapting. After Lee died, JKD broke into two camps: 1. "We should only teach what Lee taught us and no more. e.g. the techniques he taught us are the core techniques." 2. "Lee taught us to…

[dead]

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

#360
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…

Architecture is the first to be outsourced to AI, because AI shepherds have no idea how to do it.
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