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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

#371

Post by tripzilch »

> The retro computing scene is delightful

that was truly, deeply, unnecessarily condescending of him.

it's so full of self-importance, even if he truly believes that whatever code he's writing is more important than anything else, it's really an unnecessary dig

especially coming from some guy who by many people is mostly known for his accomplishments in an era that many people would call retro computing now

sure I know this guy is almost literally the definition of the 10x programmer and he can choose to work on whatever he wants, so whatever he decided to work on is probably the most important thing to him, and if that's VR, that's ... also a choice.

doesn't mean he should be this condescending about what other people are doing

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

#372

Post by fc417fc802 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #302
fc417fc802 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But surely then you agree they are having an effect. Thus my analogy serves its point - test coverage isn't to be dismissed out of hand.

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

#373

Post by tripzilch »

becquerel wrote: post #287
tkel wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It would be nice if I could live my life without concern for producing capitalist exchange value. However, I live under the regime of capital and need to pay rent. So my goal is to pay rent with the least amount of suffering on my part.

But we can agree that writing with such disdain about people doing literally anything else, is perhaps a bit of a bad look.

Especially if it comes from Carmack, a guy who doesn't need to pay rent any more and can in fact live the rest of his life without concern for producing value, etc etc. He is currently doing exactly what he wants, just because he wants it. And that happens to be VR stuff, currently, afaik. And that's his choice. So when he speaks deeply condescending about other people doing exactly what they want ("retro computing is so delightful") it definitely comes from a different place as "hey I just want to pay my rent".

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

#374

Post by huurtehoog »

glimshe wrote: post #19
skydhash wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried live programming (smalltalk, LISP)? Or a proper Edit-Compile-Run cycle with a good editor? A lot of people are bashing old practices, but from y standpoint, it always seems like a lack of proper (usage of) tooling to streamline the coding phase of building software.

Dear sir, I appreciate the help but, as I mentioned, I've been around since the Assembly days... Been there, done that. I currently have a crazy efficient Edit-Compile-Run setup and a great VSCode personal config, all of which were made a lot more crazy efficient with Codex.

LISP has been around since 1959. To the point: the proclaimed advantage of operating at new levels of "abstraction" is not a novel contribution of LLMs to coding.

Put another way: live coding, meta programming, high level abstraction, all have been possible for some 60 years now. Two generations! We don't need the monstrous amounts of accidental complexity involved in running dozens of GB in RAM for LLMs and all the "harness" apparatus, we have had from the right tooling for almost a century (!) now.

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

#375

Post by darepublic »

There is a purely strategic reason for keeping some hand code skills exercised. If you outsource the coding away completely you become dependent on entities that can pull the plug on you. Not arguing it's the right choice to rein in the agentic coding just that there is some rationale for doing so

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

#376

Post by huurtehoog »

zulux wrote: post #20
tclancy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a new theory as of this moment. Elon Musk, Paul Graham, Steve Yegge and now, sadly John Carmack. Your average hacker scoffs at the idea of religion or faith, but somehow is comfortable with complete unquestioning fealty to whichever person who did something interesting with technology in the past and made enough money to afford drugs you don’t get arrested for and then they started prophesying. Before you ston…

The nice thing about religious faith is that most minds can hold only one at a time. I may believe in an oddly resurrected deity who took the shape of a man , but I don't have room for anything crazier. "We are fools for Christ's sake." 1 Corinthians 4:10

Whatever your view of religion, you are not very good at literary analysis. The verse you quote, in full:

"We have given up our wisdom for Christ, but you have insight because of Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are honored, but we are dishonored"

Not quite the same of what you imply is it?

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

#377

Post by huurtehoog »

Daishiman wrote: post #341
Planktonne wrote: post #241

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.

Even if we just look at public markets: manufacturers and hyperscalers stocks are through the roof, while they finance private model providers that are ever pushing their IPO into the future.

Doesn't look very much like growing prosperity as much as vacuuming value into the core of the corporate world system.

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

#378

Post by hakanderyal »

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…

To effectively use AI-as-an-engineer as a seasoned developer, you must change how you work. It won't work otherwise. Your knowledge & experience wouldn't allow you to ship raw AI code, you'll end up being frustrated instead.

An alternative way is using it as a pair programmer, which is one step above enhanced StackOverflow.

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

#379

Post by threethirtytwo »

yallpendantools wrote: post #57
threethirtytwo wrote: post #48

HN is loaded with out of touch Kung Fu masters. They were the loudest skeptics against AI. Still a lot here. It's human nature. If your identity is defined by your kung fu and a technology is about to obsolesce your kung fu, then all logic goes out the window as you go all out in protecting your identity. It's mostly for themselves. They have to lie to themselves and tell themselves that they still "matter".

I've been doing martial arts for more than 20 years, some in TMA, some in modern boxing/kickboxing. I have yet to meet an "out of touch Kung Fu master" in person. Nobody thinks they can clear the bar or win in a ruleset they haven't trained for. I mean I don't deny Frank Dux, George Dilman, and the DUST guy exist, nor do I support their claims. It's just that they are larger-than-life personalities to start with and…

People who are out of touch don’t know they are out of touch. Thats why you haven’t met one. Because they all declare themselves as relevant. And this is also why you can’t recognize yourself as out of touch.

How do you recognize someone who isn’t lying to themselves? It’s hard. There’s no definitive answer but lies people tell themselves tend to be rosy and comforting. When someone tells you their own identity has been eviscrerated by AI that’s not a comforting lie. It’s more than likely a practical analysis.

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

#380

Post by threethirtytwo »

mawadev wrote: post #94
threethirtytwo wrote: post #48

HN is loaded with out of touch Kung Fu masters. They were the loudest skeptics against AI. Still a lot here. It's human nature. If your identity is defined by your kung fu and a technology is about to obsolesce your kung fu, then all logic goes out the window as you go all out in protecting your identity. It's mostly for themselves. They have to lie to themselves and tell themselves that they still "matter".

I honestly feel personally attacked by this and I don't consider myself to be an out of touch kung fu master or technologist at all. It is just very odd to read such an inflammatory comment on HN and then have people pretend this is correct and perfectly socially acceptable to say. Like put your shoes into the person you are arguing against, with some empathy, would you want to be treated this way?

You feel attacked? I’m only referring people who are out of touch and lying to themselves. If you’re not doing that then it’s not you.

Unless if you feel it’s referring to you then you’re saying what I said is true. If what I said is true, then it’s not an attack is it? I’m just spitting facts. So don’t get offended, don’t think of it as an attack.

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