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PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

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Re: PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

#81

Hobby groups projects like this are less fun for a lot of people who used to enjoy interacting with smart people. It's definitely become a game of just spam claude for answers with zero understanding or care for how anything actually works. That's fine to get things done and fine for a lot of side projects, but it definitely ruins the joy that people have in understanding systems and working with intellectuals.

> Hobby groups projects like this are less fun for a lot of people who used to enjoy interacting with smart people. Same thing did happen to many work places. People at all levels proxy questions through LLMs and don't even bother to read/trim/edit the response. Funny, how suddenly a tight, 1-2 sentence response on point is a sign of skill.

That's why I tell my Claude to keep its responses short :V

Re: PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

#82

Hobby groups projects like this are less fun for a lot of people who used to enjoy interacting with smart people. It's definitely become a game of just spam claude for answers with zero understanding or care for how anything actually works. That's fine to get things done and fine for a lot of side projects, but it definitely ruins the joy that people have in understanding systems and working with intellectuals.

completely different world, but i've seen this happen in music spaces as well.

the idea of gatekeeping is often seen as elitist or exclusionary (fairly enough in many cases) but i think this can be an exaggerated description of a culture that necessarily requires a standard of... let's say, desire to engage with material on a sufficiently deep level. many things can be for anybody, but they are not for everybody.

in the past i've seen the phenomenon of "opening up" subcultures or previously-niche intellectual/art fields described as democratization but i think that ignores a big part of what causes this, which can more accurately be described as commodification. access to difficult things was formerly measured by one's ability to expend effort in order to get there (ignoring, for now, the structural conditions that set one up for success in that effort). when these things are commodified, these efforts and identities become products to purchase, the right to which is nearly never limited; in fact, it's almost seen as evil to imply that they should not be available to any individual at any time that individual may desire access.

i know we all have to start somewhere, but there has always been some historical filtration that leads people who are not truly engaged with a subject on a deep level to disengage at some point. that's changing at a novel rate and scale across so many subcultures. it seems like a lot of us are just surprised at how many people even want access to what were once our sanctuaries and we're not capable of grappling with what it takes to adapt to these changes.

i don't think this will pass or that things will return to "the way they were" but there will always be pockets that resemble previous subcultural forms. we just have to re-learn how to identify them with a keener eye and how to better avoid or more-appropriately interact with those who have a more superficial interest in them.

Re: PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

#84
I think the reason to not invest your time in PS5 linux is that sony hates it and will patch it away over and over, and nobody really wants it. It's $200, mediocre hardware.

I might be showing a lot of unc energy here, but if you can't afford a raspberry pi or something to play with linux, or a used pc, gaming and having a playstation 5 should be de prioritized for a bit while you get your life together.

Re: PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

#85

Hobby groups projects like this are less fun for a lot of people who used to enjoy interacting with smart people. It's definitely become a game of just spam claude for answers with zero understanding or care for how anything actually works. That's fine to get things done and fine for a lot of side projects, but it definitely ruins the joy that people have in understanding systems and working with intellectuals.

> Hobby groups projects like this are less fun for a lot of people who used to enjoy interacting with smart people. Same thing did happen to many work places. People at all levels proxy questions through LLMs and don't even bother to read/trim/edit the response. Funny, how suddenly a tight, 1-2 sentence response on point is a sign of skill.

> Funny, how suddenly a tight, 1-2 sentence response on point is a sign of skill.

Communicating well has always been a sign of skill. Talking to most devs was like pulling teeth even before LLMs.

Re: PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

#86
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hobby groups projects like this are less fun for a lot of people who used to enjoy interacting with smart people. Same thing did happen to many work places. People at all levels proxy questions through LLMs and don't even bother to read/trim/edit the response. Funny, how suddenly a tight, 1-2 sentence response on point is a sign of skill.

Just this morning I had a senior manager say to me "I was trying to do someone else's job and give them all the info so they can review it as I have no knowledge" in response to me asking for them to please filter the Claude word salad using the meat proxy. I'm pretty tired of having to do the job of filtering the low-effort copy-paste walls of text

Similar to sending a "Let Me Google That For You" except somehow because it was an LLM not Google, they've forgotten it's more insulting than helpful, and aren't even in on the joke they themselves are making.

Re: PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

#87
There’s also the other side of the same coin where maintainers ignore your contributions. I’m happily forking things permanently and will likely rewrite them on cleaner foundations. I’ve never loved my tools more than I do now when I can get them coded at the same pace I think of them.

On the other hand, it’s been clear for a while that software as we knew will end up at a close to 0 marginal value.

Re: PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

#88
post #26

now imagine how many other devs and maintainers are contemplating this but just haven't been pushed to their personal breaking point yet. or take note of how many, when asked about the spam problem, just nervously go "yeah it's kinda rough haha...". or how many will vent about it on their twitter-like of choice with increasing frequency. remember hacktoberfest 2020? that's just all public-facing source 365 days a yea…

I would guess we'll start seeing more open source projects with much tighter restrictions on who can participate. Closed contributions and heavily automated (or even closed) issue tracking is probably already happening and will spread faster. I entirely sympathize with these maintainers too. I've had 2 instances where an LLM has surfaced a bug and I just couldn't get myself to open a PR and dump more work onto these…

On the other hand we'll probably see a lot more fully vibecoded projects gaining traction, because of the rate at which they can move once human design and review gets taken out of the equation.

For example, I recently came across Hucre, https://github.com/productdevbook/hucre, which is a JS spreadsheet library apparently developed entirely in the past few months and which has already gained 2.2k GH stars.

Is it any good? Who knows, but the alternatives for spreadsheet handling in JS aren't great, either being limited, semi-commercial, or unmaintained. And creating a new one without LLM-assistance is a huge, painful, mostly thankless undertaking. It's not surprising that a zero-dependency option that promises to do everything this can do would be popular.

Everyone has had the experience of butting their head against functionality limitations of open-source libraries. Fully vibecoded libraries will be able to add functionality at a rate that human-authored ones can't. Code quality might suffer, but if a library has a feature you need, and you've got a deadline to hit, are you going to avoid using it? Is the average developer? Or the average LLM?

I think we're about to hit an interesting period of human-only projects competing with vibecoded ones, and it'll be an acid test as to whether the pro and anti claims about AI-coding bear out in terms of code reliably.

Re: PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

#89

Hobby groups projects like this are less fun for a lot of people who used to enjoy interacting with smart people. It's definitely become a game of just spam claude for answers with zero understanding or care for how anything actually works. That's fine to get things done and fine for a lot of side projects, but it definitely ruins the joy that people have in understanding systems and working with intellectuals.

Projects like this probably need a dedicated noob-fork where 'anything goes', so the noobs feel like they're contributing but where their blast radius is contained.

And once in a blue moon something good comes out of it back to the real project.

Re: PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

#90
post #26

now imagine how many other devs and maintainers are contemplating this but just haven't been pushed to their personal breaking point yet. or take note of how many, when asked about the spam problem, just nervously go "yeah it's kinda rough haha...". or how many will vent about it on their twitter-like of choice with increasing frequency. remember hacktoberfest 2020? that's just all public-facing source 365 days a yea…

I would guess we'll start seeing more open source projects with much tighter restrictions on who can participate. Closed contributions and heavily automated (or even closed) issue tracking is probably already happening and will spread faster. I entirely sympathize with these maintainers too. I've had 2 instances where an LLM has surfaced a bug and I just couldn't get myself to open a PR and dump more work onto these…

Modern problems require modern solutions.

Why not set up a triage bot with only read permissions on the project and restricted network access in order to triage issues?

Perhaps this way one could turn the influx of spam into a source of useful information.

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