A few mitigation ideas
* Get AI to write tests
* Use copy/paste. No IDE
* Use python (not because it's better than zig)I trusted an LLM, now I'm on day 4 of an afternoon project
111–120 of 215 posts
Re: I trusted an LLM, now I'm on day 4 of an afternoon project
#112Counterexample: Ive been able to complete more side projects in the last month leveraging llms than i have ever in my life. One of which I believe to have potential as a viable product, and another which involved complicated rust `no_std` and linker setup for compiling rust code onto bare metal RISCV from scratch. I think the key to being successful here is to realize that you're still at the wheel as an engineer. Th…
I find LLMs to be decent unblockers. I only turn to them form time to time though, unless Im in a playful mode and try poking out various ideas. As a coder I also ask for snippets when Im lazy. I tried growing a slightly larger solution a few times and it failed in dumb ways. It was clear it doesn’t really comprehend we do, it’s not aware it’s moving in circles and so on. All these things will probably see a lot incremental of improvents and as a tool will definitely stay but fundamentally LLMs can’t really think, at least the way we do and expecting that is also foolish.
Re: I trusted an LLM, now I'm on day 4 of an afternoon project
#113> junior dev faking competence A bit on a tangent, but has there been any discussion of how junior devs in the future are ever going to get past that stage and become senior dev calibre if companies can replace the junior devs with AIs? Or is the thinking we'll be fine until all the current senior devs die off and by then AI will be able to replace them too so we won't need anyone? 1. CS/Eng degree 2. ??? 3. Senior d…
It's definitely as good as junior dev at a lot of tasks but you always have to be in the driver seat. I don't ask junior devs to write functions one at a time. I give them a task, they ping me if they need something, but otherwise I hope I don't hear from them again for a while.
I don't see AI replacing that. AI is a tool with the instant Q&A intelligence of a junior dev but it's not actually doing the job of a junior dev. That's a subtle distinction.
Re: I trusted an LLM, now I'm on day 4 of an afternoon project
#114I used Claude to help me build a side project in 4 hours that I would never have built otherwise. Essentially, it's a morphing wavetable oscillator in React (https://waves.tashian.com).
Six months ago, I tried building this app with ChatGPT and got nowhere fast.
Building it with Claude required a gluing together a few things that I didn't know much about: JavaScript audio processing, drawing on a JavaScript canvas, an algorithm for bilinear interpolation.
I don't write JavaScript often. But I know how to program and I understand what I'm looking at. The project came together easily and the creative momentum of it felt great to me. The most amazing moment was when I reported a bug—I told Claude that the audio was stuttering whenever I moved the controls—and it figured out that we needed to use an AudioWorklet thread instead of trying to play the audio directly from the React component. I had never even heard of AudioWorklet. Claude refactored my code to use the AudioWorklet, and the stutter disappeared.
I wouldn't have built this without Claude, because I didn't need it to exist that badly. Claude reduced the creative inertia just enough for me to get it done.
Re: I trusted an LLM, now I'm on day 4 of an afternoon project
#115That’s a fun writeup.
I’ve come to a similar conclusion - for now at least it’s best applied at a fairly granular level. Make me a red brick wall there rather than „hey architect make me a house“.
I do think OP tried a bit too much new stuff in one go though. USB plus zig is quite a bit more ambitious than the traditional hello world in a new lang
Re: I trusted an LLM, now I'm on day 4 of an afternoon project
#116> As they say, I was trying to get a few birds stoned at once.
Imma gonna have to work this into a convo some day. Just to see the “wait, what??” expressions on people’s faces.
Re: I trusted an LLM, now I'm on day 4 of an afternoon project
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Training will adapt to the widespread use of AI coding assistance if they are that universally useful, and people will come into the market as junior AI wranglers, with skillsets stronger than curent junior devs is some areas but weaker in others; current seniors will grumble about holes in their knowledge, but that's been the case with the generational changes in software development as the common problems people fa…
Not if the goal is to replace the junior devs with AIs -- people won't be "coming into the market" because they won't be needed. Companies are not saving money by paying for AI tools if they continue to hire the same number of people. The only way it makes financial sense, and for the enormous amounts of money being invested into AI to reap profits, is if companies are able to reduce the cost of labor. First, they on…
> Not if the goal is to replace the junior devs with AIs -- people won't be "coming into the market" because they won't be needed.
It won't happen all at once, and as tasks done by current juniors are incrementally taken over by AI, the expected entry skillset will evolve in line with those changes. There will always be junior people in the field, but their expected knowledgebase and tasks will evolve, and even if 100% of the work currently done by juniors is eventually AI-ified, there will still be juniors, they just will be doing completely different things, and going through a completely different learning process to get there.
> Companies are not saving money by paying for AI tools if they continue to hire the same number of people.
Companies which have a fixed lump of tech work (in practice, none, actually) will save money because they will hire fewer total workers because output per worker will increase, but they will still have people who are newer and more experienced within that set, because the
More realistic companies that either make money with tech work or that apply internal effort to tech as long as it has net positive utility may actually end up spending more on tech, because each dollar spent gives more results. This still saves money (or makes more money), but the savings (where it is about savings, and not revenue) will be in the areas tech is applied to, not tech itself.
Re: I trusted an LLM, now I'm on day 4 of an afternoon project
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Claude is like having my own college professor. I've learned more in the past month with Claude then I learned in the past year. I can ask questions repeatedly and get clarification as fine as a need it. Granted, Claude has limits, but its a game-changer. > I think the key to being successful here is to realize that you're still at the wheel as an engineer. The llm is there to rapidly synthesize the universe of infor…
How do you know it's accurate?
Simple: one thing I'm learning about is RFCs for TCP/IP. I can literally go test it. It's like saying, "How do you know it is right when it says 2+2=4"? Some knowledge when taught is self-correcting. Other things I'm studying, like, say, tensor calculus, I can immediately use and know I learned it correctly.
Re: I trusted an LLM, now I'm on day 4 of an afternoon project
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are reasonably accurate, and no tutor is perfect. How do you know your college professor is accurate?
My college professor has certifications and has passed tests that weren't in their training data. My college professor was also willing to say "I don't know, ask me next class"
What do you consider 'not in its training data'?
I just asked Claude a question I am pretty sure was not in its training data.
Re: I trusted an LLM, now I'm on day 4 of an afternoon project
#120I've had a similar experience, shipping new features at incredible speed, then waste a ton of time going down the wrong track trying to debug something because the LLM gave me a confidently wrong solution.
Well that's kind of on you for not noticing that it was the wrong solution, isn't it?
It's on you however for not understanding the greater point?