111–120 of 229 posts
That said, we're not talking about vibe coding here, but properly reviewed code, right? So the human still goes "no, this is wrong, delete these tests and implement for these criteria"?
This is sort of why I think software development might be the only real application of LLMs outside of entertainment. We can build ourselves tight little feedback loops that other domains can't. I somewhat frequently agree on a plan with an LLM and a few minutes or hours later find out it doesn't work and then the LLM is like "that's why we shouldn't have done it like that!". Imagine building a house from scratch and…
> Imagine building a house from scratch Thats why those Engineering fields have strict rules, often require formal education and someone can even end up in prison if screws up badly enough. Software is so much easier and safer, till very recently anonymous engineering was the norm and people are very annoyed with Apple pushing for signing off the resulting product. Highly paid software engineers across the board must…
Apple is very much welcome to push for signing off of software that appears on their own store. That is nothing new.
What people are annoyed about is Apple insisting that you can only use their store, a restriction that has nothing to do with safety or quality and everything to do with the stupendous amounts of money they make from it.
Without having tried it (caveat), I worry that 100% coverage to an LLM will lock in bad assumptions and incorrect functionality. It makes it harder for it to identify something that is wrong. That said, we're not talking about vibe coding here, but properly reviewed code, right? So the human still goes "no, this is wrong, delete these tests and implement for these criteria"?
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> This is sort of why I think software development might be the only real application of LLMs outside of entertainment. Wow. What about also, I don't know, self-teaching*? In general, you have to be very arrogant to say that you've experienced all the "real" applications. * - For instance, today and yesterday, I've been using LLMs to teach myself about RLC circuits and "inerters".
Self-teaching pretty much doesn't work. For many decades now, the barrier has not been access to information, it's been the "self" part. Turns out most people need regimen, accountablity, strictness, which AI just doesn't solve because it's yes-men.
That’s a complete bogus. And LLMs are yes men by default, nothing stops you from overriding initial setting.
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They are retrained every 12-24 months and constantly getting new/updated reinforcement learning layers. New concepts are not the problem. The problem is outdated information in the training data, like only crappy old Postgres syntax in most of the Stackoverflow body.
> They are retrained every 12-24 months and constantly getting new/updated reinforcement learning layers This is true now, but it can't stay true, given the enormous costs of training. Inference is expensive enough as is, the training runs are 100% venture capital "startup" funding and pretty much everyone expects them to go away sooner or later Can't plan a business around something that volatile
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> Imagine building a house from scratch Thats why those Engineering fields have strict rules, often require formal education and someone can even end up in prison if screws up badly enough. Software is so much easier and safer, till very recently anonymous engineering was the norm and people are very annoyed with Apple pushing for signing off the resulting product. Highly paid software engineers across the board must…
> people are very annoyed with Apple pushing for signing off the resulting product. Apple is very much welcome to push for signing off of software that appears on their own store. That is nothing new. What people are annoyed about is Apple insisting that you can only use their store, a restriction that has nothing to do with safety or quality and everything to do with the stupendous amounts of money they make from it…
Also, people complain all the time about rules and regulations for making stuff. Especially in EU, you can't just create products however you like and let people decide if it is safe to use, you are required to make your products to meet certain criteria and avoid use certain chemicals and methods, you are required to certify certain things and you can't be anonymous. If you are making and selling cupcakes for example and if something goes wrong you will be held responsible. Not only when things go wrong, often local governments will do inspections before letting you start making the cupcakes and every now and then they can check you out.
Software appears to be headed to that direction. Of course du to the nature of software probably wouldn't be exactly like that but IMHO it is very likely that at least having someone responsible for the things a software does will become the norm.
Maybe in the future if your software leaks sensitive information for example, you may end up being investigated and fined if not following best practices that can be determined by some institute etc.
Without having tried it (caveat), I worry that 100% coverage to an LLM will lock in bad assumptions and incorrect functionality. It makes it harder for it to identify something that is wrong. That said, we're not talking about vibe coding here, but properly reviewed code, right? So the human still goes "no, this is wrong, delete these tests and implement for these criteria"?
Now I can leave an agent running, come back an hour or two later, and it's written almost perfect, typed, extremely well tested code.
I'm sad programmers lacking a lot of experience will read this and think it's a solid run-down of good ideas.