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Nobody knows how the whole system works

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Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#111

Post by stronglikedan »

ahnick wrote: post #8
virgilp wrote: post #5

That's not how things work in practice. I think the concern is not that "people don't know how everything works" - people never needed to know how to "make their own food" by understanding all the cellular mechanisms and all the intricacies of the chemistry & physics involved in cooking. BUT, when you stop understanding the basics - when you no longer know how to fry an egg because you just get it already prepared fr…

Most people have no idea how to hunt, make a fire, or grow food. If all grocery stores and restaurants run out of food for a long enough time people will starve. This isn't a problem in practice though, because there are so many grocery stores and restaurants and supply chains source from multiple areas that the redundant and decentralized nature makes it not a problem. Thus it is the same with making your own food.…

> Most people have no idea how to hunt, make a fire, or grow food. If all grocery stores and restaurants run out of food for a long enough time people will starve.

I doubt people would starve. It's trivial to figure out the hunting and fire part in enough time that that won't happen. That said, I think a lot of people will die, but it will be as a result of competition for resources.

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#112

Post by cortesoft »

rorylaitila wrote: post #71

There are many layers to this. But there is one style of programming that concerns me. Where you neither understand the layer above you (why the product exists and what the goal of the system is) nor the layer below (how to actually implement the behavior). In the past, many developers barely understood the business case, but at least they understood how to translate into code, and could put backpressure on the busin…

Strangely, I feel that using Claude helps me stay MORE focused on what I am actually trying to accomplish.

In the prior 30 years of my programming life, so much time was spent "yak shaving"... setting up all the boilerplate, adding basic functionality you always have to do, setting up support systems, etc. With Claude, all of those things are so quick to complete that I can stay focused on what I am actually trying to do, and can therefore keep more of the core functionality I am caring about in my head. I don't have to push the core, novel, parts of my work aside to do the parts that are the same across other projects.

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#113

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

beej71 wrote: post #110
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average tenure of a developer for the longest was 2.5 years not to mention the developer changing teams, even before AI many developers didn’t know how the code they were brought in to maintain works. > My English instructions do not leave any residual growth. I learn nothing to send back up the chain, and I know nothing of what's below. Why should I exist? When you use Claude code, tell it to keep a markdown fil…

>At higher levels you are responsible for taking your $n number of years of experience to turn more ambiguous, more impactful, larger scoped projects into working implementations that are done on time, on budget and meets requirements. Is this not a job for LLMs, though?

LLMs are good at turning well defined requirements to code.

But even now it’s struggling on a project to understand the correlation between “It is creating Lambda code to do $x meaning it needs to change the corresponding IAM role in CloudFormation to give it permission it needs”

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#114

Post by knorker »

I would say that I understand all the levels down to (but not including) what it means for electron to repel another particle of negative charge.

But what is not possible is to understand all these levels at the same time. And that has many implications.

Humans we have limits on working memory, and if I need to swap in L1 cache logic, then I can't think of TCP congestion windows, CWDM, multiple inheritance, and QoS at the same time. But I wonder what superpowers AI can bring, not because it's necessarily smarter, but because we can increase the working memory across abstraction layers.

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#115

Post by toyg »

scottLobster wrote: post #100
rorylaitila wrote: post #71

There are many layers to this. But there is one style of programming that concerns me. Where you neither understand the layer above you (why the product exists and what the goal of the system is) nor the layer below (how to actually implement the behavior). In the past, many developers barely understood the business case, but at least they understood how to translate into code, and could put backpressure on the busin…

The irony is "ownership" is a common management talking point, but when you actually try to take ownership you inevitably run into walls of access, a lack of information, and generally a "why are you here?" mentality. Granted one person can't know/do everything, but large companies in particular seem allergic to granting you any visibility whatsoever. It's particularly annoying when you're given a deadline, bust your…

Ownership doesn't imply FULL ownership. You get handed ownership of a slice, and expected to be responsible for that bit of land; but you'll never own the farm, and will likely never be consulted on whether that land should become a car park from Tuesday. That's just how capitalism work.

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#116

Post by Legend2440 »

stronglikedan wrote: post #111
ahnick wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people have no idea how to hunt, make a fire, or grow food. If all grocery stores and restaurants run out of food for a long enough time people will starve. This isn't a problem in practice though, because there are so many grocery stores and restaurants and supply chains source from multiple areas that the redundant and decentralized nature makes it not a problem. Thus it is the same with making your own food.…

> Most people have no idea how to hunt, make a fire, or grow food. If all grocery stores and restaurants run out of food for a long enough time people will starve. I doubt people would starve. It's trivial to figure out the hunting and fire part in enough time that that won't happen. That said, I think a lot of people will die, but it will be as a result of competition for resources.

People would absolutely starve, especially in the cities.

It’s just not possible to feed 8 billion people without the industrial system of agriculture and food distribution. There aren’t enough wild animals to hunt.

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#117

Post by Spivak »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #113
beej71 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>At higher levels you are responsible for taking your $n number of years of experience to turn more ambiguous, more impactful, larger scoped projects into working implementations that are done on time, on budget and meets requirements. Is this not a job for LLMs, though?

LLMs are good at turning well defined requirements to code. But even now it’s struggling on a project to understand the correlation between “It is creating Lambda code to do $x meaning it needs to change the corresponding IAM role in CloudFormation to give it permission it needs”

The LLMs are fantastic at writing terraform when you tell it what to do which is a huge timesaver, but good heavens is it terrible at actually knowing what pieces need to be wired up for anything but the simplest cases. Job security for now I guess?

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#118

Post by lazystar »

scottLobster wrote: post #100
rorylaitila wrote: post #71

There are many layers to this. But there is one style of programming that concerns me. Where you neither understand the layer above you (why the product exists and what the goal of the system is) nor the layer below (how to actually implement the behavior). In the past, many developers barely understood the business case, but at least they understood how to translate into code, and could put backpressure on the busin…

The irony is "ownership" is a common management talking point, but when you actually try to take ownership you inevitably run into walls of access, a lack of information, and generally a "why are you here?" mentality. Granted one person can't know/do everything, but large companies in particular seem allergic to granting you any visibility whatsoever. It's particularly annoying when you're given a deadline, bust your…

> Granted one person can't know/do everything,

watch me try, at least.

> but large companies in particular seem allergic to granting you any visibility whatsoever. It's particularly annoying

If the blind spot is directly causing customer pain, find metrics that demonstrate the impact. If it ends up driving away your customers, then your company is securing itself to death.

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#119

Post by stetrain »

xorcist wrote: post #55
ahnick wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people have no idea how to hunt, make a fire, or grow food. If all grocery stores and restaurants run out of food for a long enough time people will starve. This isn't a problem in practice though, because there are so many grocery stores and restaurants and supply chains source from multiple areas that the redundant and decentralized nature makes it not a problem. Thus it is the same with making your own food.…

> Most people have no idea how to hunt, make a fire, or grow food That's a bizarre claim, confidently stated. Of course I can make a fire, cook and my own food. You can, too. When it comes to hunting, skinning and the cutting of animals, that takes a bit more practice but anyone can manage something even if the result isn't pretty. If stores ran out of food we would have devastating problems but because of specializa…

You think that the majority of people actually know how to do those things successfully in the absence of modern logistics or looking up how to do it online?

I have a general idea of how those things work, but successfully hunting an animal isn't something I have ever done or have the tools (and training on those tools) to accomplish.

Which crops can I grow in my climate zone to actually feed my family, and where would I get seeds and supplies to do so? Again I might have some general ideas here but not specifics about how to be successful given short notice.

I might successfully get a squirrel or two, or get a few plants to grow, but the result is still likely starvation for myself and my family if we were to attempt full self-reliance in those areas without preparation.

In the same way that I have a general idea of how CPU registers, cache, and instructions work but couldn't actually produce a working assembly program without reference materials.

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