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Code is cheap. Show me the talk

nadh.in

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Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#161

Post by summerlight »

cheema33 wrote: post #152
overgard wrote: post #123

I asked Codex to write some unit tests for Redux today. At first glance it looked fine, and I continued on. I then went back to add a test by hand, and after looking more closely at the output there were like 50 wtf worthy things scattered in there. Sure they ran, but it was bad in all sorts of ways. And this was just writing something very basic. This has been my experience almost every time I use AI: superficially…

This is how you do things if you are new to this game. Get two other, different, LLMs to thoroughly review the code. If you don’t have an automated way to do all of this, you will struggle and eventually put yourself out of a job. If you do use this approach, you will get code that is better than what most software devs put out. And that gives you a good base to work with if you need to add polish to it.

The quality of generated code does not matter. The problem is when it breaks 2 AM and you're burning thousands of dollars every minutes. You don't own the code that you don't understand, but unfortunately that does not mean you don't own the responsibility as well. Good luck on writing the postmortem, your boss will have lots of question for you.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#162

Post by Arainach »

bheadmaster wrote: post #118
jdjeeee wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No this is not the way we want learning to be - just like how students are banned from using calculators until they have mastered the foundational thinking.

That's a fair point, but AI can do much more than just provide you with an answer like a calculator. AI can explain the underlying process of manual computation and help you learn it. You can ask it questions when you're confused, and it will keep explaining no matter how off the topic you go. We don't consider tutoring bad for learning - quite the contrary, we tutor slower students to help them catch up, and advance…

You're assuming the students are reading any of this. They're not, they're just copy/pasting it.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#163

Post by jahsome »

nomel wrote: post #131
acedTrex wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always said every line is a liability, its our job to limit liabilities. That has largely gone out the window these days.

The only people I've known that share this perspective are those that hate abstraction. Going back to their code, to extend it in some way, almost always requires a rewrite, because they wrote it with the goal of minimum viable complexity rather than understanding the realities of the real world problem they're solving, like "we all know we need these other features, but we have a deadline!" For one off, this is fine…

I don't see how the two are related, personally. I'm regularly accused of over-abstraction specifically because I aspire to make each abstraction do as little as possible, i.e. fewest lines possible.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#164

Post by krupan »

simonw wrote: post #15
gipp wrote: post #5

I see a lot of the same (well thought out) pushback on here whenever these kinds of blind hype articles pop up. But my biggest objection to this "engineering is over" take is one that I don't see much. Maybe this is just my Big Tech glasses, but I feel like for a large, mature product, if you break down the time and effort required to bring a change to production, the actual writing of code is like... ten, maybe twen…

I'm not sure you're actually in disagreement with the author of this piece at all. They didn't say that software engineering is over - they said: > Software development, as it has been done for decades, is over. You argue that writing code is 10-20% of the craft. That's the point they are making too! They're framing the rest of it as the "talking", which is now even more important than it was before thanks to the wri…

When we say generating code is only a small percentage, that does not imply that the rest is just talking. Simon, you were part of a relatively small fast moving project in Django and the news website it powered, with from I understand a pretty small team. Have you worked as part of a team of 10, 20, 100, 1000 engineers? It's different.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#165

Post by nomel »

Retric wrote: post #159
nomel wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using the industry definition of abstraction [1]: > In software, an abstraction provides access while hiding details that otherwise might make access more challenging I read this as "an encapsulation of a concept". In software, I think it can be simplified to "named lists of operations". > Historically pure machine code with jumps etc lacked any from of encapsulation as any data can be accessed and updated by any…

> I can't think of any. Incorrect definition = incorrect interpretation. I edited this a few times but the separation is you can use an abstraction even if you maintain access to the implementation details. > assembler Assembly language which is a different thing. Initially there was no assembler, someone had to write one. In the beginning every line of code had direct access to all memory in part because limited acc…

I genuinely appreciate your response, because there's a good chance it'll result in me changing my perspective, and I'm asking these questions with that intent!

> You are thinking of assembly language which is a different thing. Initially there was no assembler, someone had to write one.

This is why I specifically mention opcodes. I've actually written assemblers! And...there's not much to them. It's mostly just replacing the names given to the opcodes in the datasheet back to the opcodes, with a few human niceties. ;)

> consider the same situation with 5 senators X of which have failed

Ohhhhhhhh, ok. I kind of see. Unfortunately, I don't see the difference between abstraction and encapsulation here. I see the abstraction as being speed as being the encapsulation of a set of sensors, ignoring irrelevant values.

I feel like I'm almost there. I may have edited my previous comment after you replied. My "no procrastination" setting kicked in, and I couldn't see.

I don't see how "The former is about semantic levels, the later about information hiding." are different. In my mind, semantic levels exist as compression and encapsulation of information. If you're saying encapsulation means "black box" then that could make sense to me, but "inaccessible" isn't part of the definition, just "containment".

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#166

Post by nomel »

jahsome wrote: post #163
nomel wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only people I've known that share this perspective are those that hate abstraction. Going back to their code, to extend it in some way, almost always requires a rewrite, because they wrote it with the goal of minimum viable complexity rather than understanding the realities of the real world problem they're solving, like "we all know we need these other features, but we have a deadline!" For one off, this is fine…

I don't see how the two are related, personally. I'm regularly accused of over-abstraction specifically because I aspire to make each abstraction do as little as possible, i.e. fewest lines possible.

I call that lasagna code! From what I've seen, developers start with spaghetti, overcompensate with lasagna, then end up with some organization more optimized for the human, that minimizes cognitive load while reading.

To me, abstraction is an encapsulation of some concept. I can't understand how they're practically different, unless you encapsulate true nonsense, without purpose or resulting meaning, which I can't think of an example of, since humans tend to categorize/name everything. I'm dumb.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#167

Post by krupan »

_ea1k wrote: post #44
vb-8448 wrote: post #19

> Software development, as it has been done for decades, is over. I'm pretty sure the way I was doing things in 2005 was completely different compared to 2015. Same for 2015 and 2025. I'm not old enough to know how they were doing things in 1995, but I'm pretty sure there very different compared to 2005. For sure, we are going through some big changes, but there is no "as it has been done for decades".

Yeah, I remember being amazed at the immediate incremental compilation on save in Visual Age for Java many years ago. Today's neovim users have features that even the most advanced IDEs didn't have back then. I think a lot of people in the industry forget just how much change has come from 30 years of incremental progress.

But this time it will be different! This will be a huge change!

They always say and are saying again

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#168

Post by Retric »

nomel wrote: post #165
Retric wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't think of any. Incorrect definition = incorrect interpretation. I edited this a few times but the separation is you can use an abstraction even if you maintain access to the implementation details. > assembler Assembly language which is a different thing. Initially there was no assembler, someone had to write one. In the beginning every line of code had direct access to all memory in part because limited acc…

I genuinely appreciate your response, because there's a good chance it'll result in me changing my perspective, and I'm asking these questions with that intent! > You are thinking of assembly language which is a different thing. Initially there was no assembler, someone had to write one. This is why I specifically mention opcodes. I've actually written assemblers! And...there's not much to them. It's mostly just repl…

> It's mostly just replacing the names given to the opcodes in the datasheet back to the opcodes

Under the assumption that the input data is properly formatted you can generate machine code. This is however an abstraction which can fail as nothing forces a user to input valid files.

So we have an abstraction without any encapsulation.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#169

Post by furyofantares »

optymizer wrote: post #73

> because one is hooked on and dependent on the genie, the natural circumstances that otherwise would allow for foundational and fundamental skills and understanding to develop, never arise, to the point of cognitive decline. After using AI to code, I came to the same conclusion myself. Interns and juniors are fully cooked: - Companies will replace them with AI, telling seniors to use AI instead of juniors - As a jun…

Young folks are gonna figure out how to use this stuff way better than us older folks. We just start with a big advantage.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#170

Post by alt187 »

3kkdd wrote: post #158
cheema33 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how you do things if you are new to this game. Get two other, different, LLMs to thoroughly review the code. If you don’t have an automated way to do all of this, you will struggle and eventually put yourself out of a job. If you do use this approach, you will get code that is better than what most software devs put out. And that gives you a good base to work with if you need to add polish to it.

Im sick and tired of these empty posts. SHOW AN EXAMPLE OF YOU ACTUALLY DOING WHAT YOU SAY!

There's no example because OP has never done this, and never will. People lie on the internet.
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