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To my students

ozark.hendrix.edu

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Re: To my students

#171

Post by [deleted] »

archagon wrote: post #155
saadn92 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What gets me is the craft point. I've shipped more useful software in the last year than probably the previous five combined, and most of that is because I stopped treating code as the artifact and started treating the product as the artifact. The craft moved up a layer. > until it is clear and elegant New grads who spend weeks refactoring code are going to get lapped by new grads who ship something and iterate. Ther…

AI is not an abstraction layer. If this is not obvious to a so-called engineer, they should probably not be throwing stones.

[deleted]

Re: To my students

#172

Post by minihoster »

2ndorderthought wrote: post #85
saadn92 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What gets me is the craft point. I've shipped more useful software in the last year than probably the previous five combined, and most of that is because I stopped treating code as the artifact and started treating the product as the artifact. The craft moved up a layer. > until it is clear and elegant New grads who spend weeks refactoring code are going to get lapped by new grads who ship something and iterate. Ther…

This person is an educator. You should absolutely learn how to code by deep practice. You can easily learn how to use the slop machine in I don't know a week or something if the job demands it.

So now we're downvoting the idea that people should have a strong understanding of how to code? We're cooked. A week does seem about right for getting to 90% of optimal AI agent use if you earnestly explore its boundaries.

Re: To my students

#173

Post by hgoel »

Trav5 wrote: post #161
hgoel wrote: post #28

I agree with the points made, even if personally I am okay with LLMs (as long as they're used with appropriate caution). Especially relevant for students I think, since they are hurting themselves most by relying on LLMs. Just like how young children are forced to do math by hand instead of using calculators to build intuition and memory, students should aim to do things manually to build their skills. Go make that t…

I totally agree and have been thinking about this lately. My son has been been doing an incredible amount of engineering work on a fun side project manually including 3D design and printing, soldering etc. But he used Ai to program an arduino. I want him to understand the code but I'm trying to find the balance between the school classes, and all the other things needed for this project. He doesn't have time dive int…

Yeah, I can imagine that it's tricky to find a balance when so many new things are put together.

I didn't have the benefit of skilled teachers or parents that believed in my interests (and of course no LLMs!) so I didn't have a choice besides learning to deal with the frustration and getting good at scouring docs/code.

Re: To my students

#174

Post by glitchc »

2ndorderthought wrote: post #108
glitchc wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how this is supposed to help earn money or be a path to financial independence. Can you elaborate?

By understanding computers and enjoying the field you are in you will be more skilled then someone who says "tests pass", "worked on my machine", "maybe it's a good idea to run agents on my companies live prod database". Anyone can learn to slop it up, including someone who is passionate about writing code as a hobby. Not everything is about making money anyways.

What you say is fine for a hobby, and an excellent hobby that would be, but it doesn't work for a career.

Re: To my students

#175

Post by smolgumball »

2ndorderthought wrote: post #85
saadn92 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What gets me is the craft point. I've shipped more useful software in the last year than probably the previous five combined, and most of that is because I stopped treating code as the artifact and started treating the product as the artifact. The craft moved up a layer. > until it is clear and elegant New grads who spend weeks refactoring code are going to get lapped by new grads who ship something and iterate. Ther…

This person is an educator. You should absolutely learn how to code by deep practice. You can easily learn how to use the slop machine in I don't know a week or something if the job demands it.

Absolutely wild to see this take downvoted. While it's abundantly clear that Hacker News has long since become a mouthpiece for the AI investment machine, I really hadn't felt the loss of strong engineering ethos until recently.

Re: To my students

#176

Post by arcfour »

vitacoco wrote: post #26

"I do not and will not use LLMs, in any form, for any purpose." The academic navel gazing is strong with this one.

I don't know why everything has to be so polarized these days. You can use LLMs without it making you an idiot or delusional or psychotic or something. Are there issues with them? Of course. Are there people and organizations that rely on them too heavily? Without a doubt. Does recognizing that they have utility and using them as another tool in your arsenal mean you think they're infallible and are a suitable substitute for your own capacity to think? Obviously not.

It's really tiring. You can't even talk about the pros and cons of the technology now without people immediately jumping to their respective sides over it. It either has to be all good or all bad. No nuance allowed.

The position espoused by the author of the article is so extreme it makes them look ignorant and foolish. I would want my teacher to be more open-minded/curious and have a more nuanced opinion than that.

Re: To my students

#177

Post by xantronix »

archagon wrote: post #158
xantronix wrote: post #156

Do the people in this thread dunking on this article think that moving and delivering as quickly as humanly possible, just because it can physically be done now, is going to lead to positive results in the long term? There is a vast gulf of difference between the current industry climate and what this professor is encouraging his students to consider. I don't see how caring about the craft is mutually exclusive with…

This forum, unfortunately, selects for FAANG mercenaries. Other forums will have radically different takes.

It's interesting to see which articles garner the notice of FAANG mercenaries and which escape such levels of scrutiny and rancor. This article fell well off the front page by the time of my reply and yet somebody took the time to downvote. Oh well.

Re: To my students

#178

Post by godelski »

dijksterhuis wrote: post #148
godelski wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who is going to read your carefully crafted documentation lol? Everyone that uses or works in your codebase. Look at how people use LLMs these days. People frequently use it on new codebases to get up to speed on the code. Frankly because it's a lot faster than grepping, profiling, and all the digging we'd normally do (though those still have benefits and you're still going to do them. Hell, the LLMs even do them).…

this resonated for me, quite hard actually. there's the famous quote which has always stuck with me on this stuff slow is smooth, smooth is fast . thinking about it a little more, i would personally prefer to use the term momentum rather than velocity or just plain speed -- we accrue more mass by adding code, features, etc. and shifting direction/increasing speed are both harder with greater mass.

I think mass and momentum are appropriate. I use them when talking about this too.

Given your username and the topic, I think you'll enjoy this read: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD02xx/EWD288...

Re: To my students

#179

Post by CamperBob2 »

2ndorderthought wrote: post #90
throwaway81348 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I do not and will not use LLMs, in any form, for any purpose.

As an educator there is nothing wrong with that.

Just don't try to fool anyone into thinking you're preparing your students for the workforce they'll be entering.

Re: To my students

#180

Post by xantronix »

archagon wrote: post #160
cdfalcon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely fair - but at least my PoV comes from having actually worked as a SWE, you know? I feel like the best understanding this fellow can have is purely secondhand from watching the success / failures of his students. I also think I get doubly upset from advice like this because it’s given and marketed to impressionable young students. Even agreeing with all the moral points he’s made, I truly think this advice…

I worked at a FAANG in a senior role for around 6 years and I completely agree with the article. (I left before LLM/agent use became widespread, but I would have flamed out anyway if it was forced upon me.)

It's scary just how quickly the past has been buried: Decades of accumulated insight on best practices, all discarded in service of the new electric Christ.
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