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Human coders are still better than LLMs

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Re: Human coders are still better than LLMs

#21

Post by kccqzy »

wanderingstan wrote: post #7

“Better” is always task-dependent. LLMs are already far better than me (and most devs I’d imagine) at rote things like getting CSS syntax right for a desired effect, or remembering the right way to invoke a popular library (e.g. fetch) These little side quests used to eat a lot of my time and I’m happy to have a tool that can do these almost instantly.

> and most devs I’d imagine

What an awful imagination. Yes there are people who don't like CSS but are forced to use it by their job so they don't learn it properly, and that's why they think CSS is rote memorization.

But overall I agree with you that if a company is too cheap to hire a person who is actually skilled at CSS, it is still better to hoist that CSS job onto LLMs than an unwilling human. Because that unwilling human is not going to learn CSS well and won't enjoy writing CSS.

On the other hand, if the company is willing to hire someone who's actually good, LLMs can't compare. It's basically the old argument of LLMs only being able to replace less good developers. In this case, you admitted that you are not good at CSS and LLMs are better than you at CSS. It's not task-dependent it's skill-dependent.

Re: Human coders are still better than LLMs

#22

Post by sixQuarks »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #3

The question is, for how long?

Exactly! We’ve been seeing more and more posts like this, saying how AI will never take developer jobs or will never be as good as coders. I think it’s some sort of coping mechanism.

These posts are gonna look really silly in the not too distant future.

I get it, spending countless hours honing your craft and knowing that AI will soon make almost everything you learned useless is very scary.

Re: Human coders are still better than LLMs

#24

Post by ehutch79 »

decasia wrote: post #10

We aren't expecting LLMs to come up with incredibly creative software designs right now, we are expecting them to execute conventional best practices based on common patterns. So it makes sense to me that it would not excel at the task that it was given here. The whole thing seems like a pretty good example of collaboration between human and LLM tools.

Uh, no. I've seen the twitter posts saying llms will replace me. I've watched the youtube videos saying llms will code whole apps on one prompt, but are light on details or only show the most basic todo app from every tutorial.

We're being told that llms are now reasoning, which implies they can make logical leaps and employ creativity to solve problems.

The hype cycle is real and setting expectations that get higher with the less you know about how they work.

Re: Human coders are still better than LLMs

#25

Post by sixQuarks »

jppittma wrote: post #16
vouaobrasil wrote: post #3

The question is, for how long?

It's really gonna depend on the project. When my hobby project was greenfield, the AI was way better than I am. It was (still is) more knowledgable about the standards that govern the field and about low level interface details. It can shit out a bunch of code that relies on knowing these details in seconds/minutes, rather than hours/days. Now that the project has grown and all that stuff is hammered out, it can't se…

Again, the question is for how long

Re: Human coders are still better than LLMs

#26

Post by vjvjvjvjghv »

habnds wrote: post #11

seems comparable to chess where it's well established that a human + a computer is much more skilled than either one individually

Can humans really give useful input to computers? I thought we have reached a state where computers do stuff no human can understand and will crush human players.

Re: Human coders are still better than LLMs

#27

Post by dpkirchner »

zdragnar wrote: post #13
wanderingstan wrote: post #7

“Better” is always task-dependent. LLMs are already far better than me (and most devs I’d imagine) at rote things like getting CSS syntax right for a desired effect, or remembering the right way to invoke a popular library (e.g. fetch) These little side quests used to eat a lot of my time and I’m happy to have a tool that can do these almost instantly.

I think that's great if it's for something outside of your primary language. I've used it to good effect in that way myself. However, denying yourself the reflexive memory of having learned those things is a quick way to become wholly dependent upon the tool. You could easily end up with compromised solutions because the tool recommends something you don't understand well enough to know there's a better way to do som…

You're right, however I think we've already gone through this before. Most of us (probably) couldn't tell you exactly how an optimizing compiler picks optimizations or exactly how JavaScript maps to processor instructions, etc -- we hopefully understand enough at one level of abstraction to do our jobs. Maybe LLM driving will be another level of abstraction, when it gets better at (say) architecting projects.

Re: Human coders are still better than LLMs

#28

Post by bluefirebrand »

lodovic wrote: post #6

Sure, human coders will always be better than just AI. But an experienced developer with AI tops both. Someone said, your job won't be taken by AI, it will be taken by someone who's using AI smarter than you.

> Someone said, your job won't be taken by AI, it will be taken by someone who's using AI smarter than you.

"Your job will be taken by someone who does more work faster/cheaper than you, regardless of quality" has pretty much always been true

That's why outsourcing happens too

Re: Human coders are still better than LLMs

#29

Post by haiku2077 »

smilbandit wrote: post #19

From my limited experience, former coder now management but I still get to code now and then. I've found them helpful but also intrusive. Sometimes when it guesses the code for the rest of the line and next few lines it's going down a path I don't want to go but I have to take time to scan it. Maybe it's a configuration issue, but i'd prefer it didn't put code directly in my way or be off by default and only show whe…

Zed has a "subtle" mode like that. More editors should provide it. https://zed.dev/docs/ai/edit-prediction#switching-modes

Re: Human coders are still better than LLMs

#30

Post by bgwalter »

habnds wrote: post #11

seems comparable to chess where it's well established that a human + a computer is much more skilled than either one individually

This was the Centaur hypothesis in the early days of chess programs and it hasn't been true for a long time.

Chess programs of course have a well defined algorithm. "AI" would be incapable of even writing /bin/true without having seen it before.

It certainly wouldn't have been able to write Redis.

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