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A coder considers the waning days of the craft

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Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#201

Post by marcus_holmes »

silenced_trope wrote: post #141
hiddencost wrote: post #130

> At one point, we wanted a command that would print a hundred random lines from a dictionary file. I thought about the problem for a few minutes, and, when thinking failed, tried Googling. I made some false starts using what I could gather, and while I did my thing—programming—Ben told GPT-4 what he wanted and got code that ran perfectly. I mean ... IDK, if you can't write that on your own without research, I don't…

I'm the opposite. I feel like it is true. I very much will NO LONGER THINK about "simple" problems. My most recent thing is for a game I'm working on. I got a bunch of free sound FX from freesound.org, but they were AIFF format. I googled and found an online converter, then asked ChatGPT to use ffmpeg to write a script that goes through the directory converting the AIFFs to MP3s. In the past if I would have written s…

Every time I've tried to get it to do something reasonably simple like this, it returns plausible-sounding code that doesn't work.

My last attempt to use it was to do with resolving circular calculations in Excel - I wanted some way of calculating the sum of a geometric series without having the series in actual cells. It kept recommending things that didn't work.

I'm always amazed to hear of people who manage to get working code from an AI. This has not been my experience.

Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#202

Post by Der_Einzige »

rsanek wrote: post #92
stcroixx wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If software dev is simplified to the point people working jobs like you describe are able to do it, wages will also plummet, so it’s not like their situation is going to improve.

This is a zero-sum way of thinking about the world.

Life is zero sum. Space I exist in is space someone else literally can’t exist in. Anyone telling you something else is lying to you and doesn’t have your best interests at heart.

Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#203

Post by calibas »

Until there's actual general AI, we'll still need people that understand how things work on a fundamental level. You can use AI created code, but you still need someone to tie everything together. You're also going to want an experienced person to debug when something goes wrong.

I think it's funny how terrified people are at the prospect of AI and machines doing most of the work for human beings. If used intelligently and equitably, it'll mean more free time and prosperity for everyone.

Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#204

Post by pdimitar »

bdangubic wrote: post #135
swatcoder wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLM’s synthesize new material that looks most like material they’ve been trained on. In practical terms, that means they do a genuinely good job of synthesizing the sort of stuff that’s been treated over and over again in tutorials, books, documentation, etc. The more times something’s been covered. the greater variety in which it’s been covered, and the greater similarity it has to other things that have already bee…

Every senior person thinks just like you do... The fact that you "earned (y)our senior roles rather than just aged into them" has nothing to do whether or not your skills can be replaced technology like LLM's. Chances are that you most likely earned your senior role in a specific company / field and your seniority has less to do with your technical skills but more with domain knowledge. Truth is that there aren't man…

Care to clarify why is your parent wrong? They said that LLMs can't be trained on what's not publicly available, and a lot of it is deeper knowledge. What's your retort?

Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#205

Post by julianeon »

hyperthesis wrote: post #172
hiddencost wrote: post #130

> At one point, we wanted a command that would print a hundred random lines from a dictionary file. I thought about the problem for a few minutes, and, when thinking failed, tried Googling. I made some false starts using what I could gather, and while I did my thing—programming—Ben told GPT-4 what he wanted and got code that ran perfectly. I mean ... IDK, if you can't write that on your own without research, I don't…

To be really fair, there are levels of programming. The easiest level is traditionally vulnerable to automation. There's a lot of "accidental complexity" ( https://wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Silver_Bullet ), e.g. ffmpeg, git; even in recalling syntax and idiom of an infrequently used tool, e.g. bash, jq. Once upon a time, developers had to pore over manpages, paper textbooks, or memorize it. Then came google. Next, stacke…

I know that last line is wry but I feel like people need the reminder:

The graveyards are filled to overflowing with companies that were challenged by low-end 'crappy' products and said 'they are going after the bottom of the market, we are safe'... a few years before they entered a terminal decline, and a decade before they went extinct.

Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#206

Post by fisherjeff »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #157
al_borland wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also where I find most of the work. There are plenty of off the shelf tools to solve all the needs of the company I work at. However, we still end up making a lot of our own stuff, because we want something that the off the shelf option doesn't do, or it can't scale to the level we need. Other times we buy two tools that can't talk to each other and need to write something to make them talk. I often hear people…

It’s not just about if a LLM could replace you, if a LLM replaces other enough other programmers it’ll tank the market price for your skills.

I think another possibility is if you have skills that an LLM can’t replicate, your value may actually increase.

Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#207

Post by wlesieutre »

djbusby wrote: post #171
gavmor wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$ cat /usr/share/dict/words | shuf | head -n 10 $ convert foo.png foo.jpg Took me almost literally two seconds to come up with that, unless your point is that at one point I had to learn it which, yeah, sure. What am I missing?

You're missing that some folk haven't learned that yet - and that others have forgotten it. In 2013 I was using complex ffmpeg commands and using filters in there. Could remember the stuff easy. Now, I've gotta reference my ffmpeg notes more frequently. Where's that XKCD about using the tar command?

> Where’s that XKCD about using the tar command?

As of my last knowledge update in January 2022, I can't provide specific details about the latest XKCD comics or their numbers because my training data only includes information available up to that time. However, you can easily find XKCD comics on the official XKCD website (xkcd.com) by using the search function or by browsing through the archives.

If there's a specific XKCD comic related to the "tar" command that you're looking for, you might be able to find it by searching for keywords like "XKCD tar command" on a search engine or directly on the XKCD website. The website has a good search feature that allows you to find comics based on keywords or topics.

Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#208

Post by mock-possum »

silenced_trope wrote: post #141
hiddencost wrote: post #130

> At one point, we wanted a command that would print a hundred random lines from a dictionary file. I thought about the problem for a few minutes, and, when thinking failed, tried Googling. I made some false starts using what I could gather, and while I did my thing—programming—Ben told GPT-4 what he wanted and got code that ran perfectly. I mean ... IDK, if you can't write that on your own without research, I don't…

I'm the opposite. I feel like it is true. I very much will NO LONGER THINK about "simple" problems. My most recent thing is for a game I'm working on. I got a bunch of free sound FX from freesound.org, but they were AIFF format. I googled and found an online converter, then asked ChatGPT to use ffmpeg to write a script that goes through the directory converting the AIFFs to MP3s. In the past if I would have written s…

Doesn’t VLC or Foobar have a batch convert feature? Or Audacity? One of them does, pretty sure?

Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#209

Post by javajosh »

simonw wrote: post #176

> What I learned was that programming is not really about knowledge or skill but simply about patience, or maybe obsession. Programmers are people who can endure an endless parade of tedious obstacles. This captures the reason I'm optimistic about AI-assisted programming. The learning curve for getting started programming is horribly steep - and it's not because it's hard, it's because it's frustrating. You have to s…

>You have to sweat through six months of weird error messages and missing semicolons before you get to the point where it feels like you're actually building things and making progress.

Computers are rude and honest and humans prefer a pretty lie to an ugly truth. Programmers must appreciate the ugly truth in their day-to-day lives more than any other profession. (Physical engineering and construction workers and repairers also need this virtue, but less often since their feedback cycles are slower.)

Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#210

Post by quickthrower2 »

simonw wrote: post #176

> What I learned was that programming is not really about knowledge or skill but simply about patience, or maybe obsession. Programmers are people who can endure an endless parade of tedious obstacles. This captures the reason I'm optimistic about AI-assisted programming. The learning curve for getting started programming is horribly steep - and it's not because it's hard, it's because it's frustrating. You have to s…

It is the same messy tedious thing with LLMs though. You still have the complex brittle artefact that is code.

LLMs writing code is the beginning, but low or no code is more ideal for most people. With LLM assistance.

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