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My article on why AI is great (or terrible) or how to use it

matthewrocklin.com

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Re: My article on why AI is great (or terrible) or how to use it

#201

Post by TOMDM »

jascha_eng wrote: post #200
bdauvergne wrote: post #189

Seems people read the blog but not the code, I looked at the stated rewrite of Numpy in Rust: > As an introductory project, I rewrote Numpy in Rust. It was great fun. That's not a rewrite at all it's just a wrapping of an existing linear algebra Rust library (faer, blas, etc..) with a more Numpy like API. It seems to me that every AI project I look at is just a mashup/wrapper over existing things. Where are the real…

https://github.com/timescale/pg_textsearch BM25 index for postgres, mostly written by a single (very smart) guy and Claude Code.

Incredible.

If I get production ready bm25 and incremental view maintenance in postgres, it really will do everything I care about.

Especially with the browser/client synch maintenance stuff people are working on.

Re: My article on why AI is great (or terrible) or how to use it

#202

Post by michaelbuckbee »

lazide wrote: post #173
CharlesW wrote: post #5

I get vibe-coders not having a good experience once the honeymoon is over. But I'm fascinated that a professional software developer could have such a different experience than I do. • LLMs generate junk • LLMs generate a lot of junk

For some people, code == junk?

Depends on what it is, the quick bash script I write to verify something or the core of SaaS that's being launched have different levels of strictness, style, testing, etc.

Re: My article on why AI is great (or terrible) or how to use it

#203

Post by simonw »

sph wrote: post #191
emseetech wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My question is why use AI to output javascript or python? Why not output everything in C and ASM for 500x performance? Why use high level languages meant to be easier for humans? Why not go right to the metal? If anyone's ever tried this, it's clear why: AI is terrible at C and ASM. But that cuts into what AI is at its core: It's not actual programming, it's mechanical reproduction. Which means its incapabilities in…

I don't get this. AI coders keep saying they review all the code they push, and your suggestion is to use even harder languages the average vibe coder is unable to understand, all in name of "performance"? Faster code maybe, and exponentially increasing the tech debt and amount of bugs that slips through. It wasn't even long ago that we thought developer experience and capacity for abstraction (which is easier to ach…

> AI coders keep saying they review all the code they push

Those tides have shifted over the past 6 weeks. I'm increasingly seeing serious, experienced engineers who are using AI to write code and are not reviewing every line of code that they push, because they've developed a level of trust in the output of Opus 4.5 that line-by-line reviews no longer feel necessary.

(I'm hesitant to admit it but I'm starting to join their ranks.)

Re: My article on why AI is great (or terrible) or how to use it

#204

Post by simonw »

emseetech wrote: post #15
CharlesW wrote: post #5

I get vibe-coders not having a good experience once the honeymoon is over. But I'm fascinated that a professional software developer could have such a different experience than I do. • LLMs generate junk • LLMs generate a lot of junk

My question is why use AI to output javascript or python? Why not output everything in C and ASM for 500x performance? Why use high level languages meant to be easier for humans? Why not go right to the metal? If anyone's ever tried this, it's clear why: AI is terrible at C and ASM. But that cuts into what AI is at its core: It's not actual programming, it's mechanical reproduction. Which means its incapabilities in…

They've got good at C now. I can't speak for ASM.

Here's a C session that I found quite eye-opening the other day: https://gisthost.github.io/?1bf98596a83ff29b15a2f4790d71c41d...

Re: My article on why AI is great (or terrible) or how to use it

#205

Post by sincerely »

sodapopcan wrote: post #12
deergomoo wrote: post #2

I will never as long as I live understand the argument that AI development is more fun. If you want to argue that you’re more capable or whatever, fine. I disagree but I don’t have any data to disprove you. But saying that AI development is more fun because you don’t have to “wrestle the computer” is, to me, the same as saying you’re really into painting but you’re not really into the brush aspect so you pay someone…

Seems some people I know who really like AI aren't particularly good with their editors. Lots of AI zealots use the "learn your tools" when they are very slow with their editors. I'm sure that's not true across the board, but the sentiment that it's not worth it to get really advanced with your editor has been pretty prevalent for a very long time. I don't care if you use AI but leave me alone. I'm plenty fast withou…

Isn't that because the "best in class" LLM-enabled IDE or dev environment keeps changing every few months, or even more frequently if you're price conscious and want to use the most powerful coding models?

Re: My article on why AI is great (or terrible) or how to use it

#206

Post by simonw »

deergomoo wrote: post #2

I will never as long as I live understand the argument that AI development is more fun. If you want to argue that you’re more capable or whatever, fine. I disagree but I don’t have any data to disprove you. But saying that AI development is more fun because you don’t have to “wrestle the computer” is, to me, the same as saying you’re really into painting but you’re not really into the brush aspect so you pay someone…

[dead]

Re: My article on why AI is great (or terrible) or how to use it

#207

Post by Aerroon »

djeastm wrote: post #197
bdauvergne wrote: post #189

Seems people read the blog but not the code, I looked at the stated rewrite of Numpy in Rust: > As an introductory project, I rewrote Numpy in Rust. It was great fun. That's not a rewrite at all it's just a wrapping of an existing linear algebra Rust library (faer, blas, etc..) with a more Numpy like API. It seems to me that every AI project I look at is just a mashup/wrapper over existing things. Where are the real…

>Are so much people in programming implementing middleware / wrapping existing API all day that it gives them a feeling of liberation to be able to delegate those tasks ? Yes. A lot of jobs are providing the glue between other pieces like this and not inventing new algorithms and such. Perhaps this is why there is such a divide in sincere opinions about AI.

Which does indicate that even if AI becomes good at coding, we will still need humans to glue all the AI stuff together.

Re: My article on why AI is great (or terrible) or how to use it

#208

Post by gjadi »

eikenberry wrote: post #51
nancyminusone wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remains to be seen if that pill needs swallowing at all. At least for reading code.

If one is not writing code your ability to read code will degrade quickly and be reduced to a basic sanity check as to whether you need to add more constraints (prompts, tests, etc.). Anyone who thinks they can read code without writing code at a level needed to understand what is going on (for anything non-trivial) is fooling themselves.

As if reading books was enough to make you an author.

Re: My article on why AI is great (or terrible) or how to use it

#209

Post by [deleted] »

pona-a wrote: post #185
tverbeure wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The premise of your question is wrong. I would still write Python for most of my tasks even if I were just as fast at writing C or ASM. Because the conciseness and readability of the code that I use is way more important than execution speed 99% of the time. I assume that people who use AI tools still want to be able to make manual changes. There are hardly any all or nothing paradigms in the tech world, why do you a…

The promise of the original definition of vibe coding was you treating code as disposable, no more valuable than LLVM build cache. You aren't supposed to make corrections, review it, or whatever.

[deleted]

Re: My article on why AI is great (or terrible) or how to use it

#210

Post by tqian »

throwup238 wrote: post #196
bdauvergne wrote: post #189

Seems people read the blog but not the code, I looked at the stated rewrite of Numpy in Rust: > As an introductory project, I rewrote Numpy in Rust. It was great fun. That's not a rewrite at all it's just a wrapping of an existing linear algebra Rust library (faer, blas, etc..) with a more Numpy like API. It seems to me that every AI project I look at is just a mashup/wrapper over existing things. Where are the real…

> Anecdotally, we use Opus 4.5 constantly on Zed's code base, which is almost a million lines of Rust code and has over 150K active users, and we use it for basically every task you can think of - new features, bug fixes, refactors, prototypes, you name it. The code base is a complex native GUI with no Web tech anywhere in it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46522437 Zed is open source so you can look at their P…

Zed on Linux is buggy as hell. On macos it's somehow more stable. Maybe Zed is indeed a "good" example of Ai-coded products.
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