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I am happier writing code by hand

abhinavomprakash.com

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Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#211

Post by igravious »

blks wrote: post #164
tux1968 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like you're doing a lot of work to miss the actual point. Focusing on the minutiae of the analogy is a distraction from the over arching and obvious point. It has nothing to do with how you feel , it has to do with how you will compete in a world with others who feel differently. There were carpenters who refused to use power tools, some still do. They are probably happy -- and that's great, all the power to…

I don’t think it’s correct to claim that AI generated code is just next level of abstraction. All previously mentioned levels produce deterministic results. Same input, same output. AI-generation is not deterministic. It’s not even predictable. And example of big software companies clearly show what mass adoption of AI tools will look like in terms of software quality. I dread if using AI will ever be an expectation,…

People on here keep trotting out this "AI-generation is not deterministic." (more properly speaking, non-deterministic) argument on here …

And my retort to you (and them) is, "Oh yeah, and so?"

What about me asking Claude Code to generate a factorial function in C or Python or Rust or insert-your-language-of-choice-here is non-deterministic?

If you're referring to the fact that for a given input LLMs (or whatever) because of certain controls (temperature controls?) don't give the same outputs for the same inputs. Yeah, okay. If we're talking about conversational language that makes a meaningful difference to whether it sounds like an ELISA robots or more like a human. But ask an LLM to output some code then that code has to adhere to functional requirements independent of, muh, non-determinism. And what's to stop you (if you're so sceptical/scared) writing test-cases to make sure the code that is magically whisked out of nowhere performs as you so desire? Nothing. What's to stop you getting one agent to write the test-suite (and for you to review to the test-suite for correctness and for another agent to the write the code and self-correct based off of checking its code against the test-suite? Nothing

I would advise anyone encountering this but-they're-non-deterministic argument on HN to really think through what the proponents of this argument are implying. I mean, aren't humans non-deterministic. (I should have thought so.) So how is it, pray tell humans manage to write correct software in the first place?

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#212

Post by singingbard »

agentultra wrote: post #81
woeirua wrote: post #5

This is no different then carpentry. Yes, all furniture can now be built by machines. Some people still choose to build it by hand. Does that make them less productive? Yes. Will they ever carve furniture by hand for a business? Probably not. Can they still enjoy the act of working with the wood? Yes. If you want to code by hand, then do it! No one's stopping you. But we shouldn't pretend that you will be able to do…

I’ve heard this metaphor before and I don’t think it works well. For one, a power tool like a bandsaw is a centaur technology. I, the human, am the top half of the centaur. The tool drives around doing what I tell it to do and helping me to do the task faster (or at all in some cases). A GenAI tool is a reverse-centaur technology. The algorithm does almost all of the work. I’m the bottom half of the centaur helping t…

To me, they all the same because they are all tools that stand between “my vision” and “it being built.”

e.g. when I built a truck camper, maybe 50% was woodworking but I had to do electrical, plumbing, metalworking, plastic printing, and even networking infra.

The satisfaction was not from using power tools (or hand tools too) — those were chores — it was that I designed the entire thing from scratch by myself, it worked, was reliable through the years, and it looked professional.

LLMs serve the same purpose for me.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#213

Post by queenkjuul »

orphea wrote: post #125
echelon wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not dogshit if you're steering. That's what so many of you are not getting. Look at the pretty pictures AI generates. That's where we are with code now. Except you have ComfyUI instead of ChatGPT. You can work with precision. I'm a 500k TC senior SWE. I write six nines, active-active, billion dollar a day systems. I'm no stranger to writing thirty page design documents. These systems can work in my domain just f…

> Look at the pretty pictures AI generates. That's where we are with code now. Oh, that is a great analogy. Yes, those pictures are pretty! Until you look closer. Any experienced artist or designer will tell you that they are dogshit and don't have value. Don't look further than at Ubisoft and their Anno 117 game for a proof. Yep, that's where we are with code now . Pretty - until you look close. Dogshit - if you car…

I agree entirely, except i don't know that I've seen pretty pictures from AI.

"Glossy" might be a good word (no i don't mean literally shiny, even if they are sometimes that).

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#214

Post by wtetzner »

orphea wrote: post #125
echelon wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not dogshit if you're steering. That's what so many of you are not getting. Look at the pretty pictures AI generates. That's where we are with code now. Except you have ComfyUI instead of ChatGPT. You can work with precision. I'm a 500k TC senior SWE. I write six nines, active-active, billion dollar a day systems. I'm no stranger to writing thirty page design documents. These systems can work in my domain just f…

> Look at the pretty pictures AI generates. That's where we are with code now. Oh, that is a great analogy. Yes, those pictures are pretty! Until you look closer. Any experienced artist or designer will tell you that they are dogshit and don't have value. Don't look further than at Ubisoft and their Anno 117 game for a proof. Yep, that's where we are with code now . Pretty - until you look close. Dogshit - if you car…

Not to mention how hard it is to actually get what you want out of it. The image might be pretty, and kinda sorta what you asked for. But if you need something specific, trying to get AI to generate it is like pulling teeth.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#215

Post by igravious »

tux1968 wrote: post #177
blks wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s correct to claim that AI generated code is just next level of abstraction. All previously mentioned levels produce deterministic results. Same input, same output. AI-generation is not deterministic. It’s not even predictable. And example of big software companies clearly show what mass adoption of AI tools will look like in terms of software quality. I dread if using AI will ever be an expectation,…

You're not wrong. But your same objection was made against compilers. That they are opaque, have differences from one to another, and can introduce bugs, they're not actually deterministic if you upgrade the compiler, etc. They separate the programmer from the code the computer eventually executes. In any case, clinging to the fact that this technology is different in some ways, continues to ignore the many ways it's…

They may not be wrong per se but that argument is essentially a strawman argument.

If these tools are non-deterministic then how did someone at Anthropic spend the equivalent of $20,000 of Anthropic compute and end up with a C compiler that can compile the Linux kernel (one of the largest bodies of C code out there).

There is clearly something that completely missies the point about the but-muh-non-determinism argument. See my direct response: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46936586

You'll notice this objection comes up each time a "OpenClaw changed my life" or conversely "Agentic Coding ain't it fam" article swings by.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#216

Post by lokar »

onehair wrote: post #210
lokar wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worry that means the bad code / schema / design never gets improved. I've spent a lot of my career cleaning up stuff like that, I guess with AI we just stop caring?

I wonder just what goes into someone's mind, when they do not care about who in the future is gonna have to maintain what they've crafted. Nor care about the experience of the user. Nor even feel accountable when they haven't done their due diligence to do things right.

And each time you do this, you make it worse. Now, if anyone ever wants to fix this, they have to fix your code as well.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#217

Post by direwolf20 »

JodieBenitez wrote: post #139
woeirua wrote: post #5

This is no different then carpentry. Yes, all furniture can now be built by machines. Some people still choose to build it by hand. Does that make them less productive? Yes. Will they ever carve furniture by hand for a business? Probably not. Can they still enjoy the act of working with the wood? Yes. If you want to code by hand, then do it! No one's stopping you. But we shouldn't pretend that you will be able to do…

I'm still not sure about the productivity. Last time I asked a LLM to generate a lib for me it did it in a few second but the result took me the day to review and correct. About the same time it would take me to write it from scratch.

I think you're supposed to ask another LLM instance to review it, then ask the first LLM instance to implement corrections, or that's how I understand it.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#218

Post by queenkjuul »

mlaretallack wrote: post #137
candiddevmike wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want to code by hand, then do it! No one's stopping you. But we shouldn't pretend that you will be able to do that professionally for much longer. If you can't code by hand professionally anymore, what are you being paid to do? Bring the specs to the LLMs? Deal with the customers so the LLMs don't have to?

I am currently doing 6 projects at the same time, where before I would only of doing one at a time. This includes the requirements, design, implementation and testing.

Sounds awful

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#219

Post by tablatom »

throw7272855 wrote: post #209

Coding with AI falls in one of three categories: 1. The thing to be written is available online. AI is a search engine to find it, maybe also translate it to the language of choice. 2. The thing (system or component or function) is genuinely new. The spec has to be very precise and the AI is just doing the typing. This is, at best working around syntax issues, such as some hard-to-remember particular SQL syntax or so…

I’m really happy to see this take. It’s not the first time but it’s not said often enough. I once had the thought that anything AI can do really well is probably something that should not be being done at all. That’s an overly broad statement but I think there’s some truth in it. The grand challenge of software engineering is to find beautifully elegant and precise ways to express what we want the computer to do for us. If we can find them, it will be better to express ourselves in those ways than to prompt an AI than do it for us, much in the same way that a blog written by an LLM is not worth reading.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#220

Post by lokar »

KronisLV wrote: post #206

I like writing code that I don't have time pressure around, as well as the kind where I can afford to fail and use that as a learning experience. Especially the code that I can structure myself. I sometimes dread writing code that's in a state of bad disrepair or is overly complex, think a lot of the "enterprise" code out there - it got so bad that I more or less quit a job over it, though never really stated that pu…

I wonder if some of the divide in the LLM-code discourse is between people who have mostly/always worked in jobs where they have the time and freedom to do things correctly, and to go back and fix stuff as they go, vs people who have mostly not (and instead worked under constant unrealistic time pressure, no focus on quality, API design, re-factoring, etc)
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