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Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

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Re: Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

#231

Post by dcminter »

crazygringo wrote: post #222
dcminter wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, all of those things were dev driven until they'd diffused out as far as management and only then did they start getting enforced top-down. Often in awful enterprise software ways actually.

But that's what I'm saying. Obviously developers invented these things and initially diffused the knowledge. But you're agreeing with me that they then got enforced top-down. Just like AI. AI isn't new or different like this. Developers started using LLM's for coding, it "diffused" so management became aware, and then it becomes enforced. There's a top-down mandate to use version control or unit testing or code revie…

Sigh, enforced is always top down, sure, if you want to be pedantic. But normally the process starts with enthusiastic devs, propagates out through other devs until a consensus is reached (e.g. source control is the only sane way) and then management starts to enforce it - often with a crappy enterprise take on the basic idea (I'm looking at you IBM Team Connection and Microsoft Visual SourceSafe).

AI seems to have primarily been pushed top-down from management long before any consensus has been reached from the devs on what it's even good for.

This is unusual; I suspect the reason is that (for once) the tech is more suitable for management functions than the dev stuff. Judging from the amount of bulletpointese generation and condensation I've seen lately anyway.

Re: Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

#232

Post by bigstrat2003 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #44

I find it weird how companies talk out both sides of their mouth on AI. On the one hand it's this magical tool that will make you 10x more efficient at your job, and on the other it's something they have to market heavily and shove in your face at every turn - sometimes outright forcing you to engage with it. These two things don't seem compatible - if the tool was that good people would be beating down their doors t…

You're 100% correct. People love tools which make them more productive. If AI was actually as good as the companies pushing it claim it is, they wouldn't have to push it.

Re: Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

#233

Post by dcminter »

watwut wrote: post #162
crazygringo wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've never seen that with useful tech tools before I've seen it all the time. Version control, code review, unit testing, all of these are top-down. Tech tools like git instead of CVS and Subversion, or Node instead of Java, may be bottom-up. But practices are very much top-down, so I see AI fitting the pattern very well here. It feels very similar to code review in terms of the degree to which it changes developer…

None of them was top down in companies I worked in at the time. They were all stuff developers read about and then pressured management and peers to start using. Management caught up and started to talk about them only years later.

Yeah, RCS was what, early 80s? Devs I knew were mostly on CVS by mid 90s and around the time Subversion became common (late 90s) things like PVCS and Visual Source Safe were starting to be required by management. Perhaps a bit earlier with super technical orgs. That's a much more typical flow.

Re: Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

#234

Post by rozab »

chubot wrote: post #72
tho2342o349423 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, pretty much all of the US markets (and the USD) is hinging on "unlimited upside" promised by techbros and their magic AGIs & robots. They probably get orders from all the way up the food chain to keep the show going. Wonder what'll happen to JPY once the Yen-carry unwinds from this massive hype-cycle - will probably hit 70 JPY to the dollar! Currently Sony Bank in Japan offers USD time-deposits at 8% p…

They probably get orders from all the way up the food chain to keep the show going. Honestly I think the same thing happened with self-driving cars ~10 years ago. Larry Page and Google's "submarine" marketing convinced investors and CEOs of automakers and tech companies [1] that they were going to become obsolete, and that Google would be taking all that profit. In 2016, GM acquired Cruise for $1 billion or so. It se…

I recently watched Not Just Bikes' video on the disastrous future side effects of self-driving cars[0]. Of course it made me think about the massive PR push that made us think they were around the corner, but also about the manufactured consent for these technologies in the first place. Right now this kind of discussion is hitting the mainstream with the 'clanker'[1] backlash. I think it's really obvious to a lot of people that the AI push is not organic and is not based around consumer needs, and this manipulation is making people genuinely angry[2] (ok jreg is a performance artist, but just because something is performative doesn't mean it's not real).

[0]: https://youtu.be/040ejWnFkj0?si=7yI3eKkirJdTWPwR [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clanker [2]: https://youtu.be/RpRRejhgtVI?si=aZUVcsY8VyR_jbBA

Re: Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

#235

Post by hedora »

vluft wrote: post #188
garyfirestorm wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to point out that in certain scenarios people are not very smart. For eg. Many car enthusiasts who care about speed and 0-60 will still look down on EVs despite EVs being ridiculously fast and cheap to attain those metrics. 40k EV is faster than 150k Porsche. But these guys will never adopt it.

that's not mostly what car enthusiasts care about, especially somebody buying a 150k porsche; they care about handling and road feel and a fat pig of an EV will never match a lighter car (well set up) on that; you can't beat physics when you're slinging that much weight; even set up as well as can be, a 5000lb taycan doesn't come close to the handling feel of a 3250lb 911.

A BMW i3 weighs about 3000 lbs. They’re mostly fiberglass and have a small battery. The center of gravity is probably comparable to the 911 even though it’s tall and goofy looking (all the weight is in the battery, under the seats).

The tire geometry causes a bit of oversteering, but they generally corner well, etc.

Re: Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

#236

Post by globular-toast »

ants_everywhere wrote: post #221
globular-toast wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think GitHub added the “pull request” as a really useful add on to git and that really made it take off. Negative. The only thing GitHub added to the parlance is "forks" which are essentially like namespaced branches in the same repo.

The use of "fork" predates GitHub as well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(software_development)

Yeah, it's an older term but forking in that sense is a pretty big deal. GitHub fork is just a button press and can be done basically automatically when you are interested in a repo.

Re: Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

#237

Post by nativeit »

AlexandrB wrote: post #44

I find it weird how companies talk out both sides of their mouth on AI. On the one hand it's this magical tool that will make you 10x more efficient at your job, and on the other it's something they have to market heavily and shove in your face at every turn - sometimes outright forcing you to engage with it. These two things don't seem compatible - if the tool was that good people would be beating down their doors t…

Yes, this is what’s happening. I think it pretty well speaks for itself. It’s almost entirely hype. It’s got significant utility, just nowhere near enough utility to justify its astronomical costs and wastefulness.

Re: Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

#238

Post by nativeit »

j45 wrote: post #158
AlexandrB wrote: post #44

I find it weird how companies talk out both sides of their mouth on AI. On the one hand it's this magical tool that will make you 10x more efficient at your job, and on the other it's something they have to market heavily and shove in your face at every turn - sometimes outright forcing you to engage with it. These two things don't seem compatible - if the tool was that good people would be beating down their doors t…

Just like someone who can figure out how to write code to solve a problem can do it while other programmers say it's not possible and just do it some other way, the same is true of AI. One of the major issues I'm seeing is how much technical people haven't been involved in the application of AI, which leaves non-technical people to pontificate and try. With any new tech, after the hype is gone, what remains, is adopt…

LLMs are very different. All of the other things you mentioned found wide, eager adoption among the broader public within two years.

Re: Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

#239

Post by dcminter »

torben-friis wrote: post #141
dcminter wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an excellent point - but a lot of the pressure to use AI in orgs is top-down and I've never seen that with useful tech tools before; they always percolated outward from the more adventurous developers. This makes me wary of the AI enthusiasm, even though I acknowledge that there is some genuine value here.

We might be in the rare case where the current smoke and mirrors fad in leadership happens to be something actually useful. Let’s not let the smoke and mirrors dictate how we use the tool, but let us also not dismiss the tool just because it’s causing a fad.

I'm wary rather than skeptical I think. There's clearly value here. Whether we're paying the true costs or not, however, won't be clear until all the VC fumes have cleared.

Much like the internet era actually - obviously loads of value, but picking out the pets.coms from the amazon.coms ... well, it wasn't clear at the time which was which; probably both really (we buy our petfood online) except that only one of them had the cash reserves to make it past the dot com crash.

Re: Let us git rid of it, angry GitHub users say of forced Copilot features

#240

Post by nativeit »

nativeit wrote: post #238
j45 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like someone who can figure out how to write code to solve a problem can do it while other programmers say it's not possible and just do it some other way, the same is true of AI. One of the major issues I'm seeing is how much technical people haven't been involved in the application of AI, which leaves non-technical people to pontificate and try. With any new tech, after the hype is gone, what remains, is adopt…

LLMs are very different. All of the other things you mentioned found wide, eager adoption among the broader public within two years.

They were/are also profitable.
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