231–240 of 467 posts
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Yeah, I'll gladly AI-gen code, but I still write docs by hand. Have yet to see one good AI generated doc, they're all garbage.
Agree. I also wonder whether this helps account for why some people get great value from AI and some terrible value.
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> Productivity gains are real in current form of LLM I haven't found that to be true I'm of the opinion that anyone who is impressed by the code these things produce is a hack
I just started a project, they fired the previous team, I am possitive they used AI. The app is full of bugs and the client will never hire the old company again. Whoever says is time to move to LLMS is clueless.
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It's time to jump on the train. I'm a cranky, old, embedded SWE and claude 4.5 is changing how I work. Before that I laughed off LLMs. They were trash. Claude still has issues, but damn, I think if I don't integrate it into my workflow I'll be out of work or relegated to work in QA or devops(where I'd likely be forced to use it). No, it's not going to write all your code for you. Yes your skills are still needed to d…
The moment your code departs from typical patterns in the training set or ("agentic environment") LLMs fall over at best (i.e. can't even find the thing) or do some random nonsense at worst. IMO LLMs are still at the point where they require significant handholding, showing what exactly to do, exactly where. Otherwise, it's constant review of random application of different random patterns, which may or may not satis…
It will give the developer a leg up in the future when the mature tools are ready. Just like the people who surfed the 90s internet seem to do better with advanced technology than the youngsters who've only seen the latest sleek modern GUI tools and apps of today.
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A contrarian opinion - I also didn't jump the train yet, its even forbidden in our part of company due to various regulations re data secrecy and generally slow adoption. Also - for most seasoned developers, actual dev activity is miniscule part of overall efforts. If you are churning code like some sweatshop every single day at say 45 its by your own choice, you don't want to progress in career or career didn't push…
There have been times when something was very important and my ability to churn out quick proof of concept code (pre AI) made the difference. It has catapulted me. I thought talking was all-important, but turns out, there's already too much talk and not enough action in these working groups. So now with AI, that's even quicker. And I can do it more easily during the half relevant part of meetings, which I have a lot…
It is always the talking that transitions "here's quick proof of concept" to "someone else will implement this fully and then maintain". One cannot be catapulted if they cannot offload the implementation and maintenance. Two quick proof of concept ideas you are stuck with and it's already your full capacity. one either talks their way out to having a team supporting them or they find themselves on a PIP with a regular backlog piling up.
What about surveillance? Lately I've been feeling that is what it's really for. Because our data can be queried in a much more powerful way when it has all been used to train LLMs.
- Companies had to go in that direction. You cannot just fall behind AI gold rush - These solutions are easier for people, and therefore will win in the long run - these solutions benefit companies because of the surveillance data they have access to now. They always had some data, but now they collect and process even more - those who control AI will be the kings of the future, so naturally everyone will be running…
The average user I've seen takes LLM output as objective fact. One only needs to look at muskgrok to see where that's headed.
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There have been times when something was very important and my ability to churn out quick proof of concept code (pre AI) made the difference. It has catapulted me. I thought talking was all-important, but turns out, there's already too much talk and not enough action in these working groups. So now with AI, that's even quicker. And I can do it more easily during the half relevant part of meetings, which I have a lot…
> ability to churn out quick proof of concept code (pre AI) made the difference. It has catapulted me. I thought talking was all-important It is always the talking that transitions "here's quick proof of concept" to "someone else will implement this fully and then maintain". One cannot be catapulted if they cannot offload the implementation and maintenance. Two quick proof of concept ideas you are stuck with and it's…
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This means to me AI is rocket fuel for our post-truth reality. Post-truth is a big deal and it was already happening pre-AI. AGI, post-scarcity, post-humanity are nerd snipes. Post-truth on the other hand is just a mundane and nasty sociologically problem that we ran head-first into and we don't know how to deal with. I don't have any answers. Seems like it'll get worse before it gets better.
How would you define post-truth? It's not like people haven't been spouting incorrect facts or total bs since forever.
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Your reasoning would be fine if there were a clear distinction, like between a microwave and a grill. What we actually have is a physical system (the brain) that somehow implements what we know as the only approximation of general intelligence and artificial systems of various architectures (mostly transformers) that are intended to capture the essence of general intelligence. We are not at the microwave and the gril…
There was a lot of hubris around microwaves. I remember a lot of images of full chickens being roasted in them. I've never once seen that "in the wild" as it were. They are good for reheating something that was produced earlier. Hey the metaphor is even better than I thought!
Attempting to roast a full chicken or turkey is not the correct way to use microwaves. You must first remove the bones from the bird, then cut the meat into bite-sized chunks. After using a boning knife for the former operation, I prefer to do the latter operation with some good Japanese kitchen scissors, as it is simpler and faster than with a knife.
If you buy turkey/chicken breasts or thighs without bones, then you have to do only the latter operation and cut them into bite-sized pieces.
Then you can roast the meat pieces in a closed glass vessel, without adding anything to the meat, except salt and spices (i.e. no added water or oil). The microwave oven must be set to a relatively low power and long time, e.g. for turkey meat to 30 minutes @ 440 W and for chicken to less time than that, e.g. 20 to 25 minutes. The exact values depend on the oven and on the amount of cooked meat, but once determined by experiment, they remain valid forever.
The meat cooked like this is practically identical to meat cooked on a covered grill (the kind with indirect heating, through hot air), but it is done faster and without needing any supervision. In my opinion this results in the tastiest meat in comparison with any other cooking method. However, I do not care about a roasted crust on the meat, which is also unhealthy, so I do not use the infrared lamp that the microwave oven has for making such a crust.
Vegetable garnishes, e.g. potatoes, must be cooked at microwaves separate from the meat, as they typically need much less time than meat, usually less than 10 minutes (but higher power). Everything must be mixed into the final dish after cooking, including things like added oil, which should better not be heated at great temperatures.
Even without the constraints of a microwave oven, preparing meat like this makes much more sense than cooking whole birds or fish or whatever. Removing all the bones and any other inedible parts and also cutting the meat into bite-sized pieces before cooking wastes much less time than when everybody must repeat all these operations every time during eating, so I consider that serving whole animals at a meal is just stupid, even if they may look appetizing for some people.
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It's time to jump on the train. I'm a cranky, old, embedded SWE and claude 4.5 is changing how I work. Before that I laughed off LLMs. They were trash. Claude still has issues, but damn, I think if I don't integrate it into my workflow I'll be out of work or relegated to work in QA or devops(where I'd likely be forced to use it). No, it's not going to write all your code for you. Yes your skills are still needed to d…
The moment your code departs from typical patterns in the training set or ("agentic environment") LLMs fall over at best (i.e. can't even find the thing) or do some random nonsense at worst. IMO LLMs are still at the point where they require significant handholding, showing what exactly to do, exactly where. Otherwise, it's constant review of random application of different random patterns, which may or may not satis…
Using AI, I constantly realize that a-typical patterns are much rarer than I thought.
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> Software engineers been automating our own work since we built the first assembler. The declared goal of AI is to automated software engineering entirely. This is in no way comparable to building an assembler. So the question is mostly about whether or not this goal will be achieved. Still, nobody is building these systems _for_ me. They're building them to replace me, because my living is too much for them to pay.
Automating away software engineering entirely is nothing new. It goes all the way back to BASIC and COBOL, and later visual programming tools, Microsoft Access, etc. There have been innumerable attempts to do somehow get by without need those pedantic and difficult programmers and all their annoying questions and nit picking. But here's the thing: the hard part of programming was never really syntax, it was about hav…
Syntax is not a gatekeeper function. It’s exactly the means to describe the precise systemic thinking. When you’re creating a program, you’re creating a DSL for multiple subsystem, which you then integrate.
The subsystem can be abstract, but we usually define good software by how closely fitted the subsystem are to the problem at hand, meaning adjustments only need slight code alterations.
So viewing syntax as a gatekeeper is like viewing sheet music as a gatekeeper for playing music, or numbers and arithmetic as a gatekeeper for accounting.