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Leave Me Behind

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Re: Leave Me Behind

#241

Post by philipp-gayret »

nradov wrote: post #222
ary wrote: post #167

There are a number of comments here where people open up about their contrasting experiences of not being a part of a programming community. Those are well addressed, I think, but there is another point to consider. We need to remember the people, that we may never talk to, that are downstream of all of this software. Not necessarily “the users” as there are many pieces of software meant for other devs, but I think t…

Nah, there's no evidence of reduced quality. If anything it's the reverse. I've seen AI code review tools be tremendously effective at catching defects which otherwise would have shipped.

In the DORA group's reporting on AI-assisted software engineering, they indeed state that across industries, quality goes UP with the use of AI assistants like Claude and others.

Moreover, in my experience helping businesses on this topic; They never defined or made measurable what quality meant in the first place. Then when they finally do figure it out, it turns out that the average repository is a total disappointment in terms of absolute quality.

Re: Leave Me Behind

#242

Post by unknownfuture »

prerok wrote: post #238
unknownfuture wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Handing over software quality to the stochastic code extruder is causing a sharp drop in the quality of software put out into the world. I genuinely don't know if that's true and I doubt you do, either. It's all feels right now. What I do know is I run a couple of personal projects and I can say they are of objectively higher quality now that I'm using AI to build out proper CI pipelines, expand test coverage, prod…

Even if the jury is still out, I would still say you are both right already. The amount of slop produced even in company setting is staggering and I don't like it one bit that neither the submitter nor the reviewer of the PR paid due dilligence. And I am only complaining because it then becomes my problem. So, then I have to start nagging people to clean that up. I can say with 100% certainty that the problems I face…

Very well said.

I also think reading and reviewing code is a skill that connected to but very much independent of the writing of code, and the use of coding agents requires us to be far more skilled and diligent at it.

So put another way, people who were good at coding without agents may in fact be a poor fit with them, which means the entire industry is experiencing a dislocation between skills we have and skills we need, leading to extremely bimodal outcomes.

Re: Leave Me Behind

#244

Post by sillyfluke »

unknownfuture wrote: post #205
ary wrote: post #167

There are a number of comments here where people open up about their contrasting experiences of not being a part of a programming community. Those are well addressed, I think, but there is another point to consider. We need to remember the people, that we may never talk to, that are downstream of all of this software. Not necessarily “the users” as there are many pieces of software meant for other devs, but I think t…

> Handing over software quality to the stochastic code extruder is causing a sharp drop in the quality of software put out into the world. I genuinely don't know if that's true and I doubt you do, either. It's all feels right now. What I do know is I run a couple of personal projects and I can say they are of objectively higher quality now that I'm using AI to build out proper CI pipelines, expand test coverage, prod…

It's a bit weird when the article in question is predominantly about software development in a professional setting and the top comment is about how some people in thread are disregarding this context and opining unrelatedly about their unique solo development or personal project development experiences, to then respond to said comment by insistently going on about how AI is great for your personal projects, when people are unable to assess the value of your AI-assisted personal projects and whether they would concur with the high opinion you have of them. A turd with a CI pipeline is still a turd, I think we can all agree on that. IF someone said AI is great because they can now expand test coverage and build a CI pipeline for their todo app in rust, it wouldn't exactly be the proof you're looking for I don't think.

But I agree fully with your last paragraph, and said something similar in a comment elsewhere where I stated my tangible bar as being a Ladybird like browser built from scratch achieving Chrome parity in six months while doing continuous stable releases with coding agents in tow. Otherwise, as you said, the jury is still out.

Re: Leave Me Behind

#245

Post by prerok »

nradov wrote: post #222
ary wrote: post #167

There are a number of comments here where people open up about their contrasting experiences of not being a part of a programming community. Those are well addressed, I think, but there is another point to consider. We need to remember the people, that we may never talk to, that are downstream of all of this software. Not necessarily “the users” as there are many pieces of software meant for other devs, but I think t…

Nah, there's no evidence of reduced quality. If anything it's the reverse. I've seen AI code review tools be tremendously effective at catching defects which otherwise would have shipped.

Same for me. I have not yet successfully used an LLM to generate code to produce a feature, though to be fair, it might just be because I don't have the patience to go back and forth with it (will readily admit that I am using it wrong).

Also, while some code review comments are just plain wrong, LLMs did produce some damn good comments, on the same level as a different senior engineer might note had they taken the time to study the code carefully.

Re: Leave Me Behind

#246

Post by joe_mamba »

wolvesechoes wrote: post #235
joe_mamba wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Thanks to colonialism, also in more modern form called globalism. You don't have to participate in globalism, you can be a hermit state that doesn't trade with the evil imperial capitalists, like Cuba and North Korea. Everyone wants to live there because the QoL is so good.

And it so good, because west extracted wealth and materials from all around the world places, and still extracts through globalisation. QoL is so good here precisely because it is so poor out there.

>because west extracted wealth and materials from all around the world places

If those "around the world places" had all the valuable resources that enabled modern civilisation when the west came and took them, why weren't they the ones to first make use of them to build computers, vaccines, MR machines and moon rockets, or at least clean drinking water and indoor sanitation facilities for their people?

Or why didn't those "around the world places" then go and extract wealth and materials from the west instead? What stopped them? Surely it wasn't their moral values, since war, slavery and genocide even cannibalism, of their neighboring tribes and nations, was the norm of the day over there.

>and still extracts through globalisation

Correction: "pays for it through globalisation". That's how countries like India and China got so many people out of poverty after globalisation.

Re: Leave Me Behind

#247

Post by fasterik »

It seems to me that the article is creating a false dichotomy where either you don't use AI at all, or you delegate every aspect of the work to AI. This simply isn't how it works in practice. You get to choose how much of the work you delegate to AI. There's still an enormous amount of space for human expertise, community, and enthusiasm for technology.

The public debate around AI makes me think of the cognitive distortions discussed in cognitive behavioral therapy. In particular, all-or-nothing thinking and catastrophizing. These are often symptoms of anxiety or psychosis. I sometimes wonder whether entire societies can experience these symptoms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion#Decatastr...

Re: Leave Me Behind

#248

Post by slopinthebag »

josephg wrote: post #37
lacedeconstruct wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A slop fork machine is way different though, I dont know why authors never thought about this but imagine a machine that can detect the features and replicate whatever it sees, show it how to make bread once and it can do it infinitely, make it listen to a song and its able to find why it sounds the way it does and just spam variations, even if it doesnt make anything original it demotivates any attempt to push the b…

Really? I'm more motivated than ever to make stuff at the moment. I have a long list of projects I've always wanted to make, but I never had time. The barrier is so low now. For example, I want to make: - A mini OS on top of SeL4 - A UI framework based on SolidJS, for native apps, in rust. - My own photo manager (which can do backups & sync across all my devices). And a gallery to share photos with friends - A local…

The issue is maintenance. If you want to use these projects for important things, you need to maintain them. If you don't want to maintain them, I can't see myself using them for anything important.

I actually want less software for myself. Less things to maintain. I've become a "digital minimalist" in that I use very few software, only ones maintained by others who can afford and are willing to keep them working.

Re: Leave Me Behind

#249

Post by slopinthebag »

satvikpendem wrote: post #171
ori_b wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why would you buy it off of Anthropic?

I don't understand the question. For one thing I use local models mainly, but even if I didn't, I'd be buying the tokens from cloud model providers, not the prepackaged, fully complete software itself. I buy the tokens to make what I want. It's actually quite similar to buying the services of a programmer off Upwork to build something for me, only with LLMs it's way cheaper and faster, with a shorter feedback loop.

I think their point is that you aren't really doing the implementing, Claude (or any model really) is. If you genuinely find prompting LLMs to be fun, then by all means go for it.

Re: Leave Me Behind

#250

Post by [deleted] »

unknownfuture wrote: post #205
ary wrote: post #167

There are a number of comments here where people open up about their contrasting experiences of not being a part of a programming community. Those are well addressed, I think, but there is another point to consider. We need to remember the people, that we may never talk to, that are downstream of all of this software. Not necessarily “the users” as there are many pieces of software meant for other devs, but I think t…

> Handing over software quality to the stochastic code extruder is causing a sharp drop in the quality of software put out into the world. I genuinely don't know if that's true and I doubt you do, either. It's all feels right now. What I do know is I run a couple of personal projects and I can say they are of objectively higher quality now that I'm using AI to build out proper CI pipelines, expand test coverage, prod…

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