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I’m spending months coding the old way

miguelconner.substack.com

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Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#251

Post by fg137 »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #174
AstroBen wrote: post #45

I wish more was being invested in AI autocomplete workflows. That was a nice middle-ground. But yeah my hunch is "the old way" - although not sure we can even call it that - is likely still on par with an "agentic" workflow if you view it through a wider lens. You retain much better knowledge of the codebase. You improve your understanding over coding concepts (active recall is far stronger than passive recognition).

AI autocomplete sucked. Everyone quickly moved on because it is not a useful interface

Who's "everyone"?

In some codebases, autocomplete is the most accurate and efficient way to get things done, because "agentic" workflows only produce unmaintainable mess there.

I know that because there are several times where I completely removed generated code and instead coded by hand.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#252

Post by neocron »

apricot wrote: post #86

I am this very term teaching 18-year-old students 6502 assembly programming using an emulated Apple II Plus. They've had intro to Python, data structures, and OO programming courses using a modern programming environment. Now, they are programming a chip from the seventies using an editor/assembler that was written in 1983 and has a line editor, not a full-screen one. We had a total of 10 hours of class + lab where I…

I would love if you made such lectures into a series of YouTube videos as I sadly didn't have the pleasure in university. We only Java 6/7 as an indicator how long ago that was

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#255

Post by IshKebab »

apricot wrote: post #86

I am this very term teaching 18-year-old students 6502 assembly programming using an emulated Apple II Plus. They've had intro to Python, data structures, and OO programming courses using a modern programming environment. Now, they are programming a chip from the seventies using an editor/assembler that was written in 1983 and has a line editor, not a full-screen one. We had a total of 10 hours of class + lab where I…

Hmm I dunno if I'm a fan of making things painful for students just because it was painful in the past. When I "learnt" assembly in uni we had to manually assemble the opcodes and type them into a 10 digit keypad. I didn't learn anything, it just put me off.

I'm pretty skeptical that using a line editor will have helped them learn. It probably helped them memorise their code but is that really learning? Dubious.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#256

Post by stingraycharles »

elAhmo wrote: post #236

It is amazing to see such a change in the industry: this title is something nearly every single developer could've said ~two years ago, now anyone claiming to code by hand is almost like an endangered species.

It worries me that I’m losing my muscle memory, especially for the new technologies and programming languages I have been working with over the past year (as it’s suddenly so much easier to get shit done), and I feel like I’m creating a knowledge debt as I go.

I’m very concerned about how the next generation of software engineers will pick up deep knowledge about this stuff, if at all.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#257

Post by chrisweekly »

zrobotics wrote: post #145
apricot wrote: post #86

I am this very term teaching 18-year-old students 6502 assembly programming using an emulated Apple II Plus. They've had intro to Python, data structures, and OO programming courses using a modern programming environment. Now, they are programming a chip from the seventies using an editor/assembler that was written in 1983 and has a line editor, not a full-screen one. We had a total of 10 hours of class + lab where I…

I took a very similar class 9 years ago, and it was honestly one of the most helpful things I got out of my CS degree. The low level and limited tooling taught me to think before I start writing. I've had other people look askanse at me, but on greenfield work I tend to start with pen and graph paper. I'm not even writing pseudocode, but diagramming a loose graph with potential functions or classes and arrows interco…

"Plans are useless, but planning is essential."

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#258

Post by armchairhacker »

heyalexhsu wrote: post #144
AstroBen wrote: post #45

I wish more was being invested in AI autocomplete workflows. That was a nice middle-ground. But yeah my hunch is "the old way" - although not sure we can even call it that - is likely still on par with an "agentic" workflow if you view it through a wider lens. You retain much better knowledge of the codebase. You improve your understanding over coding concepts (active recall is far stronger than passive recognition).

I can see the logic behind "manual coding" but it feels like driving across country vs taking the airplane. Once I've taken the airplane once, its so hard to go back...

How?

I usually code faster with good (next-edit) autocomplete then writing a prompt and waiting for the agent.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#259

Post by echelon »

i2km wrote: post #133
echelon wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean to cause a stir! Let me invoke every logical fallacy and dirty rhetorical device I can if it draws attention. Too many of our engineering conversations are dominated by veneration of the old. Let me be hyperbolic so that I can interrupt your train of thought and say this: We're starting to live in the future. Let go of your old assumptions. Maybe they still matter, but it's also likely some of them will change…

Please keep this slop off HN

> slop

Stop using that word. The majority of human efforts pre-AI have been slop too.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#260

Post by raincole »

thesz wrote: post #240
raincole wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find this amusing. In what way? You're either very young or very old, right? Voice-to-text has been a common way to input text online since iPhone. Someone commented on HN != they typed that many words with their fingers.

I strongly believe you can use voice-to-text for coding. If the person I replied do use voice-to-text, their mention of carpal syndrome is moot and this is amusing. If they do not use voice-to-text, it is still amusing in the sense of my previous comment.

Or, you know, it's far easier to input natural language with voice-to-text than coding with voice-to-text, so even if they can write long comments on HN, coding is still a problem?

Nah, impossible. They must be making up their carpal syndrome because nothing is ever real.

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