The bit about being able to get something workable going in an unfamiliar tech stack hits home. In a similar vein I was able to configure a VyOS router, a nushell based api client and some MSOffice automation in Powershell with AI assistance. Not a big deal in and of itself but still very useful.
Senior Developer Skills in the AI Age
261–270 of 323 posts
Re: Senior Developer Skills in the AI Age
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
The more I browse through this, the more I agree. I feel like one could delete almost all comments from that project without losing any information – which means, at least the variable naming is (probably?) sensible. Then again, I don't know the application domain. Also… def _save_current_date_time(current_date_time_file: str, current_date_time: str) -> None: with Path(current_date_time_file).open("w") as f: f.write(…
At the very least, if a professional human developer writes garbage code you can confidently blame them and either try to get them to improve or reduce the impact they have on the project. With AI they can simply blame whatever model they used and continually shovel trash out there instantly.
I don't see the difference there. Whether I've written all the code myself or an AI wrote all of it, my name will be on the commit. I'll be the person people turn to when they question why code is the way it is. In a pull request for my commit, I'll be the one discussing it with my colleagues. I can't say "oh, the AI wrote it". I'm responsible for the code. Full stop.
If you're in a team where somebody can continuously commit trash without any repercussions, this isn't a problem caused by AI.
Re: Senior Developer Skills in the AI Age
#263As a long time hobby coder, like 25 years and I think I’m pretty good(?), this whole LLM /vibecoding thing has zapped my creativity the past year or so. I like the craft of making things. I used tools I enjoy working with and learn new ones all the time (never got on the JS/react train). Sometimes I have an entrepreneur bug and want to create a marketable solution, but I often just like to build. Im also the kind of…
I've become so much more productive in my hobby programming projects, because it lets me skip over the tedious parts that suck the life out of me (boilerplate, figuring out library dependencies, etc), and I can focus on the parts that are actually interesting like experimenting with different solutions, iterating and learning new things.
It also lets me explore other libraries and languages without having to invest too much time and effort before knowing if it's right for what I want to do. I know that if I want to continue in a different direction, I haven't wasted tons of time/effort and getting started in the new direction will be much less effortful and time consuming.
Re: Senior Developer Skills in the AI Age
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
My current favourite LLM wankery example is this beauty: https://blog.fahadusman.com/proxmox-replacing-failed-drive-i... Note how it has invented the faster parameter for the zpool command. It is possible that the blog writer hallucinated a faster parameter themselves without needing a LLM - who knows. I think all developers should add a faster parameter to all commands to make them run faster. Perhaps a LLM could cr…
How can this article be written by LLM? Its date is November 2021. Not judging the article as a whole but the command you pointed out seems to be correct. Faster is the name of the pool.
There was alot going on in the years before ChatGPT. Text generation was going strong with interactive fiction before anyone were talking about OpenAI.
Re: Senior Developer Skills in the AI Age
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not all code needs to be written at a high level of quality. A good deal of code just needs to work. Shell scripts, one-offs, linter rules, etc.
It'll be really interesting to see if the tech advances fast enough that future AI can deal with the tech debt of present day AI or if we'll see a generational die off of apps/companies.
I expect some of the big companies that went all in on relying on AI to fall in the coming years.
It will take some time tho, as decision makers will struggle to make up reasons why why noone on the payroll is able to fix production.
Re: Senior Developer Skills in the AI Age
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, most low level functions that enumerate the files in a directory return a structure that contains the file data from each file. Including size. You already have it in memory. Your brilliant AI calls another low level function to get the file size on the file name . (also did worse stuff but let's not go into details). Do you call reading the file size from the in memory structure that you already have a speed opt…
Yep exactly, LLMs blunder over the most simple nonsense and just leaves a mess in their wake. This isn't a mistake you could make if you actually understood what the library is doing / is returning. It's so funny how these AI bros make excuse after excuse for glaring issues rather than just accept AI doesn't actually understand what it's doing (not even considering it's faster to just write good quality code on the f…
> It's so funny how these AI bros make excuse after excuse for glaring issues rather than just accept AI doesn't actually understand what it's doing
Its less funny when you realize how few of these people even have experience reading and writing code.
They just see code on screen, trust the machine and proclaim victory.
Re: Senior Developer Skills in the AI Age
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have just checked my article — the word "expert" isn't in it, so not quite sure where you got this from. I'm working in the field professionally since June 1998, and among other things, I was the tech lead on MyHammer.de, Germany's largest craftsman platform, and have built several other mid-scale online platforms over the decades. How well I have done this, now that's for others to decide. Quite objectively though…
Apologies for implying you are claiming to be an expert software engineer: I took the "senior" in the title and "25 years of experience" in the post to mean similar things as "expert". I don't doubt this is doing something useful for you. It might even be mostly correct. But it is not a positive advertisement for what AI can do: just like the code is objectively crap, you can't easily trust the output without a compr…
Because I wanted exactly this experience: can I get to the desired result — functionality-wise, if not code-wise! — even if I choose the stack that makes sense in terms of technology, not the one that I happen to be proficient in?
And if I cannot bring language-proficiency to the table — which of my capabilities as a seasoned software&systems guy can I put to use?
In the brown-field projects where my team and I have the AI implement whole features, the resulting code quality — under our sharp and experienced eyes — tends to end up just fine.
I think I need to make the differences between both examples more clear…
Re: Senior Developer Skills in the AI Age
#268I'm not quite 40 but starting to feel the effects of age, AI has been a great tool if not for the fact it saves my hands. I don't have it write the logic for me, mostly just stuff like smart autocomplete etc. I battle really severe tendonitis, I've noticed a definite improvement since I started using code complete.
As far as knowledge/experience, I worry about a day where "vibe coding" takes over the world and it's only the greybeards that have any clue WTF is going on. Probably profitable, but also sounds like a hellscape to me.
I would hate to be a junior right now.
Re: Senior Developer Skills in the AI Age
#269The premise might possibly be true, but as an actually seasoned Python developer, I've taken a look at one file: https://github.com/dx-tooling/platform-problem-monitoring-co... All of it smells of a (lousy) junior software engineer: from configuring root logger at the top, module level (which relies on module import caching not to be reapplied), over not using a stdlib config file parser and building one themselves,…
100%!
But the alternative would be the tool doesn't get built because the author doesn't know enough Python to even produce crappy code, or doesn't have the money to hire an awesome Python coder to do that for them.
Re: Senior Developer Skills in the AI Age
#270I'm not quite 40 but starting to feel the effects of age, AI has been a great tool if not for the fact it saves my hands. I don't have it write the logic for me, mostly just stuff like smart autocomplete etc. I battle really severe tendonitis, I've noticed a definite improvement since I started using code complete. As far as knowledge/experience, I worry about a day where "vibe coding" takes over the world and it's o…
Well, whats the difference between Vibe Coding in 5 - 10 years vs coding in C 5 - 10 years after compilers came out?