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AI coding is gambling

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Re: AI coding is gambling

#261

Post by bakugo »

pdntspa wrote: post #126
bluefirebrand wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I finally feel like I'm _good_ at programming, which is insane, because I literally haven't written a line of code myself in months This is exactly the sort of mentality that makes me hate this technology You finally feel good at programming despite admitting that you aren't actually doing it Please explain why anyone should take this seriously?

Because the programming is and was always a means to an end. Obsessing over the specific mechanical act of programming is taking the forest for the trees. I agree with gp that the speed in which I am able to execute my vision is exhilarating. It is making me love programming again. My side projects, which have been hanging on the wall for years , are actually getting done. And quickly! The actual act of keying in cod…

Sounds like you just don't like programming. And that's okay! It's okay to not like things.

But "I love programming now that I don't do any programming" is an utterly nonsensical statement. Please stop and reflect over what you said for a moment.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#262

Post by orsorna »

pton_xd wrote: post #250
orsorna wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well for one, programming actually sucks. Punching cards sucks. Copywriting sucks. Why? Well, implementation for the sake of implementation is nothing more than self-gratifying, and sole focus on it is an academic pursuit. The classic debate of which programming language is better is an argument of the best way to translate human ideas of logic into something that works . Sure programming is fun but I don't want to d…

> Well for one, programming actually sucks. I'll never understand those in a field who hate the day-to-day details of their job. You're intelligent, why not do something you actually enjoy engaging with? Maybe now with the advancement of the field you're finally enjoying yourself, but why were you subjecting yourself to daily misery for so long in the first place? I don't get it.

Well I just explained what I actually enjoy about programming, which is the results of it. Many jobs have intermediate boring steps that build to something satisfying.

>but why were you subjecting yourself to daily misery for so long in the first place? I don't get it.

It just meant it took a lot longer to build something, to get that satisfaction.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#263

Post by selixe_ »

I think "gambling" is a bit too strong, but there is a real shift in how we evaluate correctness. With traditional coding, you reason step by step and with AI-assisted code, you're often validating outputs after the fact.

The risk isn't randomness per se it's over trusting something that looks correct. The skill ceiling is moving from "can you write it" to "can you reliably verify it"

Re: AI coding is gambling

#265

Post by hext »

rsoto2 wrote: post #218
hungryhobbit wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when my dev team included some people using Emacs, some using Eclipse (this was pre-VS Code), and some using IntelliJ. Developers will always disagree on the best tool for X ... but we should all fear the Luddites who refuse to even try new tools, like AI. That personality type doesn't at all mesh with my idea of a "good programmer".

Flat out wrong. The most impressive engineers I've met in my career did not care for fancy tools with bells and whistles.

Sure, I bet they didn't outright dismiss them as useless to the entire field though! I'm sure they still understood the value those fancy tools provided to their peers.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#267

Post by Aurornis »

542458 wrote: post #187
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I finally feel like I'm _good_ at programming, which is insane Yes, it is insane. You couldn't torture this confession out of me. But that's the drug they're selling you, isn't it? You don't even write code, but you're getting a self-inflated sense of worth. It must be addicting! Of course, whether or not the programs you prompt are actually good surely has no relation to whether you feel they're good, since yo…

> Anyone can be an "ideas guy". I disagree with this. I've worked with amazing "ideas guys" who just cranked out customer insights and interesting concepts, and I've worked with lousy ones, who just kinda meandered and never had a focused vision beyond a milquetoast copy of the last thing they saw. There's a real skill to forming good concepts, and it's not a skill everyone has!

I think the Product Manager title was (and still is) one of the most abused titles in tech. A great product manager is indispensable for setting product direction in a way that can't be accomplished by others doing it part-time or advocating for their own needs. I've worked with some truly great product managers.

I've also worked with a lot of awful product managers. The product manager title is squishy enough that it gets assigned to people with charisma or confidence without actual skills to follow through. A bad product manager can blend in to a company for years by relaying ideas around from one group to another and having ChatGPT write documents. The engineers on the ground see the incompetence long before it becomes undeniable at the higher ranks.

When I read Hacker News and other sites I suspect a lot of engineers have only ever worked with bad PMs from the latter category.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#268

Post by hext »

comboy wrote: post #63

Fascinating how HN is torn about vibe coding still. Everybody pretty much agrees that it works for some use cases, yet there is a flamewar (I mean, cultured, HN-type one) every time. People seem to be more comfortable in a binary mindset.

If you enjoy the flamewar, check out /r/SelfHosted which has been losing it's mind over the last few months. The heavy heavy majority of that community is somehow incredibly anti AI despite the fact that the previous "spammy" posts (before ai assisted projects) were all "what is wrong with my docker compose file"??

Re: AI coding is gambling

#269

Post by hirako2000 »

glial wrote: post #124
hirako2000 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt gambling is in nature. Investments based on reason pay off. Evolution shapes for sensical moves. Humans invented gambling as a rigged game that mimics what's in nature, perversed for profit.

Broadly speaking, gambling is just making decisions without knowing the future. It's everywhere.

Gambling is taking a bet without any clue about the future.

Nothing is done with certainty what the future will be. Yet we don't say we are constantly gambling, without some people do.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#270

Post by organsnyder »

RhythmFox wrote: post #256
IanCal wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty wild comparison in my opinion, it counts almost everything as gambling which means it has almost no use as a definition. The most obvious issue is it’d class working with humans as gambling. Fine if you want to make that as your definition but it seems unhelpful to the discussion.

How does it 'count almost everything as gambling'? They just said 'non-deterministic' output is gambling-like, that is not 'almost everything'. Most computation that you use on a day-to-day basis (depending on how much you use AI now I suppose) is in all ways deterministic. Using probabilistic algorithms is not new, but it your point is not clicking...

Working with humans is decidedly not deterministic, though. And the discussion here is comparing AI coding agents and humans.
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