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AI coding is gambling

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Re: AI coding is gambling

#271

Post by huflungdung »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #173
itsgrimetime wrote: post #92

All of this new capability has made me realize that the reason i love programming _isn't_ the same as the OP. I used to think (and tell others) that I loved understanding something deeply, wading through the details to figure out a tough problem. but actually, being able to will anything I can think of into existence is what I love about programming. I do feel for the people who were able to make careers out of falli…

> 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…

[dead]

Re: AI coding is gambling

#272

Post by hirako2000 »

rustyhancock wrote: post #58
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.

The "natural" form of gambling is this. You need to collect food, do you go to where you know there are berries (low value but high likelihood of finding), or scout off to find a herd of deer? (High value but low likelihood of finding). Looking for deer wouldnt be walking off in a random direction. You check water holes, known clearings, known fields. Each of these is an operation (walk to X and look), each has a low…

But we don't say a hunter is out gambling. We say out hunting. That there is investment, uncertainty, risks, and invariably some randomness in the returns, it's certainly not random. Gambling for the the most if not the whole part is random.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#273

Post by wolttam »

I used to write code by hand.

AI has removed some of the tedium, and freed up more of my bandwidth to think about the problems I’m trying to solve and what the actual best ways to solve those problems are.

Only once I have a good feel for the problem I am solving do I go to the AI for help implementing.

My style of prompting usually leads to code that is very close to what I would have manually typed. I review it and tweak it until it is effectively identical to what I would have typed.

The speed up is significant. YMMV.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#274

Post by paultendo »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #173
itsgrimetime wrote: post #92

All of this new capability has made me realize that the reason i love programming _isn't_ the same as the OP. I used to think (and tell others) that I loved understanding something deeply, wading through the details to figure out a tough problem. but actually, being able to will anything I can think of into existence is what I love about programming. I do feel for the people who were able to make careers out of falli…

> 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", very few are good at it.

"I am still waiting to see LLMs build an idea into something other people use at scale" - so Microsoft using Claude Code doesn't count?

Re: AI coding is gambling

#276

Post by bakugo »

pdntspa wrote: post #147
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the programming is and was always a means to an end. No. Programming is a specific act (writing code), and that act is also a means to an end. But getting to the goal does not mean you did programming. Saying "I'm good at programming" when you are just using LLMs to generate code for you is like saying "I'm good at driving" when you only ever take an Uber and don't ever drive yourself. It's complete nonsens…

I'm still reading the code, I'm still correcting the LLM's laughably awful architecture and abstractions, and I'm still spending large chunks of time in the design and planning phase with the LLM. The only thing it does is write the code. But that's not programming because its a natural-language conversation?

> But that's not programming because its a natural-language conversation?

Correct. Programming is writing code. You are not writing code, therefore you are not programming. I don't understand what's so complicated about this.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#277

Post by _se »

hungryhobbit wrote: post #186
strangattractor wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One size never fits all. I am old enough to remember what a game changer Spreadsheets (VisiCalc) where. They made the personal computer into a SwissArmy knife for many people that could not justify investing large sums of money into software to solve a niche problem. Until that time PCs simply were not a big thing. I believe AI will do something similar for programming. The level of complexity in modern apps is high…

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".

Are you implying that someone who prefers Eclipse is more likely to be a good software engineer than someone who prefers Emacs? If so, that is so hilariously backwards that I can't even begin to understand the types of experiences that you must've had.

I am sure that you're objectively wrong if that is what you're saying.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#279

Post by tovej »

hungryhobbit wrote: post #186
strangattractor wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One size never fits all. I am old enough to remember what a game changer Spreadsheets (VisiCalc) where. They made the personal computer into a SwissArmy knife for many people that could not justify investing large sums of money into software to solve a niche problem. Until that time PCs simply were not a big thing. I believe AI will do something similar for programming. The level of complexity in modern apps is high…

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".

I will try anything reasonable. And have tried LLM tools for programming. But there's no way I would use it daily. It's too inefficient, too error prone, and will actively make me a worse programmer (as I will be writing less code and making fewer decisions. I will also understand less of the systems I'm building).

All the excellent developers around me are _not_ using AI except for very small, contained tasks.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#280

Post by Aurornis »

QuadrupleA wrote: post #220
thisisbrians wrote: post #41

It is and will always be about: 1) properly defining the spec 2) ensuring the implementation satisfies said spec

Side note, everyone's talking about having AI agents "conform to the spec" these days. Am I in my own bubble, or - who the hell these days gets The Spec as a well-formed document? Let alone a good document, something that can be formally verified, thouroughly test-cased, can christen the software "complete" when all its boxes are ticked, etc.? This seems like 1980's corporate waterfall thinking, doesn't jibe with the…

> who the hell these days gets The Spec as a well-formed document?

The PMs asked ChatGPT to write a well-formed spec.

Sadly, true in too many companies right now.

I do agree with your general point that The Spec can become a crutch for washing your hands of any responsibility for knowing the product, the goals, the company's business, and other contexts. I like to defuse these ideas by reminding the engineers that The Spec is a living document and they are partially responsible for it, too. Once everyone learns that The Spec isn't a crutch for shifting all blame to the product manager, they become more involved in making sure it's right.

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