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AI is stifling new tech adoption?

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Re: AI is stifling new tech adoption?

#291

Post by spenvo »

jonas21 wrote: post #277
spenvo wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's good. When i wrote the article, I was able to get a similar response when i used chatgpt "search", but not with the basic tier default prompt with the prompt "i own a Mac, would currentkey stats be good for me?". Were you using the default chatgpt prompt here or chatgpt "search" or a better model?

I went to https://chatgpt.com , typed "What does the CurrentKey Stats app do?" into the box, and pressed Enter.

Cool - thanks for giving it a shot, and I'm glad the basic tier is giving an accurate response with that query

Re: AI is stifling new tech adoption?

#292

Post by graypegg »

janalsncm wrote: post #272

I’ve been out of web dev for a while, but maybe the problem is there’s a new framework every 6 months and instead of delivering value to the end user, developers are rewriting their app in whatever the new framework is.

This is obviously a pretty common belief, but I do think web dev gets held to a weird standard when framed as "the one with too much tech churn".

Just because someone solves a problem with a new library or framework does not mean they solved a problem for all of web development, and I think the current concentration of applications made with boring things sort of reflects that. [0]

> developers are rewriting their app in whatever the new framework is.

That is obviously an over-exaggeration. Most devs, most teams, most companies are not open to rewriting any application ONLY because it's a new framework. If they are, they probably have other priorities that point at X framework/library when rewrites do happen, because a rewrite is big enough already without having to also create the pattern/library code.

I will absolutely agree that we ignore the user more than we should. That should change. But I think people being excited about something on HN or some other metric of "a new framework every 6 months" isn't as causative as the usual hive mind would imply.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1124699/worldwide-develo...

Re: AI is stifling new tech adoption?

#293

Post by basch »

mxwsn wrote: post #286

This ought to be called the qwerty effect, for how the qwerty keyboard layout can't be usurped at this point. It was at the right place at the right time, even though arguably its main design choices are no longer relevant, and there are arguably better layouts like dvorak. Python and React may similarly be enshrined for the future, for being at the right place at the right time. English as a language might be anothe…

It would be interesting if Apple and Google and Samsung agreed to make dvorak (or a mutually created better mobile/swipe variant) the default mobile keyboard for all NEW accounts going forward. Unlike hardware, software keyboards could be swapped in a generation or two.

Re: AI is stifling new tech adoption?

#294

Post by jimmaswell »

mxwsn wrote: post #286

This ought to be called the qwerty effect, for how the qwerty keyboard layout can't be usurped at this point. It was at the right place at the right time, even though arguably its main design choices are no longer relevant, and there are arguably better layouts like dvorak. Python and React may similarly be enshrined for the future, for being at the right place at the right time. English as a language might be anothe…

QWERTY is a poor example. The keyboard layout is not the bottleneck for anyone who does not participate in olympic typing competitions. DVORAK is just as arbitrary as QWERTY to everyone else including professionals, and there's value in backwards compatibility e.g. old keyboards don't become e-waste.

Re: AI is stifling new tech adoption?

#295

Post by esafak »

benve wrote: post #196

I think this is true because I myself said to myself: "it is useless for me to create a library or abstraction for the developers of my project, much better to use everything verbose using the most popular libraries on the web". Until yesterday having an abstraction (or a better library/framework) could be very convenient to save time in writing a lot of code. Today if the code is mostly generated there is no need to…

> Maybe some product will become a hell with millions of lines of code that no one knows how to evolve and manage.

That is exactly what will happen, so why would you do that?

Re: AI is stifling new tech adoption?

#296

Post by promiseofbeans »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #288
throwup238 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think that’s really the case anymore. The vast majority are on React, Vue, or Svelte (in order of my perception of their popularity). On the CSS side it seems like Tailwind and PostCSS has taken over. The heavier framework category is covered by Next.js. Other than Next, most of that popularity started solidifying in 2020. There are a bunch of newer frameworks like Astro and HTMX and so on, but it doesn’t see…

Yeah but React is swapping major recommendations / styles ever 18 months still. How do you create a react application these days? Not create-react-app apparently?

NextJS for a SSR app, or Vite for a create-react-app style SPA.

Vite has been great for the whole web-dev ecosystem, since it's super easy to configure, and very pluggable, so most frameworks are built around it now. That means you can write, e.g. a new CSS preprocessor, and if you make a Vite plugin, it works with (almost) every framework without extra effort

Re: AI is stifling new tech adoption?

#297

Post by CerebralCerb »

benve wrote: post #196

I think this is true because I myself said to myself: "it is useless for me to create a library or abstraction for the developers of my project, much better to use everything verbose using the most popular libraries on the web". Until yesterday having an abstraction (or a better library/framework) could be very convenient to save time in writing a lot of code. Today if the code is mostly generated there is no need to…

Only in one sense. As code is now cheaper, abstractions meant to decrease code quantity have decreased in value. But abstractions meant to organize logic to make it easier to comprehend retains its value.

Re: AI is stifling new tech adoption?

#298

Post by xmprt »

baq wrote: post #266
hobs wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely wrong and assumes that an LLM is just much better at its job than it is - an LLM doesn't do better with a chaotic code base, nobody does - a deeply nonsensical system that sort of works is by far the hardest to reason about if you want to fix or change anything, especially for a thing that has subhuman intelligence.

LLMs work best matching patterns. If 1k loc matches patterns and the 10 loc doesn’t, it’s a problem. The only thing the OP is missing which combines the best of both worlds is to always put source of and/or docs for his abstractions into the context window of the LLM.

If your abstractions match common design patterns then you've solved your problem. It's ridiculous to assume that an LLM will understand 1k LOC of standard library code better than 10 lines of a custom abstraction which uses a common design pattern.

It's more prone to hallucinating things if your custom abstraction is not super standard but at least you'd be able to check its mistakes (you're checking the code generated by your LLMs right?). If it makes a mistake with the 1k LOC then you're probably not going to find that error.

Re: AI is stifling new tech adoption?

#299

Post by throwup238 »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #288
throwup238 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think that’s really the case anymore. The vast majority are on React, Vue, or Svelte (in order of my perception of their popularity). On the CSS side it seems like Tailwind and PostCSS has taken over. The heavier framework category is covered by Next.js. Other than Next, most of that popularity started solidifying in 2020. There are a bunch of newer frameworks like Astro and HTMX and so on, but it doesn’t see…

Yeah but React is swapping major recommendations / styles ever 18 months still. How do you create a react application these days? Not create-react-app apparently?

IMO create-react-app was a crutch for the last generation of build systems like webpack which were egregiously complex. Nowadays you just use Vite and start with whatever Github template has all the tech you need. Even starting a project from scratch is really simple now since the config files to get started are tiny and simple. There’s always the problem of outdated tutorials on the internet, but as a frontend dev spinning up a new project has never been simpler.

The pace of development is definitely challenging. There’s so many libraries involved in any project that many fall behind in updating their code and application devs get caught in the crossfire when trying to upgrade (and woe be to you if someone added react = “*” somewhere in their peer dependencies).

Re: AI is stifling new tech adoption?

#300

Post by milesvp »

crazygringo wrote: post #252

No, AI isn't. Any new tech, or version upgrade, or whatever, takes time for people to become familiar with it. You might as well say "Stack Overflow is stifling new tech adoption" because brand-new stuff doesn't have many Q's and A's yet. But that would be a silly thing to say. I'm not going to adopt a brand-new database regardless of LLM training data cutoff, just because enough people haven't had enough experience…

Strong disagree here. I've been trying to learn Zig, and I'm thwarted enough by chatgpt giving me outdated information on Zig's unstable API that if I didn't have a strong incentive to learn it for it's cross compiler, I'd likely turn my efforts towards another language. This effect can greatly alter the adoption curve of a new tech, which can leave it dying on the vine.

You're not wrong though, in that Stack Overflow has the exact same problem. The main difference is that with Stack Overflow, there was a bonus in becoming the first expert on the platform, so while it does stifle new tech adoption, it at least encourages new tech content creation, which in turn encourages new tech. Though, I don't know if it's a net positive or negative in aggregate.

I think this problem will likely lessen as training becomes cheaper and faster. But right now, there is really strong incentives to avoid any tech that has had breaking changes in the last 3 years.

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