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The highest quality codebase

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Re: The highest quality codebase

#301

Post by danielmarkbruce »

altmanaltman wrote: post #291
Nemi wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've really hit the crux of the problem and why so many people have differing opinions about AI coding. I also find coding more fun with AI. The reason is that my main goal is to solve a problem, or someone else's problem, in a way that is satisfying. I don't much care about the code itself anymore. I care about the thing that it does when it's done. Having said that I used to be deep into coding and back then I am…

A few counterpoints: 1. If you don't care about code and only care about the "thing that it does when it's done", how do you solve problems in a way that is satisfying? Because you are not really solving any problem but just using the AI to do it. Is prompting more satisfying than actually solving? 2. You claim you're done "learning about coding and stretching my personal knowledge in the area" but don't you think th…

are you really solving the problem, or is the compiler doing it?

Re: The highest quality codebase

#302

Post by neoromantique »

skydhash wrote: post #286
neoromantique wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very hard to explain the extent of it to a person who did not experience it, really. I have over a decade of experience, I do this stuff daily, I don't think I can write a 10 line bash/python/js script without looking up the docs at least a couple times. I understand exactly what I need to write, but exact form eludes my brain, so this Levenshtein-distance-on-drugs machine that can parse my rambling + surroundi…

What I'm saying is that is normal. Unless you've worked everyday with the same language and a very small set of functions, you're bound to forget signature and syntax. What I'm advocating is a faster retrieval of the correct information.

>Unless you've worked everyday with the same language

...I did.

Re: The highest quality codebase

#303

Post by danielmarkbruce »

pdntspa wrote: post #299
sfn42 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kind of struggle with this. I basically hate everyone elses code, and by that I mean I hate most people's code. A lot of people write awesome code but most people write what I'd call trash code. And I do think there's more to it than preference. Like there's actual bugs in the code, it's confusing and because it's confusing there's more bugs. It's solving a simple problem but doing so in an unnecessarily convoluted…

I feel this too. And it seems like the very worst code always seems to come from the people that seem the smartest, otherwise. I've worked for a couple of people that are either ACM alum and/or have their own wikipedia page, multiple patents to their name and leaders in business, and beyond anyone else that I have ever worked with, their code has been the worst. Which is part of what I find so motivating with AI. It…

did you ever consider their code was good and it's you that is the problem?

Re: The highest quality codebase

#304

Post by elzbardico »

bongodongobob wrote: post #215
hackernewds wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Writing code is the default behavior from pre-training what does this even mean? could you expand on it

He means that it is heavily biased to write code, not remove, condense, refactor, etc. It wants to generate more stuff, not less.

Because there are not a lot of high quality examples of code edition on the training corpora other than maybe version control diffs.

Because editing/removing code requires that the model output tokens for tools calls to be intercepted by the coding agent.

Responses like the example below are not emergent behavior, they REQUIRE fine-tuning. Period.

  I need to fix this null pointer issue in the auth module.
  
  {"id": "call_abc123", "type": "function", "function": {"name": "edit_file",     "arguments": "{"path": "src/auth.py", "start_line": 12, "end_line": 14, "replacement": "def authenticate(user):\n    if user is None:\n        return   False\n    return verify(user.token)"}"}}

Re: The highest quality codebase

#305

Post by danielmarkbruce »

ben_w wrote: post #247
Nemi wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've really hit the crux of the problem and why so many people have differing opinions about AI coding. I also find coding more fun with AI. The reason is that my main goal is to solve a problem, or someone else's problem, in a way that is satisfying. I don't much care about the code itself anymore. I care about the thing that it does when it's done. Having said that I used to be deep into coding and back then I am…

> > I think we have different opinions on what's fun and what's boring! > You've really hit the crux of the problem and why so many people have differing opinions about AI coding. Part of it perhaps, but there's also a huge variation in model output. I've been getting some surprisingly bad generations from ChatGPT recently, though I'm not sure if that's ChatGPT getting worse or me getting used to a much higher qualit…

This isn't just in coding. My goodness the stuff I see people write into an LLM and then say "see! It's stupid!". Some people are naturally good at prompting and some people just are not. The differences in output are dramatic.

Re: The highest quality codebase

#306

Post by mkw5053 »

xnorswap wrote: post #18

Claude is really good at specific analysis, but really terrible at open-ended problems. "Hey claude, I get this error message: ", and it'll often find the root cause quicker than I could. "Hey claude, anything I could do to improve Y?", and it'll struggle beyond the basics that a linter might suggest. It suggested enthusiastically a library for and it was all " Recommended " about it, but when I pointed out that the…

I’ve had reasonable success having it ultrathink of every possible X (exhaustively) and their trades offs and then give me a ranked list and rationale of its top recommendations. I almost always choose the top but just reading the list and then giving it next steps has worked really well for me.

Re: The highest quality codebase

#307

Post by altmanaltman »

pdntspa wrote: post #297
altmanaltman wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few counterpoints: 1. If you don't care about code and only care about the "thing that it does when it's done", how do you solve problems in a way that is satisfying? Because you are not really solving any problem but just using the AI to do it. Is prompting more satisfying than actually solving? 2. You claim you're done "learning about coding and stretching my personal knowledge in the area" but don't you think th…

Why can't both things be true? You can care about the code even if you don't write it. You can continue learning things by reading said code. And you can very rigidly enforce code quality guidelines and require the AI adhere to them.

I mean if you're reading it and "rigidly" enforcing code quality guidelines, then you do care about the code, right? But the parent comment said they don't care about the code but what it does. Both of them cannot be true at the same time, since in your example, you do care about the code enough to read it and refactor it based on guidelines and not just "what the code" does.

Re: The highest quality codebase

#308

Post by altmanaltman »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #301
altmanaltman wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few counterpoints: 1. If you don't care about code and only care about the "thing that it does when it's done", how do you solve problems in a way that is satisfying? Because you are not really solving any problem but just using the AI to do it. Is prompting more satisfying than actually solving? 2. You claim you're done "learning about coding and stretching my personal knowledge in the area" but don't you think th…

are you really solving the problem, or is the compiler doing it?

is the compiler really solving the problem or the electricity flowing through the machine?

Re: The highest quality codebase

#309

Post by [deleted] »

credit_guy wrote: post #294
mgrat wrote: post #293

[flagged]

I see this sentiment quite often. The Economist chose the "word of the year"; it is "slop". Everybody hates AI slop. And lots of people who use AI coding assistants go through a phase of pushing AI slop in prod. I know I did that. Some of it still bites me to this day. But here's the thing: AI coding assistants did not exist two years ago. We are critical of them based on unfounded expectations. They are tools, and t…

[deleted]

Re: The highest quality codebase

#310

Post by altmanaltman »

keeda wrote: post #300
altmanaltman wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few counterpoints: 1. If you don't care about code and only care about the "thing that it does when it's done", how do you solve problems in a way that is satisfying? Because you are not really solving any problem but just using the AI to do it. Is prompting more satisfying than actually solving? 2. You claim you're done "learning about coding and stretching my personal knowledge in the area" but don't you think th…

Note I'm not saying one is better than the other, but my takes: 1. The problem solving is in figuring out what to prompt, which includes correctly defining the problem, identifying a potential solution, designing an architecture, decomposing it into smaller tasks, and so on. Giving it a generic prompt like "build a fitness tracker" will result in a fully working product but it will be bland as it would be the average…

Honestly, I fundamentally disagree with this. Figuring out "what to prompt" is not problem-solving in a true sense imo. And if you're really going too deep into the problem domain, what is the point of having the code abstracted?

My comment was based on you saying you don't care about the code and only what it does. But now you're saying you care about the code and review everything so I'm not sure what to make out of it. And again, I fundamentally disagree that reviewing code will become optional or rather should become optional. But that's my personal take.

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