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Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

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Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#311

Post by zeroonetwothree »

embedding-shape wrote: post #95

> But what was the fire inside you, when you coded till night to see your project working? It was building. I feel like this is not the same for everyone. For some people, the "fire" is literally about "I control a computer", for others "I'm solving a problem for others", and yet for others "I made something that made others smile/cry/feel emotions" and so on. I think there is a section of programmer who actually do…

You’re right of course. For me there’s no flow state possible with LLM “coding”. That makes it feel miserable instead of joyous. Sitting around waiting while it spits out tokens that I then have to carefully look over and tweak feels like very hard work. Compared to entering flow and churning out those tokens myself, which feels effortless once I get going.

Probably other people feel differently.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#312

Post by [deleted] »

jebarker wrote: post #282
martin-t wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> programmer who actually do like the actual typing It's not about the typing, it's about the understanding. LLM coding is like reading a math textbook without trying to solve any of the problems. You get an overview, you get a sense of what it's about and most importantly you get a false sense of understanding. But if you try to actually solve the problems, you engage completely different parts of your brain. It's a…

> LLM coding is like reading a math textbook without trying to solve any of the problems. Most math textbooks provide the solutions too. So you could choose to just read those and move on and you’d have achieved much less. The same is true with coding. Just because LLMs are available doesn’t mean you have to use them for all coding, especially when the goal is to learn foundational knowledge. I still believe there’s…

[deleted]

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#313

Post by jt2190 »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #306
jt2190 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> … not all programmers program for the same reason, for some of us, LLMs helps a lot, and makes things even more fun. For others, LLMs remove the core part of what makes programming fun for them. Hence we get this constant back and forth of "Can't believe others can work like this!" vs "I can't believe others aren't working like this!", but both sides seems to completely miss the other side. Unfortunately the job ma…

> Unfortunately the job market does not demand both types of programmer equally: Those who drive LLMs to deliver more/better/faster/cheaper are in far greater demand right now. I doubt that the LLM drivers deliver something better; quite the opposite. But I guess managers will only realize this when it's too late: and of course they won't take any responsibility for this.

> I doubt that the LLM drivers deliver something better…

That is your definition of “better”. If we’re going to trade our expertise for coin, we must ask ourselves if the cost of “better” is worth it to the buyer. Can they see the difference? Do they care?

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#314

Post by falloutx »

tuesdaynight wrote: post #242
simonw wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would count about two-thirds of the comments in this thread as anti-AI hype, and this thread is pretty mild in that regard compared to most other threads here about AI for code. And this is Hacker News, which you might expect to attract people who thrive on exploring the edges of weird new technology!

I don't have decades of experience under my belt, but I feel like the reaction is happening mostly because it is the first time that developers are at the risk of being automated out of work. "Learn a new field" is easy to say when you are not the one that will need to do it. Now a lot of developers are afraid of having to follow the advice that they gave to a lot of workers. I don't believe that AI will put most of…

This is literally true, we have been automating other people out of their jobs without empathy for ages, so it makes sense at some point the knife would fall on us. Because of low solidarity we have shown with others and even our fellow programmers, I guess we deserve it. My real worry at this point is that the most destructive ones will continue and only the destructive programmers will be safe.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#315

Post by coffeemug »

simonw wrote: post #160
systemf_omega wrote: post #8

What I don't understand about this whole "get on board the AI train or get left behind" narrative, what advantage does an early adopter have for AI tools? The way I see it, I can just start using AI once they get good enough for my type of work. Until then I'm continuing to learn instead of letting my brain atrophy.

This is a pretty common position: "I don't worry about getting left behind - it will only take a few weeks to catch up again". I don't think that's true. I'm really good at getting great results out of coding agents and LLMs. I've also been using LLMs for code on an almost daily basis since ChatGPT's release on November 30th 2022. That's more than three years ago now. Meanwhile I see a constant flow of complaints fro…

Strongly disagree. Claude Code is the most intuitive technology I've ever used-- way easier than learning to use even VS Code for example. It doesn't even take weeks. Maybe a day or two to get the hang of it and you're off to the races.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#316

Post by threethirtytwo »

> the more isolated, and the more textually representable, the better: system programming is particularly apt

I’ve written complete GUIs in 3D on the front end. This GUI was non traditional. It allows you to playback, pause speed up, slow down and rewind a gps track like a movie. There is real time color changing and drawing of the track as the playback occurs.

Using mapbox to do this straight would be to slow. I told the AI to optimize it by going straight into shader extensions for mapbox to optimize GPU code.

Make no mistake. LLMs are incredible for things that are non systems based that require interaction with 3D and GUIs.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#317

Post by leonidasv »

systemf_omega wrote: post #186
simonw wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty common position: "I don't worry about getting left behind - it will only take a few weeks to catch up again". I don't think that's true. I'm really good at getting great results out of coding agents and LLMs. I've also been using LLMs for code on an almost daily basis since ChatGPT's release on November 30th 2022. That's more than three years ago now. Meanwhile I see a constant flow of complaints fro…

> Using this stuff well is a deep topic. Just like the stuff LLMs are being used for today. Why wouldn't "using LLMs well" be not just one of the many things LLMs will simplify too? Or do you believe your type of knowledge is somehow special and is resistant to being vastly simplified or even made obsolete by AI?

Unless we figure out how to make 1 billion+ tokens multimodal context windows (in a commercially viable way) and connect them to Google Docs/Slack/Notion/Zoom meetings/etc, I don't think it will simplify that much. Most of the work is adjusting your mental model to the fact that the agent is a stateless machine that starts from scratch every single time and has little-to-no knowledge besides what's in the code, so you have to be very specific about the context of the task in some ways.

It's different from assigning a task to a co-worker who already knows the business rules and cross-implications of the code in the real world. The agent can't see the broader picture of the stuff it's making, it can go from ignoring obvious (to a human that was present in the last planning meeting) edge cases to coding defensively against hundreds of edge cases that will never occur, if you don't add that to your prompt/context material.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#318

Post by zeroonetwothree »

zjzkshz wrote: post #286
embedding-shape wrote: post #95

> But what was the fire inside you, when you coded till night to see your project working? It was building. I feel like this is not the same for everyone. For some people, the "fire" is literally about "I control a computer", for others "I'm solving a problem for others", and yet for others "I made something that made others smile/cry/feel emotions" and so on. I think there is a section of programmer who actually do…

> I think there is a section of programmer who actually do like the actual typing of letters Do people actually spend a significant time typing? After I moved beyond the novice stage it’s been an inconsequential amount of time. What it still serves is a thorough review of every single line in a way that is essentially equivalent to what a good PR review looks like.

Yes, for the type of work LLMs are good at (greenfield projects or lots of boilerplate).

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#319

Post by criddell »

simonw wrote: post #175
criddell wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I’ve had limited success getting AIs to do very simple stuff. Every one I’ve tried invents APIs that don’t exist and eventually get stuck in a circle where it tells me to try A. When that doesn’t work, try B. No luck? Try C. Hmmm my apologies, try A. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Are you using a coding agent running in auto-approve mode? If so then none of this matters , because it will run through that lather-rinse-repeat loop itself in less than a minute.

No, I haven’t tried that yet. I don’t really want to turn on auto mode when it’s iterating on my credit card and it looks like it’s in an infinite loop… Is that a silly thing to be worried about?

I work mostly in C++ (MFC applications on Windows) and assembly language (analyzing crash reports).

For the C++ work, the AIs do all kinds of unsafe things like casting away constness or doing hacks to expose private class internals. What they give me is sometimes enough to get unstuck though which is nice.

For crash reports (a disassembly around the crash site and a stack trace) they are pretty useless and that’s coming from someone who considers himself to be a total novice at assembly. (Looking to up my x64 / WinDbg game and any pointers to resources would be appreciated!)

I do prototyping in Python and Claude is excellent at that.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#320

Post by bwfan123 »

I am not sure why the OP is painting it as a "us-vs-them" - pro or anti-AI ? AI is a tool. Use it if it helps.

I would draw an analogy here between building software and building a home.

When building a home we have a user providing the requirements, the architect/structural engineer providing the blueprint to satisfy the reqs, the civil engineer overseeing the construction, and the mason laying the bricks. Some projects may have a project-manager coordinating these activities.

Building software is similar in many aspects to building a structure. If developers think of themselves as a mason they are limiting their perspective. If AI can help lay the bricks use it ! If it can help with the blueprint or the design use it. It is a fantastic tool in the tool belt of the profession. I think of it as a power-tool and want to keep its batteries charged to use it at any time.

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