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I miss thinking hard

jernesto.com

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Re: I miss thinking hard

#311

Post by lll-o-lll »

monch1962 wrote: post #142

As someone who's been coding for several decades now (i.e. I'm old), I find the current generation of AI tools very ... freeing. As an industry, we've been preaching the benefits of running lots of small experiments to see what works vs what doesn't, try out different approaches to implementing features, and so on. Pre-AI, lots of these ideas never got implemented because they'd take too much time for no definitive b…

> 8 minutes to kick off the next chunk of my one-person project development via my phone, review the results, then kick off the next chunk of development.

How are you doing this via your phone?

Re: I miss thinking hard

#312

Post by throwaway132448 »

globular-toast wrote: post #291
socalgal2 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it's all abstraction. I didn't write my own OS. I didn't write my own compiler. I didn't write the standard library. I just use them. I could write them but I'm happy to work on the new thing that uses what's already there. This is no different than many things. I could grow a tree and cut it into wood but I don't. I could buy wood and nails and brackets and make furniture but I don't. I instead just fill my ho…

There are two stages to becoming a decent programmer: first you learn to use abstraction, then you learn when not to use abstraction. Trying to find the right level is the art. Once you learn the tools of the trade and can do abstraction, it's natural to want to abstract everything. Most programmers go through such a phase. But sometimes things really are distinct and trying to find an abstraction that does both will…

Well said, great analogy. Sometimes the level of abstraction feels arbitrary - you have to understand the circumstances that led there to see why it's not.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#313

Post by yieldcrv »

man, setting up worktrees for parallelized agentic coding is hard, setting up containerized worktrees is hard so you can run with dangerous permissions on without nuking host system

deciding whether to use that to work on multiple features on the same code base, or the same feature in multiple variations is hard

deciding whether to work on a separate project entirely while all of this is happening is hard and mentally taxing

planning all of this up for a few hours and watching it go all at once autonomously is satisfying!

Re: I miss thinking hard

#314

Post by yieldcrv »

lll-o-lll wrote: post #311
monch1962 wrote: post #142

As someone who's been coding for several decades now (i.e. I'm old), I find the current generation of AI tools very ... freeing. As an industry, we've been preaching the benefits of running lots of small experiments to see what works vs what doesn't, try out different approaches to implementing features, and so on. Pre-AI, lots of these ideas never got implemented because they'd take too much time for no definitive b…

> 8 minutes to kick off the next chunk of my one-person project development via my phone, review the results, then kick off the next chunk of development. How are you doing this via your phone?

claude can deploy to github spaces and modify code for deployment to those by commits and pull requests to the repo exclusively

claude via browser and claude mobile apps function this way

but alongside that, people do make tunnels to their personal computer and setup ways to be notified on their phone, or to get the agent unstuck when it asks for a permission, from their phone

Re: I miss thinking hard

#315

Post by onion2k »

fallous wrote: post #106
helloplanets wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when programming with agentic tools, you need to actively push for the idea to not regress to the most obvious/average version. The amount of effort you need to expend on pushing the idea that deviates from the 'norm' (because it's novel), is actually comparable to the effort it takes to type something out by hand. Just two completely different types of effort. There's an upside to this sort of effort too, though…

You just described the burden of outsourcing programming.

Outsourcing development and vibe coding are incredibly similar processes.

If you just chuck ideas at the external coding team/tool you often get rubbish back.

If you're good at managing the requirements and defining things well you can achieve very good things with much less cost.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#316

Post by ibestvina »

darepublic wrote: post #305
ibestvina wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes no sense to me. There are plenty of artists out there (e.g. El Anatsui), not to mention whole professions such as architects, who do not interact directly with what they are building, and yet can have profound relationship with the final product. Discovering the right problem to solve is not necessarily coupled to being "hands on" with the "materials you're shaping".

you think El Anatsui would concur that they didn't interact directly with what they were building? "hands on", "material you're shaping" is a metaphor

I don't see why his involvement, explaining to his team how exactly to build a piece, is any different from a developer explaining to an LLM how to build a certain feature, when it comes to the level of "being hands on".

Obviously I am not comparing his final product with my code, I am simply pointing out how this metaphor is flawed. Having "workers" shape the material according to your plans does not reduce your agency.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#317

Post by muyuu »

this also used to happened to me when I in a position that involved a lot of research earlier on and then after the product was a reality, and it worked, it tapered off to be small improvements and maintenance

I can imagine many positions work out this way in startups

it's important to think hard sometimes, even if it means taking time off to do the thinking - you can do it without the socioeconomic pressure of a work environment

Re: I miss thinking hard

#318

Post by globular-toast »

voidUpdate wrote: post #292

If you miss the experience of not using LLMs, then just... don't? Is someone forcing you to code with LLM help?

I think a lot of people are struggling with this. Look at the obesity epidemic. Nobody is forcing you to buy ultraprocessed foods. Nobody is forcing you to overeat. You can still cook with fresh vegetables at home. But many/most people in Western countries struggle with their weight.

An even better analogy is the slot machine. Once you've "won" one time it's hard to break the cycle. There's so little friction to just having another spin. Everyone needs to go and see the depressed people at slot machines at least once to understand where this ends.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#319

Post by noodleweb »

I miss this too, I have had those moments of reward where something works and I want to celebrate. It's missing too for me.

With AI the pros outweigh the cons at least at the moment with what we collectively have figured out so far. But with that everyday I wonder if it's possible now to be more ambitious than ever and take on much bigger problem with the pretend smart assistant.

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