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OpenClaw is changing my life

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Re: OpenClaw is changing my life

#311

Post by mancerayder »

justonceokay wrote: post #245
mancerayder wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when do your line managers choose to stack rank? Do you know what stank ranking even is and where it comes from? If you have to rate your group from 1 to 5, each individual, and you rate them all 4s and 5s, they crack down and force you to select a 2 and a 3 and only have one 5. Now, would you prefer a CFO, CTO or even a project manager be the one to do it? It's a weird comment.

Weirder that you think software couldn’t get built without a CFO. The GP comment was noting that management is an outcome of capital wanting more control, not because many layers of middle managers is a naturally optimal way to complete software projects

CFOs manage budgets and funding and things tech people don't. I hate to parrot your tone but, weirder that you think software can be built in a company without there being a budget of some kind.

Re: OpenClaw is changing my life

#312

Post by Avicebron »

elevatortrim wrote: post #284
coffeefirst wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually don’t think the author wants to become a real manager, he wants to play a video game where he sends NPCs around to do stuff. Real managers deal with coaching, ownership, feelings, politics, communication, consensus building, etc. The people who are good at it like setting other people up to win.

As a manager who is trying to do all the things you listed well, I would love it to be more like a game sending NPCs around. Ignoring the macro implications of AI, even if very successful at or resistant to it, I’d think there would be very, very few people who are actively seeking people drama. Educating kids can be fun, but educating adults in the business domain is almost always a drag as in any given professional…

I think you might have missed the point

> I’d think there would be very, very few people who are actively seeking people drama

Theoretically as a manager you get the bump up the power dynamic ladder (and probably pay ladder) because you are taking on the responsibility of "people drama". Being a good manager is antithetical to treating living, breathing human beings as NPCs in a game.

Re: OpenClaw is changing my life

#313

Post by direwolf20 »

mancerayder wrote: post #304
direwolf20 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weirder that you think every group has a 2 and exactly one 5. You don't see the problem with that?

Re-read and think about what was written - the 2s aren'tcoming from the line managers, you're barking up the wrong tree in the stack ranking process. I just explained that stack ranking gets scaled and adjusted by the brass, and I just in this example rated everyone a 4 and 5. Again, as an older manager today, I can see myself in my 20s in the resistance and stubbornness to 'how corporations work' espoused in comment…

Do you think every group of people contains someone who is operating at 40%?

Re: OpenClaw is changing my life

#314

Post by johnfn »

i-blis wrote: post #165

I have always failed to understand the obsessive dream of many engineers to become managers. It seems not to have to do merely with an increase in revenue. Is it really to escape from "getting bogged down in the specifics" and being able to "focus on the higher-level, abstract work", to quote OP's words? I thought naively that engineering always has been about dealing with the specifics and the joy of problem solving…

It has nothing to do with power. I just want to build bigger, cooler things, faster.

Re: OpenClaw is changing my life

#315

Post by GeorgeOldfield »

markstos wrote: post #167

Last night I was debugging a website where some users, some times were getting a message that they were attempting to sign up too many times, even when they only had tried to sign-up once. I tried using LLMs to help debug at different points, but they went in circles on bad ideas, even when I gave them what turned out to be a correct clue. Root cause turned out to be that IPv6 wasn't enabled for Docker networking, bu…

skill issue

Re: OpenClaw is changing my life

#316

Post by daliusd »

aeldidi wrote: post #298

There's an odd trend with these sorts of posts where the author claims to have had some transformative change in their workflow brought upon by LLM coding tools, but also seemingly has nothing to show for it. To me, using the most recent ChatGPT Codex (5.3 on "Extra High" reasoning), it's incredibly obvious that while these tools are surprisingly good at doing repetitive or locally-scoped tasks, they immediately fall…

Maybe it is language specific? Maybe LLMs have a lot of good JavaScript/TypeScript samples for training and it works for those devs (e.g. me). I heard that Scala devs have problems with LLMs writing code too. I am puzzled by good devs not managing to get LLM work for them.

Re: OpenClaw is changing my life

#317

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

RealityVoid wrote: post #302
aeldidi wrote: post #298

There's an odd trend with these sorts of posts where the author claims to have had some transformative change in their workflow brought upon by LLM coding tools, but also seemingly has nothing to show for it. To me, using the most recent ChatGPT Codex (5.3 on "Extra High" reasoning), it's incredibly obvious that while these tools are surprisingly good at doing repetitive or locally-scoped tasks, they immediately fall…

You're not going crazy. That is what I see as well. But, I do think there is value in: - driving the LLM instead of doing it yourself. - sometimes I just can't get the activation energy and the LLM is always ready to go so it gives me a kickstart - doing things you normally don't know. I learned a lot of command like tools and trucks by seeing what Claude does. Doing short scripts for stuff is super useful. Of course…

For me the biggest benefit from using LLMs is that I feel way more motivated to try new tools because I don't have to worry about the initial setup.

I'd previously encountered tools that seemed interesting, but as soon as I tried getting it to run I found myself going down an infinite debugging hole. With an LLM I can usually explain my system's constraints and the best models will give me a working setup from which I can begin iterating. The funny part is that most of these tools are usually AI related in some way, but getting a functional environment often felt impossible unless you had really modern hardware.

Re: OpenClaw is changing my life

#318

Post by g-mork »

aeldidi wrote: post #298

There's an odd trend with these sorts of posts where the author claims to have had some transformative change in their workflow brought upon by LLM coding tools, but also seemingly has nothing to show for it. To me, using the most recent ChatGPT Codex (5.3 on "Extra High" reasoning), it's incredibly obvious that while these tools are surprisingly good at doing repetitive or locally-scoped tasks, they immediately fall…

> it's incredibly obvious that while these tools are surprisingly good at doing repetitive or locally-scoped tasks, they immediately fall apart when faced with the types of things that are actually difficult in software development and require non-trivial amounts of guidance and hand-holding to get things right

I used this line for a long time, but you could just as easily say the same thing for a typical engineer. It basically boils down to "Claude likes its tickets to be well thought out". I'm sure there is some size of project where its ability to navigate the codebase starts to break down, but I've fed it sizeable ones and so long as the scope is constrained it generally just works nowadays

Re: OpenClaw is changing my life

#319

Post by LogicFailsMe »

aeldidi wrote: post #298

There's an odd trend with these sorts of posts where the author claims to have had some transformative change in their workflow brought upon by LLM coding tools, but also seemingly has nothing to show for it. To me, using the most recent ChatGPT Codex (5.3 on "Extra High" reasoning), it's incredibly obvious that while these tools are surprisingly good at doing repetitive or locally-scoped tasks, they immediately fall…

I find these agents incredibly useful for eliminating time spent on writing utility scripts for data analysis or data transformation. But... I like coding, getting relegated to being a manager 100%? Sounds like a prison to me not freedom.

That they are so good at the things I like to do the least and still terrible at the things at which I excel. That's just gravy.

But I guess this is in line with how most engineers transition to management sometime in their 30s.

Re: OpenClaw is changing my life

#320

Post by mancerayder »

MrJohz wrote: post #274
mancerayder wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

isn't that more a question of company size and industry (i.e. less regulated than healthcare and financial services) than whether management is good or bad? I don't see why it contradicts my little rant above. Of course I also prefer small, nimble teams with lots of autonomy, with individuals who thrive being delegated only extremely broad tasks. The only part where I think there's a difference is the constantly lear…

I don't think having to practice at home and at weekends is necessarily a part of engineering though. Every place I've worked at, there have been ample opportunities to keep up-to-date on paid hours, be that in conferences, learning materials, trying out side projects or weird ideas in more niche technologies, etc.

I think if you have a job that gives you the chance to expand your skills, pick new tech with the ability and time to learn onsite, and offers you that grace, that's a great company to work for.

Within my power I try to do that with my directs, making sure new interesting things are cycled in so their CVs become stronger. But me, personally, I've had really bad luck with this. I always had to study on the weekends for something that either isn't used in my company or someone else jealously guards because it's hot on the market.

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