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AI coding is gambling

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Re: AI coding is gambling

#321

Post by moduspol »

tekacs wrote: post #306
moduspol wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone can be an "ideas guy" because there's no failure event that stops you. Contrast this with being a plumber. Not anyone can be a plumber.

I think that the point about building with agents though. Your ideas meet reality sooner and you actually get feedback on whether they are worth anything or not. So you're not really being an ideas guy in the sense of just throwing ideas out there. You're being an ideas guy in the sense of testing your ideas, which is really the essence of what building startups is: figuring out what people want.

That's true. I was just responding to the post above, which seemed to be inferring a different meaning (i.e. that there are no bad or good ideas guys) than how I interpreted it.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#322

Post by altruios »

_se wrote: post #277
hungryhobbit wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when my dev team included some people using Emacs, some using Eclipse (this was pre-VS Code), and some using IntelliJ. Developers will always disagree on the best tool for X ... but we should all fear the Luddites who refuse to even try new tools, like AI. That personality type doesn't at all mesh with my idea of a "good programmer".

Are you implying that someone who prefers Eclipse is more likely to be a good software engineer than someone who prefers Emacs? If so, that is so hilariously backwards that I can't even begin to understand the types of experiences that you must've had. I am sure that you're objectively wrong if that is what you're saying.

I'm reading it as: those unwilling to try both and make an honest evaluation and instead have preconceived notions and bigotry tend to make bad programmers. That preferences are fine, but dogmatism should be avoided.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#323

Post by CraftingLinks »

RealityVoid wrote: post #39
CraftingLinks wrote: post #30

I see whole teams pushed by c- level going full in with spec driven + tdd development. The devs hate it because they are literally forbidden to touch a single line if code. but the results speak for themselves, it just works and the pressure has shifted to the product people to keep up. The whole tooling to enable this had to be worked out first. All Cursor and extreme use of a tool called Speckit, connected to Notio…

> literally forbidden to touch a single line if code. That is extremely stupid. What does that ban get you? I reqct to this because a friend mentioned exactly this. And I was dumbfounded.

I don't think it's implemented that harsh or enforced so hostile, but they have these rict procedures now on how the code is to be developed. That procedure they follow is all centered around automated code generation. So they simply... don't anymore in practice, it is not part of the job description so to speak. He wasn't happy I can tell, but also acknowledged it was working very well.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#324

Post by bartread »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #173
itsgrimetime wrote: post #92

All of this new capability has made me realize that the reason i love programming _isn't_ the same as the OP. I used to think (and tell others) that I loved understanding something deeply, wading through the details to figure out a tough problem. but actually, being able to will anything I can think of into existence is what I love about programming. I do feel for the people who were able to make careers out of falli…

> but I finally feel like I'm _good_ at programming, which is insane Yes, it is insane. You couldn't torture this confession out of me. But that's the drug they're selling you, isn't it? You don't even write code, but you're getting a self-inflated sense of worth. It must be addicting! Of course, whether or not the programs you prompt are actually good surely has no relation to whether you feel they're good, since yo…

> You don't even write code, but you're getting a self-inflated sense of worth.

That’s because when it comes to delivering value, code doesn’t matter: outcomes do.

If I spend 10 hours hand coding something versus prompting an LLM to create a solution that delivers the same outcome in a few minutes, and I can get that solution into production in under an hour from the moment my fingers first touch the keyboard to start writing the prompt, well, whilst these solutions might both deliver the same value, the ROI differs significantly.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#325

Post by datavalue »

NewsaHackO wrote: post #162
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the programming is and was always a means to an end. No. Programming is a specific act (writing code), and that act is also a means to an end. But getting to the goal does not mean you did programming. Saying "I'm good at programming" when you are just using LLMs to generate code for you is like saying "I'm good at driving" when you only ever take an Uber and don't ever drive yourself. It's complete nonsens…

I guess I agree with you, but I think the GP may have mispoke and meant he loves building software. It's sort of like the difference between knitting and making clothes. The GP likely loves making clothes on an abstract basis and realized that he won't have to knit anymore to do so. And he really never liked knitting in the first place, as it was just a means to an end.

It’s similar to the arrival of mechanized looms in the 19th century. My ancestors were weavers, and automation eventually replaced those jobs. I’ve spent 40 years working in IT as a programmer and am now nearing retirement, so I’ve been fortunate. To me it feels like programming as a skill may not have much time left. Probably how my ancestors felt.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#326

Post by pdntspa »

bakugo wrote: post #261
pdntspa wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the programming is and was always a means to an end. Obsessing over the specific mechanical act of programming is taking the forest for the trees. I agree with gp that the speed in which I am able to execute my vision is exhilarating. It is making me love programming again. My side projects, which have been hanging on the wall for years , are actually getting done. And quickly! The actual act of keying in cod…

Sounds like you just don't like programming. And that's okay! It's okay to not like things. But "I love programming now that I don't do any programming" is an utterly nonsensical statement. Please stop and reflect over what you said for a moment.

Substitute it with "the mechanical act of writing code" and maybe it will make more sense. I have been clumsy with my vocabulary here, forgive me.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#327

Post by CraftingLinks »

comboy wrote: post #48
RealityVoid wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> literally forbidden to touch a single line if code. That is extremely stupid. What does that ban get you? I reqct to this because a friend mentioned exactly this. And I was dumbfounded.

> That is extremely stupid. What does that ban get you? confidence in firing coders I presume..

They are hiring "architects", or do we call them analysts. The impression is we're going back to analysts drawing those pld school UML-like diagrams etc. Also, a lot of the devs are on the brink of just quitting, because it's "not programming" anymore. So, not only will you still need devs, or people massaging those specs, you'll also need enough "product" people to keep that engine fed! If your management isn't lazy, I can see the need for growing people count will continue to rise within such companies. That doesn't mean the work will be ...satisfying for devs.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#328

Post by MeetingsBrowser »

tossandthrow wrote: post #245
MeetingsBrowser wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am never letting junior to midlevels into my team again Exactly. You control the quality of the people in your team. You can train, fire, hire, etc until you get the skill level you want. You have effectively no control over the quality of the output from an LLM. You get what the frontier labs give you and must work with that.

That is not correct. It is much easier to control quality of an Ai than of inexperienced developers.

I think we are talking past each other.

> I am never letting junior to midlevels into my team again

My point is, you control the experience level of the engineers on your team. The fact that you can say you won't let junior or midlevels on your team proves that.

You do not have that level of control with LLMs. Anthropic and OpenAI are roughly the same quality at any given time. The rest are not useful.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#329

Post by tovej »

thangalin wrote: post #286
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I finally feel like I'm _good_ at programming, which is insane Yes, it is insane. You couldn't torture this confession out of me. But that's the drug they're selling you, isn't it? You don't even write code, but you're getting a self-inflated sense of worth. It must be addicting! Of course, whether or not the programs you prompt are actually good surely has no relation to whether you feel they're good, since yo…

> LLMs are not actually doing a great job of translating ideas into tangibly useful software Here is the source code for a greenfield, zero-dependency, 100% pure PHP raw Git repository viewer made for self-hosted or shared environments that is 99.9% vibe-coded and has had ~10k hits and ~7k viewers of late, with 0 errors reported in the logs over the last 24 hours: https://repo.autonoma.ca/repo/treetrek

How is this greenfield?

Re: AI coding is gambling

#330

Post by pdntspa »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #229
pdntspa wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the programming is and was always a means to an end. Obsessing over the specific mechanical act of programming is taking the forest for the trees. I agree with gp that the speed in which I am able to execute my vision is exhilarating. It is making me love programming again. My side projects, which have been hanging on the wall for years , are actually getting done. And quickly! The actual act of keying in cod…

"I really really love cooking. In fact, I have optimized my cooking completely, I go out to restaurants every night!" I believe gp and others just like food instead of cooking. Which is fine, but if that's the case, why go around telling everyone you're a cook?

"I thought using loops was cheating, so I programmed my own using samples. I thought using samples was cheating, so I recorded real drums. I thought that was cheating, so I learned to play. I thought using purchased drums was cheating, so I made my own. I thought using pre-made skins was cheating, so I killed a goat and skinned it. I thought that was cheating too, so I raised my own goats from birth. I haven't made any music lately, what with the goat farming and all."
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