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I’m spending months coding the old way

miguelconner.substack.com

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Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#321

Post by eventualcomp »

0123456789ABCDE wrote: post #297
orphea wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they did share their view and it's being discussed, so what's the problem?

the problem is that it has no substance at all. it is the equivalent of "your opinion sucks", it doesn't elaborate on it, so there is nothing to discuss either. beyond _this_, which in itself isn't much i'll give you that.

When I saw the title, I actually didn't have much emotion beyond curiosity. But then after checking thus comment, it piqued my interest, made me step back and really consider the ramifications of how we got here. And then yes I became depressed also.

Anyway, I got value out of it, comments dont have to increase net factual information to be meaningful, because we are all capable of reflection.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#322

Post by fuzztester »

assimpleaspossi wrote: post #261
sagacity wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, it's mostly an evergreen skill because people don't know how to exit.

I know you're joking but if one can't figure out how to quit vi they should find other employment opportunities in other fields of work.

And I bet emacs has a mode for that too.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#324

Post by whateveracct »

i feel like i'm being gaslit into believing that coding was ever hard or the bottleneck.

Typing and thinking in English is demonstrably slower than in code/the abstract (Haskell for me.)

And no, I didn't write English plans before AI. Or have a stream of English thought in my head. Or even pronounce code as I read and wrote it. That's low-skill stuff.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#325

Post by andai »

From the linked article by Cal Newport:

> One solution to this constant companion problem: Spend more time with your phone out of easy reach. If it’s not nearby, it won’t be as likely to trigger your motivational neurons, helping clear your brain to focus on other activities with less distraction.

Reminds me of this study: "The mere presence of a smartphone reduces basal attentional performance"

The effect persisted even when the phone was switched off. It only went away when the phone was moved to a different part of the building.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-36256-4

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#326

Post by BoingBoomTschak »

genxy wrote: post #250
tikotus wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit tangential, but I believe dynamic vs static typing works the same. I switch quite often between them, and when ever I've had a longer break from dynamic typing, coming back to it feels quite heavy. "How did I ever do this?" It feels so heavy. But a few hours (or days) in, I forget what the problem was. A part of my brain wakes up. I start thinking about what I'm passing around, I start recognizing the types fro…

In dynamically typed programs, you can if you allow it, let the types happen to you. In a statically typed program, you are forced to think about them from the beginning. That same abstract concept is at play with vibe coding, but instead the code now happens to you. My best LLM written code is where I did a prototype of the overall structure of the program and fed that structure along with the spec and the goal. It…

A needlessly confrontational view. Some people do use dynamic typing as a way to stumble around until it works (e.g. most scientists) but some others simply don't want the noise associated with a static type system accurate enough to really say what you want; especially during prototyping/interactive use. Which is why gradual typing exists, really.

Same reason my views about GC evolved from "it's for people lacking rigour" to "that's true, but there's a second benefit: no interleaving of memory handling and business logic to hurt clarity".

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#327

Post by BoingBoomTschak »

zahlman wrote: post #296
hyperhello wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It bugs me that there are two kinds of languages. Parameters and variables could be typed optionally in a dynamic language; either error in the compiler or at runtime; otherwise you just haven’t made any type errors while you coded and the code is fine either way.

This is what gradual typing (such as TypeScript, or the use of Python annotations for type-checking) accomplishes. The issue is that it basically always is bolted on after the fact. I have faith that we aren't at the end of PL history, and won't be surprised if the next generation of languages integrate gradual typing more thoughtfully.

The problem with these two languages is that the runtime type system is completely different (and much weaker) than the compile time one; so that the only way to be safe is to statically type the whole program.

CL has a pretty anemic type system, but at least it does gradual without having to resort to this.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#328

Post by booleandilemma »

whateveracct wrote: post #324

i feel like i'm being gaslit into believing that coding was ever hard or the bottleneck. Typing and thinking in English is demonstrably slower than in code/the abstract (Haskell for me.) And no, I didn't write English plans before AI. Or have a stream of English thought in my head. Or even pronounce code as I read and wrote it. That's low-skill stuff.

It's the opposite. Coding was, and is, still hard. If you don't believe me go do an Advent of Code challenge after day 15. LLMs have tricked everyone into believing coding is easy.

Re: I’m spending months coding the old way

#330

Post by t43562 »

voidfunc wrote: post #42
Trasmatta wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YES. I don't know how many multi WEEK sessions of debugging I've been through in my career. Frustrating, but so many valuable lessons learned in the process. LLMs are absolutely causing us to lose something very important.

If I told someone I spent a week debugging a problem these days I think I would get laughed out of the call. Even a day might hit somw chuckles. If you cant fix the bug just slop some code over it so its more hidden. This is all gonna be fascinating in 5-10 years.

It has always been the case that doing difficult things isn't impressive - it's always speed that impresses. Hence AI.

On the other hand, while I notice people not being impressed, they are careful to shift difficult things off onto others if at all possible.

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