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I miss thinking hard

jernesto.com

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Re: I miss thinking hard

#371

Post by jstanley »

amelius wrote: post #369
jstanley wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can move a layer up. Instead of pouring all of your efforts into making one single static object with no moving parts, you can simply specify the individual parts, have the machine make them for you, and pour your heart and soul into making a machine that is composed of thousands of parts, that you could never hope to make if you had to craft each one by hand from clay. We used to have a way to do this before…

Yes, but bad ingredients do not make a yummy pudding. Or, it's like trying to make a MacBook Pro by buying electronics boards from AliExpress and wiring them together.

I'd rather have a laptop made from AliExpress components than only have a single artisanal hand-crafted resistor.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#372

Post by samusiam »

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?

Termius + tailscale + tmux is a common setup for mobile coding sessions.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#373

Post by cbdevidal »

It’s possible to be both.

The last time I had to be a Thinker was because I was in Builder mode. I’ve been trying to build an IoT product but I’ve been wayyyy over my head because I knew maybe 5% of what I needed to be successful. So I would get stuck many, many times, for days or weeks at a time.

I will say though that AI has made the difference in the last few times I got stuck. But I do get more enjoyment out of Building than Thinking, so I embrace it.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#374

Post by z3dd »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #282
vaylian wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You’re taking a bunch of pre-built abstractions written by other people on top of what the computer is actually doing and plugging them together like LEGOs. Correct. However, you will probably notice that your solution to the problem doesn't feel right, when the bricks that are available to you, don't compose well. The AI will just happily smash together bricks and at first glance it might seem that the task is don…

Not yet, anyway; I do trust LLMs for writing snippets or features at this point, but I don't trust them for setting up new applications, technology choices, architectures, etc. The other day people were talking about metrics, the amount of lines of code people vs LLMs could output in any given time, or the lines of code in an LLM assisted application - using LOC as a metric for productivity. But would an LLM ever sug…

I was creating a Jira/bb wrapper with node recently and Claude actually used plenty of libraries to solve some tasks.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#375

Post by Hendrikto »

socalgal2 wrote: post #261
gyomu wrote: post #32

This March 2025 post from Aral Balkan stuck with me: https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/114160190826192080 "Coding is like taking a lump of clay and slowly working it into the thing you want it to become. It is this process, and your intimacy with the medium and the materials you’re shaping, that teaches you about what you’re making – its qualities, tolerances, and limits – even as you make it. You know the least about wha…

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…

> No, your favorite movie is not crap because the creators didn't grind their own lens.

But Pulp Fiction would not have been a masterpiece if Tarantino just typed “Write a gangster movie.” into a prompt field.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#376

Post by fattybob »

Thinking hard and fast with positive results is like a drug, ah those were good and rewarding days in my past, would jump back into that work framework any time ( that was running geological operations in an unusually agile oil exploration programme )

Re: I miss thinking hard

#377

Post by DANmode »

tired-turtle wrote: post #96
keyle wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should have been clearer. It was a pun, a take, a joke. I was referring to his day-to-day activity now, where he merges code, doesn't write hardly any code for the linux kernel. I didn't imply most of use can do half the thing he's done. That's not right.

> his day-to-day activity now, where he merges code But even then...don't you think his insight into and ability to verify a PR far exceeds that of most devs (LLM or not)? Most of us cannot (reasonably) aspire to be like him.

But some can aspire to be him circa five years ago,

while Linus has his own efforts multiplied as well.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#378

Post by samusiam »

topspin wrote: post #48
Aeglaecia wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's no such thing as right or wrong , so the following isn't intended as any form of judgement or admonition , merely an observation that you are starting to sound like an llm

> you are starting to sound like an llm My observation: I've always had that "sound." I don't know or care much about what that implies. I will admit I'm now deliberately avoiding em dashs, whereas I was once an enthusiastic user of them.

I still use em-dashes. I started using them when my professor lambasted my use of semi-colons. I'm not looking back -- LLM haters be damned!

Re: I miss thinking hard

#379

Post by samusiam »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #62
9rx wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never felt more mental exhaustion than after a LLM coding session. I assume that is a result of it requiring me to think harder too.

It wasn't until I read your comment that I was able to pinpoint why the mental exhaustion feels familiar. It's the same kind (though not degree) of exhaustion as formal methods / proofs. Except without the reward of an intellectual high afterwards.

Personally I do get the intellectual high after a long LLM coding session.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#380

Post by pyreal »

The author clearly loves coding more than the output from coding. I'm thinking harder than ever and so grateful I can finally think hard about the output I really want rather than how to resolve bugs or figure out how to install some new dependency.
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