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AI coding is gambling

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Re: AI coding is gambling

#371

Post by jarjoura »

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…

I'd say, you are at the phase of this journey where you're feeling empowered.

It's just one step along the path of AI adoption to execute on an idea and see in near real-time the idea you had baked in your head come alive in front of you. Most of us get to this point and become the biggest evangelists of the tech. I see no reason you should feel guilty for the excitement you're feeling right now, and you should enjoy the journey. You're definitely paying for it in tokens, that's for sure.

However, there will come a point at which you will have successfully willed into existence a novel thing that you always wanted, and there it is, exactly as you dreamed, but by then, you'll be left with a weird empty feeling you won't really have the words for. Maybe it's a feeling of not earning the thing you built, or maybe it's just, your idea is finished and now you have to think of another idea. Certainly, this was your idea though, and it proves you were right, or at least on to something, and it is valuable, to you.

Yet, you didn't go on the journey to get there. You didn't bump up against limitations of the programming language or system and think about workarounds while you were showering or commuting to the office. You basically bought the finished product from the dynamic template marketplace of Anthropic (or whereever), and that's cool that it does what you need. It just isn't really programming, or being a software engineer in the traditional sense.

What used to be something you could potentially leave your day job for to go create a startup with a cofounder over, or maybe sell off to a buyer, or just open source and share with the world, isn't going to have the same meaning. It's a black box of code that you'll need a coding agent to continue working on, keeping that money flowing to Anthropic or whereever.

Anyway, I think the Slot Machine question is where a lot of early adopters are now at in this journey, and once more of us are there, then we can start asking the hard questions. Right now too many of us are where you're at, and it's impossible to know where things will end up in a year or so.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#372

Post by riantogo »

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…

Exactly this for me as well. When I was a SWE I thought what I loved was problem solving. So after many years of doing that I decided to move upsteam and took Product roles so that I can identify and address big business problems. It was only after I switched that I realized that I was not in love with problem solving. I was in love with art. Programming was art of me.

I kept at it on the side as a hobby. But stacks evolved and I was left behind. Now with AI it's back on.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#373

Post by seanmcdirmid »

nickjj wrote: post #365
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you orchestrate the AI manually? You could write a BUILD file that just does it in a loop a few times, or I guess if you lack build system interaction, write a python script? > If it knows how to make the code more readable and / or better for performance by me simply asking "can you make this more readable and performant?" then it should be able to provide this result from the beginning. This is the wrong way…

> Why do you orchestrate the AI manually? I have zero trust in any of these tools and usually I use them for 1 off tasks that fit well with the model of copy / pasting small chunks of code. > But, after you create the code, if you use separate readability and optimization feedback loops where you specifically ask it to work on those aspects of the code, it will do a much better job. I think that's where I was going w…

Make (or whatever successor you are using, I'm sure no one actually uses nmake anymore) is pretty reliable in filling in templates that feed into prompts. And AI is pretty efficient at writing make files, lowering the effort/payoff payoff threshold.

> I think that's where I was going with the need to re-prompt. Why not provide the result after 5 internal rounds of readability / optimization loops as the default? I can't think of times where I wouldn't want the "better" version first.

I don't think this would work very well right now. I find that the AI is good at writing code, or maybe optimizing code, or maybe making the code more readable (that isn't one I do often, but optimization all the time), but if I ask it to do it all at once it does a worse job. But I guess you could imagine a wrapper around LLM calls (ClaudeCode) that does multiple rounds of prompting, starting with code, then improving the code somewhat after the code "works". I kind of like that it doesn't do this though, since I'm often repairing code and don't want the diff to be too great. Maybe a readability pass when the code is first written and then a readability pass sometimes afterwards when it isn't in flux (to keep source repository change diffs down?).

Re: AI coding is gambling

#374

Post by [deleted] »

hungryhobbit wrote: post #186
strangattractor wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One size never fits all. I am old enough to remember what a game changer Spreadsheets (VisiCalc) where. They made the personal computer into a SwissArmy knife for many people that could not justify investing large sums of money into software to solve a niche problem. Until that time PCs simply were not a big thing. I believe AI will do something similar for programming. The level of complexity in modern apps is high…

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".

[deleted]

Re: AI coding is gambling

#375

Post by sublinear »

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…

That's a lot of words just to say you never liked programming.

You could just as easily make claims about carpentry or cooking because you discovered Ikea or microwave meals. They serve a purpose and technically satisfy the needs of anyone, yet they aren't a good enough solution for anything important. That's where we're at with this tech.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#376

Post by jlarcombe »

poszlem wrote: post #195
bluefirebrand wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I finally feel like I'm _good_ at programming, which is insane, because I literally haven't written a line of code myself in months This is exactly the sort of mentality that makes me hate this technology You finally feel good at programming despite admitting that you aren't actually doing it Please explain why anyone should take this seriously?

Why do you feel good about programming despite not writing in machine code?

I enjoyed that too when I was a youngster but there are good reasons why it is impractical for day to day work.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#377

Post by pdntspa »

californical wrote: post #293
pdntspa wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still reading the code, I'm still correcting the LLM's laughably awful architecture and abstractions, and I'm still spending large chunks of time in the design and planning phase with the LLM. The only thing it does is write the code. But that's not programming because its a natural-language conversation?

I mean, yes - you’re reviewing and architecting, but not creating. Same as if you use an image diffusion model. You can describe very clearly what you want, and iterate carefully until you get a picture that looks good. But nobody would say that they “drew a nice picture”, since they haven’t done any drawing. (except maybe the mega-power-users who use the tool and have a warped view of their accomplishment)

I'll never say that I wrote the code, because I didn't.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#378

Post by leptons »

gpt5 wrote: post #366
maplethorpe wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there was a website called InfiniteAppStore, which contained every app imaginable, and where you could type in your search and it would return the code for that app, would you find that as satisfying to use as Claude Code? On the surface this does not sound as satisfying, because it more resembles shopping than coding. But once Claude Code is finally tuned to do its job perfectly, you will essentially be using tha…

In that scenario the 'joy of creation' would just shift to the 'joy of discovery'. Both of which are innate to humans.

Trust me, the two are not the same, and are orders of magnitude different in terms of human satisfaction.

When I walk down a street, I get 10 people stopping me to ask "Where did you get that?". When I tell them I made it, their heads explode. I know which side of that interaction is more satisfying.

We also go all-out for Halloween, and at the big Halloween festival there is literally a line down the street of people waiting to take photos with us. We created something amazing.

People aren't going to line up for slop.

Re: AI coding is gambling

#379

Post by jlarcombe »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #144
watzon wrote: post #110

I think this article makes a valid point. However, if AI coding is considered gambling, then being a project manager overseeing multiple developers could also be seen as a form of gambling to a certain degree. In reality, there isn't much difference between the two. AI models are non-deterministic, and humans are also non-deterministic. You could assign the same task to two different developers and end up with entire…

I think the addiction angle seems to make AI coding more similar to gambling. Some people seem to be disturbingly addicted to agentic coding. Much more so than traditional programming. To the point of doing destructive things like waking up in the middle of the night to check agents. Or giving an agent access to their bank account.

[dead]

Re: AI coding is gambling

#380

Post by 6thbit »

muwtyhg wrote: post #339
6thbit wrote: post #337

Come on now. I pull the slot machine every time I ask my coworker Digbert to work on a ticket. Will Digbert be able to handle it or will he pretend to handle it? Or will he handle it in a way that it will break again in six weeks and will evolve into his full time job for a year? If this is gambling, middle management has been gambling for too long.

You know there is a difference between a tool being unable to predictably accomplish its task, and asking employees to do work and them failing to do so. The accountability alone is leagues apart.

Digbert is also unable to predictably accomplish the task.

I'm not arguing against accountability, only against gambling.

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