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Some thoughts on LLMs and software development

martinfowler.com

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Re: Some thoughts on LLMs and software development

#381

Post by globular-toast »

jama211 wrote: post #269
globular-toast wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, my strong feeling is that the net benefit of all of this will be zero. The time you have to spend holding the LLM hand is almost equal to how much time you would have spent writing it yourself. But then you've got yourself a codebase that you didn't write yourself, and we all know hunting bugs in someone else's code is way harder than code you had a part in designing/writing. People are honestly just drunk on th…

Only when purely vibe coding. AI currently saves a LOT of time if you get it to generate boilerplate, diagnose bugs, or assist with sandboxed issues. The proof is in the pudding. The work I do takes me half as long as it used to and is just as high in quality, even though I manage and carefully curate the output.

I don't write much boilerplate anyway. I long ago figured out ways to not do that (I use a computer to do repetitive tasks for me). So when people talk about boilerplate I feel like they're only just catching up to me, not surpassing me.

As for catching bugs, maybe, but I feel like it's pot luck. Sometimes it can find something, sometimes it's just complete rubbish. Sometimes worth giving it a spin but still not convinced it's saving that much. Then again I don't spend much time hunting down bugs in unfamiliar code bases.

Re: Some thoughts on LLMs and software development

#382

Post by awesome_dude »

malloryerik wrote: post #242
awesome_dude wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a very similar (probably unoriginal) thought about some human mental illnesses. So, we VALUE creativity, we claim that it helps us solve problems, improves our understanding of the universe, etc. BUT people with some mental illnesses, their brain is so creative that they lose the understanding of where reality is and where their imagination/creativity takes over. eg. Hearing voices? That's the brain conjuring…

You may like to check out Iain McGilchrist's take on schizophrenia, which essentially he says is a relative excess of rationality ("if then else" thinking) and a deficit of reasonableness (as in sensible context inhabiting).

I shall have a read of that at some point.

Re: Some thoughts on LLMs and software development

#383

Post by _heimdall »

jychang wrote: post #380
_heimdall wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That point may not have been relevant for me to include. I was getting at the idea that a neuron is a very specific feature of a biological brain, regardless of what AI researchers may call their hardware they aren't made of neurons.

1. They are neurons, whether you like it or not. A binary tree may not have squirrels living in them, but it's still a tree, even though the word "tree" here is defined differently than from biology. Or are you going to say a binary tree is not a tree? 2. You are about 5 years behind in terms of the research. Look into hierarchical feature representation and how MLP neurons work. (Or even in older CNNs and RNNs etc).…

What were you getting at with the MLP example? MLPs do a great job with perception abilities and I get that they use the term neuron frequently. I disagree with the use of the name there that's all, similarly I disagree that LLMs are AI but here we are.

Using the term neuron there and meaning it literally is like calling an airplane a bird. I get that the colloquial use exists, but no one thinks they are literal birds.

Re: Some thoughts on LLMs and software development

#384

Post by tjwebbnorfolk »

PessimalDecimal wrote: post #200
tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but they need to be told what to do much more carefully than anyone on earth. have you ever managed an offshore team. holy cow

"Offshore team." "Holy cow." I see what you did there.

that was accidental

Re: Some thoughts on LLMs and software development

#385

Post by jychang »

_heimdall wrote: post #383
jychang wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. They are neurons, whether you like it or not. A binary tree may not have squirrels living in them, but it's still a tree, even though the word "tree" here is defined differently than from biology. Or are you going to say a binary tree is not a tree? 2. You are about 5 years behind in terms of the research. Look into hierarchical feature representation and how MLP neurons work. (Or even in older CNNs and RNNs etc).…

What were you getting at with the MLP example? MLPs do a great job with perception abilities and I get that they use the term neuron frequently. I disagree with the use of the name there that's all, similarly I disagree that LLMs are AI but here we are. Using the term neuron there and meaning it literally is like calling an airplane a bird. I get that the colloquial use exists, but no one thinks they are literal bird…

Do you also disagree with the use of the name “tree” in a computer science class?

Again, nobody thinks trees in computer science contains squirrels, nobody thinks airplanes are birds, and nobody thinks a neuron in a ML model contains axons and dendrites. This is a weird hill to die on.

Are you gonna complain that the word “photograph” is “light writing” but in reality nobody is writing anything so therefore the word is wrong?

Re: Some thoughts on LLMs and software development

#386

Post by aatd86 »

scott_w wrote: post #379
seunosewa wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do the same thing. We pick words that are statistically likely to get us what we want. And much of it is unconscious. You don't formally reason about every word you speak. You are focused on your objective, and your brain fills in the gaps.

We absolutely do not "pick words that are statistically likely to get us what we want." We use words to try to articulate (to varying levels of success) a message that we want to communicate. The words, tone, speed, pitch, etc. all convey meaning. > And much of it is unconscious. That does not mean we're "picking words statistically likely to get us what we want," it means "our brains do a lot of work subconsciously.…

There is an objective. Solving an optimization problem. Or seen otherwise, given a matrix of predicates, it tries to compute some kind of final value that is as close to 1 as possible by applying the matrix to your input prompt. This is more or less what it does.

Re: Some thoughts on LLMs and software development

#387

Post by aatd86 »

cmiles74 wrote: post #325
aatd86 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But..but...humans do the same thing? This is input/output with the output being formed from applying the function of our life experiences (training) to the input? They just don't have the hormonal circuitry to optimise for whatever our bodies are trying to optimise for when we take decisions.

People actually understand the input and the output. An LLM understand neither, it's generating output that is statistically likely, within some bounds. As Fowler said, it's a pleasant coincidence that some of this output has value to us. (For sure, arguments can be made that the relationship betweens the terms that the model has encoded could maybe be called "model thinking" or "model understanding" but it's not how…

Interesting that you say that. What is actually 'understanding'? A semantic mapping between tokens (words) and objects and relations between those objects? How would you define it?

Re: Some thoughts on LLMs and software development

#388

Post by stevage »

jeppester wrote: post #107

In my company I feel that we getting totally overrun with code that's 90% good, 10% broken and almost exactly what was needed. We are producing more code, but quality is definitely taking a hit now that no-one is able to keep up. So instead of slowly inching towards the result we are getting 90% there in no time, and then spending lots and lots of time on getting to know the code and fixing and fine-tuning everything…

> What bothers me the most is that I much prefer to build stuff rather than fixing code I'm not intimately familiar with.

Me too. But I think there's a split here. Some people love the new fast and loose way and rave about how they're experiencing more joy coding than ever before.

But I tried it briefly on a side project, and hated the feeling of disconnect. I started over, doing everything manually but boosted by AI and it's deeply satisfying. There is just one section of AI written code that I don't entirely understand, a complex SQL query I was having trouble writing myself. But at least with an SQL query it's very easy to verify the code does exactly what you want with no possibility of side effects.

Re: Some thoughts on LLMs and software development

#389

Post by stevage »

computerex wrote: post #219
utyop22 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"but quality is definitely taking a hit now that no-one is able to keep up." And its going to get worse! So please explain to me how in the net, you are going to be better off? You're not. I think most people haven't taken a decent economics class and don't deeply understand the notion of trade offs and the fact there is no free lunch.

Technology has always helped people. Are you one of the people that say optimizing compilers are bad? Do you not use the intellisense? Or IDEs? Do you not use higher level languages? Why not write in assembly all the time? No free lunch right. Yes there are trade offs, but at this point if you haven’t found a way to significantly amplify and scale yourself using llms, and your plan is to instead pretend that they are…

> Do you not use the intellisense?

Not your point, but I turned intellisense off years ago and haven't missed it. There's so much going on with IDE UIs now that having extra drop downs while typing was just too much. And copilot largely replaces the benefit of it anyway.

Re: Some thoughts on LLMs and software development

#390

Post by _heimdall »

jychang wrote: post #385
_heimdall wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What were you getting at with the MLP example? MLPs do a great job with perception abilities and I get that they use the term neuron frequently. I disagree with the use of the name there that's all, similarly I disagree that LLMs are AI but here we are. Using the term neuron there and meaning it literally is like calling an airplane a bird. I get that the colloquial use exists, but no one thinks they are literal bird…

Do you also disagree with the use of the name “tree” in a computer science class? Again, nobody thinks trees in computer science contains squirrels, nobody thinks airplanes are birds, and nobody thinks a neuron in a ML model contains axons and dendrites. This is a weird hill to die on. Are you gonna complain that the word “photograph” is “light writing” but in reality nobody is writing anything so therefore the word…

I would disagree with anyone that wants to say they are the same as a natural tree, sure.

I don't believe the term photograph was repurposed when cameras were invented, that example doesn't fit.

More importantly, I argued that neuron has a very specific biological meaning and its a misuse to use the term for what is ultimately running on silicon.

Your claim was that they are neurons, period. You didn't expand on that further which reads as a pretty literal use of the term to me. We're online discussing in text, that reading of your comment could be completely wrong, that's fine. But I stand by my point that what is inside an LLM or a GPU is not a neuron.

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