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The AI coding trap

chrisloy.dev

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Re: The AI coding trap

#41

Post by tptacek »

closeparen wrote: post #38
tptacek wrote: post #2

It's a fine post, but two canards in here: First, skilled engineers using LLMs to code also think and discuss and stare off into space before the source code starts getting laid down. In fact: I do a lot, lot more thinking and balancing different designs and getting a macro sense of where I'm going, because that's usually what it takes to get an LLM agent to build something decent. But now that pondering and planning…

>First, skilled engineers using LLMs to code also think and discuss and stare off into space before the source code starts getting laid down Yes, and the thinking time is a significant part of overall software delivery, which is why accelerating the coding part doesn't dramatically change overall productivity or labor requirements.

This logic doesn't even cohere. Thinking is a significant part of software delivery. So is getting actual code to work.

Re: The AI coding trap

#42

Post by fainpul »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #25
bgwalter wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"AI" does not encourage real thinking. "AI" encourages hand waving grand plans that don't work, CEO style. All pro-"AI" posts focus on procedures and methodologies, which is just LARPing thinking. Using "AI" is just like speed reading a math book without ever doing single exercise. The proponents rarely have any serious public code bases.

I see a lot of comments like this and it reflects strongly negatively on the engineers who write it imho. As in I've been a staff level engineer at both Meta and Google and a lead at various startups in my time. I post open source projects here on HN from time to time that are appreciated. I know my shit. If someone tells me that LLMs aren't useful i think to myself "wow this person is so unable to learn new tools th…

> I put absolute LLM negativity right up there with comments like "i never use a debugger and just use printf statements". To me it just screams you never learnt the tool.

To me it just feels different. Learning to use a debugger made me feel more powerful and "in control" (even though I still use a lot of print debugging; every tool has its place). Using AI assisted coding makes me feel like a manager who has to micro-manage a noob - it's exhausting.

Re: The AI coding trap

#43

Post by grim_io »

analog8374 wrote: post #28
reb wrote: post #7

I would love to see an anti-AI take that doesn't hinge on the idea that technology forces people to be lazy/careless/thoughtless. The plan-build-test-reflect loop is equally important when using an LLM to generate code, as anyone who's seriously used the tech knows: if you yolo your way through a build without thought, it will collapse in on itself quickly. But if you DO apply that loop, you get to spend much more ti…

Here's one AI can only recycle the past.

Most of us do nothing but remix the past solutions.

Since we don't know what else might already exist in the world without digging very deep, we fool ourselves into thinking that we do something very original and unique.

Re: The AI coding trap

#44

Post by didibus »

reb wrote: post #7

I would love to see an anti-AI take that doesn't hinge on the idea that technology forces people to be lazy/careless/thoughtless. The plan-build-test-reflect loop is equally important when using an LLM to generate code, as anyone who's seriously used the tech knows: if you yolo your way through a build without thought, it will collapse in on itself quickly. But if you DO apply that loop, you get to spend much more ti…

> If the thinking bit is your favorite part, AI allows you to spend nearly all of your time there if you wish, from concept through troubleshooting

I think this depends. I prefer the thinking bit, but it's quite difficult to think without the act of coding.

It's how white boarding or writing can help you think. Being in the code helps me think, allows me to experiment, uncover new learnings, and evolve my thinking in the process.

Though maybe we're talking about thinking of different things? Are you thinking in the sense of what a PM thinks about ? User features, user behavior, user edge cases, user metrics? Or do you mean thinking about what a developer thinks about, code clarity, code performance, code security, code modularization and ability to evolve, code testability, innovative algorithms, innovative data-structure, etc. ?

Re: The AI coding trap

#45

Post by tptacek »

ctoth wrote: post #33
tptacek wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised (or maybe just ignorant) that Claude doesn't have an explicit setting for this, because it definitely tends to jump the gun a lot.

Plan mode (shift-tab twice) might be what you want.

See, I called it! Ignorance it is!

Re: The AI coding trap

#46

Post by dpflan »

james_marks wrote: post #13
dpflan wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of my initial prompts to agents start with "DO NOT WRITE ANY CODE YET." I like asking for the plan of action first, what does it think to do before actually do any edits/file touching.

I’ve also had success writing documentation ahead of time (keeping these in a separate repo as docs), and then referencing it for various stages. The doc will have quasi-code examples of various features, and then I can have a models stubbed in one pass, failing tests in the next, etc. But there’s a guiding light that both the LLM and I can reference.

Sometimes I wonder if pseudocode could be better for prompting than expressive human language, because it can follow a structure and be expressive but constrained -- have you seen research on this and whether this an effective technique?

Re: The AI coding trap

#47

Post by bikamonki »

Not in my experience. I still spend much of the time thinking before prompting. Then I spend time reviewing the AI written code before using it. Does not feel like a trap. It mostly feels like having a super experienced pair programmer. I may be using it differently than others since I do not have it integrated to my IDE. I use it like I used google + stackoverflow before it.

Re: The AI coding trap

#48

Post by my_corp_is_big »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #25
bgwalter wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"AI" does not encourage real thinking. "AI" encourages hand waving grand plans that don't work, CEO style. All pro-"AI" posts focus on procedures and methodologies, which is just LARPing thinking. Using "AI" is just like speed reading a math book without ever doing single exercise. The proponents rarely have any serious public code bases.

I see a lot of comments like this and it reflects strongly negatively on the engineers who write it imho. As in I've been a staff level engineer at both Meta and Google and a lead at various startups in my time. I post open source projects here on HN from time to time that are appreciated. I know my shit. If someone tells me that LLMs aren't useful i think to myself "wow this person is so unable to learn new tools th…

Why would you point out two tool obsessed companies as something positive? Meta and Google are overstaffed and produce all sorts of tools that people have to use because someone's performance evaluation depends on it.

The open source code of these companies is also not that great and definitely not bug free. Perhaps these companies should do more thinking and less tooling politics.

Re: The AI coding trap

#49

Post by yggdrasil_ai »

tptacek wrote: post #2

It's a fine post, but two canards in here: First, skilled engineers using LLMs to code also think and discuss and stare off into space before the source code starts getting laid down. In fact: I do a lot, lot more thinking and balancing different designs and getting a macro sense of where I'm going, because that's usually what it takes to get an LLM agent to build something decent. But now that pondering and planning…

Self disciplined humans are far and few between, that seems to be the point of most of these anti-ai articles, and I tend to agree with them.

Re: The AI coding trap

#50

Post by surgical_fire »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #25
bgwalter wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"AI" does not encourage real thinking. "AI" encourages hand waving grand plans that don't work, CEO style. All pro-"AI" posts focus on procedures and methodologies, which is just LARPing thinking. Using "AI" is just like speed reading a math book without ever doing single exercise. The proponents rarely have any serious public code bases.

I see a lot of comments like this and it reflects strongly negatively on the engineers who write it imho. As in I've been a staff level engineer at both Meta and Google and a lead at various startups in my time. I post open source projects here on HN from time to time that are appreciated. I know my shit. If someone tells me that LLMs aren't useful i think to myself "wow this person is so unable to learn new tools th…

> That's not to say that LLMs as good as some of the more outrageous claims. You do still need to do a lot of work to implement code. But if you're not finding value at all it honestly reflects badly on you and your ability to use tools.

You are in a forum full of people that routinely claim that vibe coding is the future, that LLMs already can fully replace engineers, and if you don't think so you are just a naysayer that is doing it wrong.

Rephrasing your claim, LLMs are just moderately useful, far from being the future-defining technology people invested in it wants it to be. But you choose to rally against people not interested in marketing it further.

Given the credentials you decided to share, I find it unsurprising.

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