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AI code and software craft

alexwennerberg.com

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Re: AI code and software craft

#41

Post by SchemaLoad »

acedTrex wrote: post #26
nubg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speak for yourself.

I mean yes, i am speaking for myself. I am drowning in mountains of LLM slop patches lol. I WISH people were using LLMs as "just another tool to generate code, akin to a vim vs emacs discussion."

I'm so sick of being dumped 1000 line diffs from coworkers who have generated whole internal libraries that handle very complicated operations that are difficult to verify. And you just know they spend almost no time properly testing and verifying since it was zero effort to generate it all in the first place.

Re: AI code and software craft

#43

Post by SchemaLoad »

adithyassekhar wrote: post #38
Herring wrote: post #3

This argument is basically just the 1800s Luddite vs Industrialist argument recast for a new age. Group A thinks quality is about human agency, and that machines are being used to bypass the apprenticeship system and produce inferior goods. Group B thinks efficiency is the highest priority, and craft is just vanity. Of course as we know we went a third way, and human roles just shifted. I think one promising shift di…

> I think one promising shift direction is humans do NOT like to talk to bots, especially not for anything important. It's biological. Let me tell you why I like shopping from amazon instead of going to a super market... But also the older I get I keep wanting to visit the store in person. It's not to see the other human, I just want to hold the thing I want to buy and need it immediately instead of waiting. I feel l…

You talk to bots on Amazon? If say Hacker News was entirely just bots, why would you bother commenting, why would you bother reading the comments?

Re: AI code and software craft

#44

Post by sodapopcan »

basilgohar wrote: post #37

I feel like one of the things that's not said enough, and which I think is conflating the effectiveness of AI in the eyes of actual software engineers, is that, for the most part, most code produced IS lousy. The craft of programming has been watered down so much in favor of results, and so much code is disposable or write-and-use once, that quality just became less relevant. I remember when I first started out progr…

As someone who resists agents, I agree with all of this 100%, especially that it's not said enough, because this is exactly what I've railed against most of my career. There is a HUGE "LOL all code sucks" sentiment across the majority of our industry and I friggin' hate it.

Re: AI code and software craft

#45

Post by jlipps »

I love the references to Jacques Ellul's ideas, which I think are interesting to reflect on in an AI age. It helps make clear that what is fundamentally at stake in much technological "progress" is an (often only tacitly acknowledged) sublimation of "efficiency" to the place of highest value.

What's fascinating is that this value elevation seems to have gone largely unchallenged, despite being in essence an arbitrary value choice. Other choices are possible. And, I hope, still are possible, despite what the bigcorps declare must be the case in order to maximize shareholder returns.

Re: AI code and software craft

#46

Post by fartfeatures »

nielsbot wrote: post #39
will__ness wrote: post #17

> But there are serious limits. [Your coding agent] will lie to you, they don't really understand things, and they often generate bad code. I think that really high quality code can be created via coding agents. Not in one prompt, but instead an orchestration of planning, implementing, validating, and reviewing. Its still engineering work. The code still matters. Its just a different tool to write the code. I'd compa…

> Not in one prompt, but instead an orchestration of planning, implementing, validating, and reviewing Lots of times I could just write it myself and be done with it

Sure and lots of times I can walk places. That doesn't mean bikes, cars, trains and planes aren't incredibly useful. They let me achieve things I can't in other ways for example transporting cargo without a team of people to help me. Just like AI coding.

Re: AI code and software craft

#47

Post by uejfiweun »

wormik wrote: post #42

Stop arguing about whether AI ruins craft. Fix the incentive structures so that increased productivity buys humans time, not disposability. Then see what kind of craft emerGe

Unfortunately it seems the incentive structures are ultimately set by global competition and the security dilemma. So short of total world disarmament and UBI, fundamentally the incentive will always be to work harder than your opponent to preserve your own security.

Re: AI code and software craft

#48

Post by nielsbot »

fartfeatures wrote: post #46
nielsbot wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not in one prompt, but instead an orchestration of planning, implementing, validating, and reviewing Lots of times I could just write it myself and be done with it

Sure and lots of times I can walk places. That doesn't mean bikes, cars, trains and planes aren't incredibly useful. They let me achieve things I can't in other ways for example transporting cargo without a team of people to help me. Just like AI coding.

Maybe your analogy holds if driving and walking took the same amount of time.

Plus "planning, implementing, validating, and reviewing" would be a bit like walking anyway in your analogy.

Re: AI code and software craft

#49

Post by lkey »

Herring wrote: post #30
lkey wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sighs pulling out this quote again: "Luddites were not opposed to the use of machines per se (many were skilled operators in the textile industry); they attacked manufacturers who were trying to >>circumvent standard labor practices Luckily, the brave government's troops, show trials and making '"machine breaking" (i.e. industrial sabotage) a capital crime"' solved the crisis of these awful, entitled workers' demands…

Ordinarily yes I’d love to overthrow the bourgeoisie (check my history, I live in flagged threads), but this time I think this thread is really just about the evolution of the profession.

To be clear, I'm an accidental member of the haute bourgeoisie, and under normal circumstances, I cannot be harmed directly by this, or any, new evolution of labor relations.

I was mostly annoyed because Luddites were an early labor movement and their demands were, by modern standards, normal, but they are continually invoked like they believed and demanded things they did not.

I do agree the profession, if we dare diminish coding to exactly one thing, is changing, but I believe the direction of that evolution, unchecked, will exacerbate the ongoing attenuation of the power of labor in the US, even as workers individually become more 'productive'.

Quoting you from elsewhere: "Reminder that the most reliable way to prevent the rise of the far right is to implement robust safety nets and low inequality, to reduce status anxiety and grievance."

We agree here, and likely elsewhere, so keep fighting the good fight on this orange hell site (and also outside if you're able).

Re: AI code and software craft

#50

Post by tikhonj »

jlipps wrote: post #45

I love the references to Jacques Ellul's ideas, which I think are interesting to reflect on in an AI age. It helps make clear that what is fundamentally at stake in much technological "progress" is an (often only tacitly acknowledged) sublimation of "efficiency" to the place of highest value. What's fascinating is that this value elevation seems to have gone largely unchallenged, despite being in essence an arbitrary…

Efficiency isn't even the best way to optimize for (expected) shareholder returns for an organization! Efficiency fundamentally trades-off against adaptability and resilience.
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