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Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

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Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#411

Post by tclancy »

bitwize wrote: post #405
JuniperMesos wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Elon Musk, Paul Graham, Steve Yegge and now, sadly John Carmack. Your average hacker scoffs at the idea of religion or faith, but somehow is comfortable with complete unquestioning fealty to whichever person who did something interesting with technology in the past and made enough money to afford drugs you don’t get arrested for and then they started prophesying. Why do you characterize people you disagree with as…

One of the great joys of following guys I admire like Carmack is the little smile I get when I see one of his tweets and go, "yeah, John Carmack was totally wrong about that." For example he argued that UI buttons should act on press rather than waiting for the release, and it's been a UI principle for decades that once a button is pressed you wait for the release on the button, giving the user one last chance to bac…

I would suggest that last line is both wildly indulgent and dangerous. Inventing reasons why someone being completely wrong is actually helpful is a level of freedom no one really deserves.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#412

Post by DiskoHexyl »

PostOnce wrote: post #88

John Carmack is a personal hero of mine, so it pains me to say this: Carmack hasn't produced anything noteworthy since AI was invented, therefore, how productive can it really be? It could be he is doing incredible work in private... but it could also be that he's lost in the weeds, because AI is so counterproductive while feeling the opposite? I remain a skeptic.

Carmack hasn't produced anything genuinely noteworthy after leaving id software, if we are being frank. His work at Armadillo aerospace was more akin to hobby, not really leading anywhere, a VR stint at facebook, again, is difficult to gauge at how large his personal contribution was, and this new AI thing is likely end with him leaving the company, again.

Carmack is an amazing engineer, a genius even, but either the age of the individual contributor creating the entire thing from the ground up is over, and he's bored of it, trying to find a niche where this still works, or he is exploring the areas in which to apply his curiosity.

What I'm saying is that his current productivity or lack of thereof isn't a marker of how AI is productive (or not) in general

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#413

Post by bitwize »

tclancy wrote: post #411
bitwize wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the great joys of following guys I admire like Carmack is the little smile I get when I see one of his tweets and go, "yeah, John Carmack was totally wrong about that." For example he argued that UI buttons should act on press rather than waiting for the release, and it's been a UI principle for decades that once a button is pressed you wait for the release on the button, giving the user one last chance to bac…

I would suggest that last line is both wildly indulgent and dangerous. Inventing reasons why someone being completely wrong is actually helpful is a level of freedom no one really deserves.

Someone being wrong almost always offers an opportunity for them or others to learn. If someone extremely smart is wrong, the gaps in their knowledge may point to interesting directions for the curious. Einstein was wrong to doubt the principles of quantum mechanics, but the conflicts with relativity he elaborated helped point the way for future physics work.

Of course, it's important to be right when there are consequences on the line, but being wrong isn't ipso facto something bad.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#414

Post by Planktonne »

Daishiman wrote: post #399
Planktonne wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree that people do see that, and if they do, it's hardly an overwhelming trend.

I see my org delivering twice as many features and implementing way more tools that actually solve problems. The issue is that doesn’t necessarily mean that customers will pay more, as most of the features of software are not actually core.

Would that really count as a 'massive benefit' then?

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#415

Post by SideQuark »

eesmith wrote: post #407
SideQuark wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Luddites were not opposed to machines. In the sense they were not opposed to all machines as a concept. They were definitely against machines they thought reduced their labor value: "They wrecked specific types of machinery that posed a threat to the particular industrial interests in each region. In the Midlands, these were the "wide" knitting frames used to make cheap and inferior lace articles.[22] In the No…

Yes, that's what I wrote. "They were opposed to bad labor practices, with machine-breaking as way of applying pressure on employers." Otherwise it would be like claiming that an industrial union is opposed to people working in factories by pointing to a strike action and concluding they members just want to stand around outside the factory instead of work. Recall that my comment is in response to "it is economically…

You wrote "The Luddites were not opposed to machines." What you wrote makes it sound as if there was no problems with machines, only with labor practices. That's simply misleading to untrue in this chain.

You can say Luddites were not only opposed to machines they thought cost them (which was the main reason they started the trouble they did at that point), but they also (insert labor practices).

Read their writings or contemporary reports. The wiki page has ample references to good material.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#416

Post by bitwize »

tclancy wrote: post #410
bitwize wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you got downvoted unfairly because I really think you're sincere. My brain heard your comment in the voice of Nightcrawler from X-Men —and as the descendant of German Catholics, he's become one of my favorites.

I love that and want to know what that voice sounds like. Also I want to add some Claremont era flourish to my response, ja?

Like the animated series version: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U7cMZPklcn0

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#417

Post by Yoric »

Paradigma11 wrote: post #205
Yoric wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not GP, but I can. I'm currently working on porting a mid-sized project to a new architecture, new programming language and of course adding new features. Getting a new feature implemented is quite easy. You spend a few hours brainstorming specs with the agent, then ask it to implement it. This gives you extremely frequent code drops that add a new brick, add a new feature, etc. All of this with 100% code coverage (w…

But why did it pass the reviews of the independent subagents whose sole job it is to check all those things? They are very good at that.

In my experience, they are fairly good at catching stuff in human-written code, but they tend to gloss over agent-written code, just as human beings being lulled to complacency by superficially-looking competent code.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#418

Post by Yoric »

jacquesm wrote: post #296
Yoric wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is interesting, but... is it actually improving structure? We're mid-way through a similar process at work. Rewriting a legacy app in a new language, with new architecture and new features. And it's a mess. We're at 10x loc (admittedly, the new programming language is more verbose than the old one), comments make no sense. Yes, we have ~100% coverage, but most of the tests are meaningless. The agent keeps removi…

10x loc? wow. That makes me wonder how it will perform. And how you will review that, since if it is physically impossible for a human then who will take responsibility for what you release?

Benchmarks look good.

Reviews? They were the first casualty.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#419

Post by Yoric »

enraged_camel wrote: post #353
Yoric wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is interesting, but... is it actually improving structure? We're mid-way through a similar process at work. Rewriting a legacy app in a new language, with new architecture and new features. And it's a mess. We're at 10x loc (admittedly, the new programming language is more verbose than the old one), comments make no sense. Yes, we have ~100% coverage, but most of the tests are meaningless. The agent keeps removi…

>> That is interesting, but... is it actually improving structure? Can you be more specific? "Improve structure" can mean different things to different people. We've ensured that agents strictly adhere to code architecture rules, using both agentic review rules and deterministic CI gates. Everything from file naming, location and namespacing to the "shape" of each file that shares the same role are consistent. We can…

> Code review was difficult at the start due to the volume of code. One insight we gained midway through though is that the value humans bring to code review is judgment and business context. So we created a code-atlas skill that creates an artifact for PR reviewers. That artifact highlights the most important parts of the code.

Yeah, we did that, too.

But every time I end up, for some reason, digging up deep in the code, I realize that it's not nearly sufficient in our case.

Re: Don't be the out of touch Kung Fu master

#420

Post by springtimesun »

hermitcrab wrote: post #153

This resonated with me as someone who: has read the book of 5 rings (translated), has done quite a lot of martial arts and has been coding for ~50 years. I work for myself developing apps and selling online. So I have no employer pushing to use AI. But I feel a bit like a dinosaur watching the incoming comet. Currently, I just use MSCopilot as enhanced StackOverflow and I find it useful for that. But I have been nowh…

I was in the same boat around March. I started with Claude and giving it really specific instructions about what I wanted. That turned in to more interactive planning sessions where after we nailed everything down I said, ok just do it and I reviewed. The more I used it the more I let go of some things and the more I held on others. Now I have adapted my entire approach to use both local and cloud agents. Start small. Find what fits you. Also try out different models. Closed source is very strong, but you may actually prefer a bit less capable model that you give more direction to.
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