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I miss thinking hard

jernesto.com

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Re: I miss thinking hard

#421

Post by spacecadet »

gyomu wrote: post #32

This March 2025 post from Aral Balkan stuck with me: https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/114160190826192080 "Coding is like taking a lump of clay and slowly working it into the thing you want it to become. It is this process, and your intimacy with the medium and the materials you’re shaping, that teaches you about what you’re making – its qualities, tolerances, and limits – even as you make it. You know the least about wha…

This is cute, but this is true for ALL activities in life. I have to constantly remind my brother that his job is not unique and if he took a few moments, he might realize, flipping burgers is also molding lumps of clay.

I think the biggest beef I have with Engineers is that for decades they more or less reduced the value of other lumps of clay and now want to throw up arms when its theirs.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#422

Post by bayindirh »

koliber wrote: post #415
gyomu wrote: post #32

This March 2025 post from Aral Balkan stuck with me: https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/114160190826192080 "Coding is like taking a lump of clay and slowly working it into the thing you want it to become. It is this process, and your intimacy with the medium and the materials you’re shaping, that teaches you about what you’re making – its qualities, tolerances, and limits – even as you make it. You know the least about wha…

Sometimes you want an artistic vase that captures some essential element of beauty, culture, or emotion. Sometimes you want a utilitarian teapot to reliably pour a cup of tea. The materials and rough process for each can be very similar. One takes a master craftsman and a lot of time to make and costs a lot of money. The other can be made on a production line and the cost is tiny. Both have are desirable, for differe…

> Sometimes you want a utilitarian teapot to reliably pour a cup of tea.

If you pardon the analogy, watch how Japanese make a utilitarian teapot which reliably pours a cup of tea.

It's more complicated and skill-intensive than it looks.

In both realms, making an artistic vase can be simpler than a simple utilitarian tool.

AI is good at making (poor quality, arguably) artistic vases via its stochastic output, not highly refined, reliable tools. Tolerances on these are tighter.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#423

Post by vict7 »

yurishimo wrote: post #390
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint (more devil's advocate), I'd argue it's better than an LLM writes something (e.g. the solution or thinking through of a problem) than nothing at all. Counterpoint to my own counterpoint, will anyone actually (want to) read it? counterpoint to the third degree, to loop it back around, an LLM might and I'd even argue an LLM is better at reading and ingesting long text (I'm thinking architectural documentat…

I kinda saw this happen in realtime on reddit yesterday. Someone asked for advice on how to deal with a team that was in over their heads shipping slop. The crux of their question was fair, but they used a different LLM to translate their original thoughts from their native language into English. The prompt was "translate this to english for a reddit post" - nothing else. The LLM adding a bunch of extra formatting to…

I saw the same post and was a bit saddened that all the comments seemed to be focused on the implied hypocrisy of the OP instead of addressing the original concern.

As someone that’s a bit of a fence-sitter on the matter of AI, I feel that using it in the way that OP did is one of the less harmful or intrusive uses.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#425

Post by skydhash »

ibestvina wrote: post #316
darepublic wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you think El Anatsui would concur that they didn't interact directly with what they were building? "hands on", "material you're shaping" is a metaphor

I don't see why his involvement, explaining to his team how exactly to build a piece, is any different from a developer explaining to an LLM how to build a certain feature, when it comes to the level of "being hands on". Obviously I am not comparing his final product with my code, I am simply pointing out how this metaphor is flawed. Having "workers" shape the material according to your plans does not reduce your age…

> I don't see why his involvement, explaining to his team how exactly to build a piece, is any different from a developer explaining to an LLM

Because everyone under him knows that a mistake big enough is a quick way to unemployment or legal actions. So the whole team is pretty much aligned. A developer using an LLM may as well try to herd cats.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#426

Post by mlrtime »

amelius wrote: post #393
jstanley wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather have a laptop made from AliExpress components than only have a single artisanal hand-crafted resistor.

Yes, the point is that only if you're willing to accept crappy results then you can use AI to build bigger things.

I was going to reply defending AI tooling and crappy results, but I think I'm done with it.

I think there are just a class of people know that think that you cannot get 'macbook' quality with a LLM. I don't know why I try to convince them, it's not in my benefit.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#427

Post by croes »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #396
jstanley wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can move a layer up. Instead of pouring all of your efforts into making one single static object with no moving parts, you can simply specify the individual parts, have the machine make them for you, and pour your heart and soul into making a machine that is composed of thousands of parts, that you could never hope to make if you had to craft each one by hand from clay. We used to have a way to do this before…

This is really what it’s about. As someone that started with Machine Code, I'm grateful for compiled -even interpreted- languages. I can’t imagine doing the kind of work that I do, nowadays, in Machine Code. I’m finding it quite interesting, using LLM-assisted development. I still need to keep an eye on things (for example, the LLM tends to suggest crazy complex solutions, like writing an entire control from scratch,…

But we become watchers instead of makers.

There is a difference between cooking and putting a ready meal into the microwave.

Both satisfy your hunger but only one can give some kind of pride.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#429

Post by duskdozer »

mw888 wrote: post #92

Give the AI less responsibility but more work. Immediate inference is a great example: if the AI can finish my lines, my `if` bodies, my struct instantiations, type signatures, etc., it can reduce my second-by-second work significantly while taking little of my cognitive agency. These are also tasks the AI can succeed at rather trivially. Better completions is not as sexy, but in pretending agents are great engineers…

This is the way I would consider using them; I just haven't really been able to figure out what I would need to get a reasonably fast and useful local setup without spending a ton of money.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#430

Post by heliumtera »

Hendrikto wrote: post #375
socalgal2 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it's all abstraction. I didn't write my own OS. I didn't write my own compiler. I didn't write the standard library. I just use them. I could write them but I'm happy to work on the new thing that uses what's already there. This is no different than many things. I could grow a tree and cut it into wood but I don't. I could buy wood and nails and brackets and make furniture but I don't. I instead just fill my ho…

> No, your favorite movie is not crap because the creators didn't grind their own lens. But Pulp Fiction would not have been a masterpiece if Tarantino just typed “Write a gangster movie.” into a prompt field.

And if he did, why would I prefer using his prompt instead of mine?

"Write a gangster movie that I like", instead of "...a movie this other guy likes".

But because this is not the case, we appreciate Tarantino more than we appreciate gangster movies. It is about the process.

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