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A coder considers the waning days of the craft

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Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#441

Post by happytiger »

ikari_pl wrote: post #421
reactordev wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3rd option. They got complacent and old and have trouble learning (don’t realize it) and can’t grok the new medium.

4th option. They're trying to enter the market and get a good job, but some companies consider them less experienced but more expensive than Copilot.

Fewer but more senior resources seems possible.

I have already seen the impact of AI systems, reducing the number of junior coding positions and outsourcing.

On the other hand, anyone who actually takes the time to get good with AI coding tools can be performing at senior levels, much more quickly, so there’s that too.

I’m not convinced that it’s some kind of apocalypse as much as it is a massive shift that is going to raise all boats and bring about a renaissance of productivity, and incredibly massive amounts of code, which hopefully is a higher quality because there’s no longer written by an individual in isolation but by a team of software engineers working in concert with AI.

I can’t tell you number times where people were screaming and yelling about how coding was coming to an end and everyone was going to be unemployed in a few years —yet here we are…

Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#443

Post by nercury »

The more you use GPT, the more you will understand that it's not the replacement for your attention to the work. And without the attention to the work, you can't spot bugs, blatant inefficiencies, or better design choices - in other words, if you don't take care, you won't even know what you are missing.

I write code with GPT every day for almost a year now, and it helped me greatly to kickstart code that was hard in the past, namely, audio synthesis, vulkan rendering, and other things that were hard to approach. But it's very clear at this point that it shall not be trusted, because it's like a coat of a nice paint put on top of all the clever or dumb stuff that exists on the internet. You never know which one you get, but sure it will be worded convincingly.

Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#444

Post by ern »

miiiiiike wrote: post #409

I have a simple front-end test that I give to junior devs. Every few months I see if ChatGPT can pass it. It hasn’t. It can’t. It isn’t even close. It answers questions confidently but with subtle inaccuracies. The code that it produces is the same kind of non-sense that you get from recent bootcamp devs who’ve “mastered” the 50 technologies on their eight page résumé. If it’s gotten better, I haven’t noticed. Self-d…

I was on a team developing a critical public safety system on a tight deadline a few years ago, and i had to translate some wireframes for the admin back-end into CSS. I did a passable job but it wasn’t a perfect match. I was asked to redo it by the team-lead. It had zero business value, but such was the state of our team…being pixel perfect was a source of pride.

It was one of the incidents that made me to stop front-end development.

As an exercise, I recently asked ChatGPT to produce similar CSS and it did so flawlessly.

I’m certainly a middling programmer when it comes to CSS. But with ChatGPT I can produce stuff close to the quality of what the CSS masters do. The article points this out: middling generalists can now compete with specialists.

Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#445

Post by d3ckard »

yonisto wrote: post #341

I'm currently re-writing a GPT4 code which is a very interesting experience. The biotech startup I join 3 months ago have a pipeline written by one of the founders, who has experience in programing but not extensive so he used co-pilot and GTP a lot. The thing WORKS, it actually delivers! this is what got the startup going so it is amazing. On the first month of the re-write I was able to cut costs in the 100x mark.…

Those good enough results in the cloud world are going to cost them arm and leg. I for one would much prefer to spend my time on optimization of already established routines than on the damn ping-pong between product, design and "external stakeholders". It's actually what I was trained for.

Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#446

Post by Aerbil313 »

decasia wrote: post #52

I have been having the following debate with my friend who does AI and neural network stuff: Him: Coding will soon be obsolete, it will all be replaced by chatgpt-type code gen. Me: OK but the overwhelming majority of my job as a "senior engineer" is about communication, organizational leadership, and actually understanding all the product requirements and how they will interface with our systems. Yes, I write code,…

Wait before product-gen AI emerges. No, seriously. Do folks here not see it's possible even today with a complex system based on LLMs? It's a matter of time.

Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#447

Post by miiiiiike »

ern wrote: post #444
miiiiiike wrote: post #409

I have a simple front-end test that I give to junior devs. Every few months I see if ChatGPT can pass it. It hasn’t. It can’t. It isn’t even close. It answers questions confidently but with subtle inaccuracies. The code that it produces is the same kind of non-sense that you get from recent bootcamp devs who’ve “mastered” the 50 technologies on their eight page résumé. If it’s gotten better, I haven’t noticed. Self-d…

I was on a team developing a critical public safety system on a tight deadline a few years ago, and i had to translate some wireframes for the admin back-end into CSS. I did a passable job but it wasn’t a perfect match. I was asked to redo it by the team-lead. It had zero business value, but such was the state of our team…being pixel perfect was a source of pride. It was one of the incidents that made me to stop fron…

I’d need to see it.

I can’t get ChatGPT to outperform a novice. And now I’m having candidates argue that they don’t need to learn the fundamentals because LLMs can do it for them.. Good luck HTML/CSS expert who couldn’t produce a valid HTML5 skeleton. Reminds me of the pre-LLM guy who said he was having trouble because usually uses React.. So I told him he could use React. I don’t mean to rag on novices but these guys really seemed to think the question was beneath them.

If you want to get back into front-end read “CSS: The Definitive Guide”. Great book, gives you a complete understanding of CSS by the end.

Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#448

Post by selfhoster11 »

miiiiiike wrote: post #409

I have a simple front-end test that I give to junior devs. Every few months I see if ChatGPT can pass it. It hasn’t. It can’t. It isn’t even close. It answers questions confidently but with subtle inaccuracies. The code that it produces is the same kind of non-sense that you get from recent bootcamp devs who’ve “mastered” the 50 technologies on their eight page résumé. If it’s gotten better, I haven’t noticed. Self-d…

I hope that you are testing this on GPT-4/ChatGPT Plus. The free ChatGPT is completely not representative of the capabilities or the accuracy of the paid model.

Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#449

Post by miiiiiike »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #448
miiiiiike wrote: post #409

I have a simple front-end test that I give to junior devs. Every few months I see if ChatGPT can pass it. It hasn’t. It can’t. It isn’t even close. It answers questions confidently but with subtle inaccuracies. The code that it produces is the same kind of non-sense that you get from recent bootcamp devs who’ve “mastered” the 50 technologies on their eight page résumé. If it’s gotten better, I haven’t noticed. Self-d…

I hope that you are testing this on GPT-4/ChatGPT Plus. The free ChatGPT is completely not representative of the capabilities or the accuracy of the paid model.

I’ve tested it on both.

Re: A coder considers the waning days of the craft

#450

Post by Closi »

miiiiiike wrote: post #432
markhaslam wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you feel comfortable doing so, would you mind the sharing the front-end test you give to junior devs and ChatGPT?

Not gonna happen. I don’t want scrapeable answers out there, I want to see ChatGPT cross this little Rubicon on its own.

It's not that I don't believe you, but without sharing the specific prompt it's hard to say if it's actually GPT4 failing, or if it's actually being poorly-prompted, or if actually the task it is being given is more complex than GPT's capabilities or you are implying.

GPT4 does fail (often!) but fails less with good prompts, simple requirements, it is better at some frameworks and languages than others, and there is a level of total complexity which when reached, it seems to fall over.

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