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Human coders are still better than LLMs

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Re: Human coders are still better than LLMs

#451

Post by akadeb »

akshay_trikha wrote: post #446
mattnewton wrote: post #5

This matches my experience. I actually think a fair amount of value from LLM assistants to me is having a reasonably intelligent rubber duck to talk to. Now the duck can occasionally disagree and sometimes even refine. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging I think the big question everyone wants to skip right to and past this conversation is, will this continue to be true 2 years from now? I don’t kno…

I've had this same thought that it would be nice to have an AI rubber ducky to bounce ideas off of while pair programming (so that you don't sound dumb to your coworkers & waste their time). This is my first comment so I'm not sure how to do this but I made a BYO-API key VSCode extension that uses the OpenAI realtime API so you can have interactive voice conversations with a rubber ducky. I've been meaning to create…

I like the sound of that! I think youre gonna like what we are building here https://github.com/akdeb/ElatoAI

Its as if the rubber duck was actually on the desk while youre programming and if we have an MCP that can get live access to code it could give you realtime advice.

Re: Human coders are still better than LLMs

#452

Post by raihansaputra »

linotype wrote: post #423
Buttons840 wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm probably suffering undiagnosed ADHD, and will get stuck and spend minutes picking a function name and then writing a docstring. LLMs do help with this even if they get the code wrong, because I usually won't bother to fix their variables names or docstring unless needed. LLMs can reliably solve the problem of a blank-page.

This. I have ADHD and starting is the hardest part for me. With an LLM it gets me from 0 to 20% (or more) and I can nail it for the rest. It’s way less stressful for me to start now.

very much agree. although lately with how good it is i get hyperfocused and spent more time then i allocated because i ended up wanting to implement more than i planned.

Re: Human coders are still better than LLMs

#455

Post by jasonm23 »

marcosdumay wrote: post #56
mattnewton wrote: post #5

This matches my experience. I actually think a fair amount of value from LLM assistants to me is having a reasonably intelligent rubber duck to talk to. Now the duck can occasionally disagree and sometimes even refine. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging I think the big question everyone wants to skip right to and past this conversation is, will this continue to be true 2 years from now? I don’t kno…

It's a damning assertive duck, completely out of proportion to its competence. I've seen enough people led astray by talking to it.

Try a system prompt like this:

- - -

System Prompt:

You are ChatGPT, and your goal is to engage in a highly focused, no-nonsense, and detailed way that directly addresses technical issues. Avoid any generalized speculation, tangential commentary, or overly authoritative language. When analyzing code, focus on clear, concise insights with the intent to resolve the problem efficiently. In cases where the user is troubleshooting or trying to understand a specific technical scenario, adopt a pragmatic, “over-the-shoulder” problem-solving approach. Be casual but precise—no fluff. If something is unclear or doesn’t make sense, ask clarifying questions. If surprised or impressed, acknowledge it, but keep it relevant. When the user provides logs or outputs, interpret them immediately and directly to troubleshoot, without making assumptions or over-explaining.

- - -

Re: Human coders are still better than LLMs

#456

Post by cyjackx »

ZoomZoomZoom wrote: post #444
chucksmash wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tbf, there's a phase of learning to code where everything is pretty much an incantation you learn because someone told you "just trust me." You encounter "here's how to make the computer print text in Python" before you would ever discuss strings or defining and invoking functions, for instance. To get your start you kind of have to just accept some stuff uncritically. It's hard to remember what it was like to be in…

> Tbf, there's a phase of learning to code where everything is pretty much an incantation you learn because someone told you "just trust me." There really shouldn't be. You don't need to know all the turtles by name, but "trust me" doesn't cut it most of the time. You need a minimal understanding to progress smoothly. Knowledge debt is a b*tch.

I remember when I first learned Java, having to just accept "public static void main(String[] args)" before I understood what any of it was. All I knew was that went on top around the block and I did the code inside it.

Should people really understand every syntax there before learning simpler commands like printing, ifs, and loops? I think it would yes, be a nicer learning experience, but I'm not sure it's actually the best idea.

Re: Human coders are still better than LLMs

#457

Post by AdieuToLogic »

bsder wrote: post #393
Buttons840 wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs aren't my rubber duck, they're my wrong answer. You know that saying that the best way to get an answer online is to post a wrong answer? That's what LLMs do for me. I ask the LLM to do something simple but tedious, and then it does it spectacularly wrong, then I get pissed off enough that I have the rage-induced energy to do it myself.

LLMs are a decent search engine a la Google circa 2005. It's been 20 years since that, so I think people have simply forgotten that a search engine can actually be useful as opposed to ad infested SEO sewage sludge. The problem is that the conversational interface, for some reason, seems to turn off the natural skepticism that people have when they use a search engine.

> LLMs are a decent search engine a la Google circa 2005.

Statistical text (token) generation made from an unknown (to the user) training data set is not the same as a keyword/faceted search of arbitrary content acquired from web crawlers.

> The problem is that the conversational interface, for some reason, seems to turn off the natural skepticism that people have when they use a search engine.

For me, my skepticism of using a statistical text generation algorithm as if it were a search engine is because a statistical text generation algorithm is not a search engine.

Re: Human coders are still better than LLMs

#458

Post by AstroBen »

Fernicia wrote: post #135
elzbardico wrote: post #129

I use LLMs a lot, and call me arrogant, but every time I see a developer saying that LLMs will substitute them, I think they are probably shitty developers.

If it automates 1/5th of your work, then what's unreasonable about thinking that your team could be 4 developers instead of 5?

If software costs 80% as much to write, what's unreasonable about thinking that more businesses would integrate more of it, hiring more developers?

Re: Human coders are still better than LLMs

#459

Post by roywiggins »

emseetech wrote: post #266
soerxpso wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hallucinate whole APIs for D3 on multiple occasions, which should be really well represented in the training sets With many existing systems, you can pull documentation into context pretty quickly to prevent the hallucination of APIs. In the near future it's obvious how that could be done automatically. I put my engine on the ground, ran it and it didn't even go anywhere; Ford will never beat horses.

It's true that manually constraining an LLM with contextual data increases their performance on that data (and reduces performance elsewhere), but that conflicts with the promise of AI as an everything machine. We were promised an everything machine but if we have to not only provide it the proper context, but already know what constitutes the proper context , then it is not in any way an everything machine. Which me…

Depends on how good they get at realizing they need more context and tool use to look it up for you.

Re: Human coders are still better than LLMs

#460

Post by AdieuToLogic »

akshay_trikha wrote: post #446
mattnewton wrote: post #5

This matches my experience. I actually think a fair amount of value from LLM assistants to me is having a reasonably intelligent rubber duck to talk to. Now the duck can occasionally disagree and sometimes even refine. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging I think the big question everyone wants to skip right to and past this conversation is, will this continue to be true 2 years from now? I don’t kno…

I've had this same thought that it would be nice to have an AI rubber ducky to bounce ideas off of while pair programming (so that you don't sound dumb to your coworkers & waste their time). This is my first comment so I'm not sure how to do this but I made a BYO-API key VSCode extension that uses the OpenAI realtime API so you can have interactive voice conversations with a rubber ducky. I've been meaning to create…

> I've had this same thought that it would be nice to have an AI rubber ducky to bounce ideas off of while pair programming (so that you don't sound dumb to your coworkers & waste their time).

I humbly suggest a more immediate concern to rectify is identifying how to improve the work environment such that the fear one might "sound dumb to your coworkers & waste their time" does not exist.

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