Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I'd rather read the prompt

claytonwramsey.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

481–490 of 880 posts

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#481

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

staunton wrote: post #134
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots and lots of developers can't program at all. As in literally - can't write a simple function like "fizzbuzz" even if you let them use reference documentation. Many don't even know what a "function" even is. (Yes, these are people with developer jobs, often at "serious" companies.)

I've never met someone like that and don't believe the claim. Maybe you mean people who are bad at interviews? Or people whose job isn't actually programming? Or maybe "lots" means "at least one"? Or maybe they can strictly speaking do fizzbuzz, but are "in any case bad programmers"? If your claim is true, what do these people do all day (or, let's say, did before LLMs were a thing...)?

By "lots" I estimate about 40 percent of the software developer workforce. (Not a scientific estimate.)

> Maybe you mean people who are bad at interviews?

No, the opposite. These developers learn the relevant buzzwords and can string them together convincingly, but fail to actually understand what they're regurgitating. (Very similar to an LLM, actually.)

E.g., these people will throw words like "Dunder method" around with great confidence, but then will completely melt down for fifteen minutes if a function argument has the same name as a module.

When on the job these people just copy-paste existing code from the "serious company" monorepo all day, every day. They call it "teamwork".

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#482

Post by const_cast »

soerxpso wrote: post #253
sn9 wrote: post #221

> I should hope that the purpose of a class writing exercise is not to create an artifact of text but force the student to think; a language model produces the former, not the latter. It's been incredibly blackpilling seeing how many intelligent professionals and academics don't understand this, especially in education and academia. They see work as the mere production of output, without ever thinking about how that…

> I should hope that the purpose of a class writing exercise is not to create an artifact of text but force the student to think I'm there for the degree. If I wanted to learn and engage with material, I could save $60,000 and do that online for free, probably more efficiently. The purpose of a class writing exercise is to get the university to give me the degree, which I cannot do by actually learning the material (…

> I could save $60,000 and do that online for free, probably more efficiently.

Not to burst yours or anyone else's bubble, but no, probably not.

The hard part of learning isn't access to content, it's discipline and dedication. School provides structure, goals, timelines, and deliverables. The value of this cannot be understated.

I've heard from many people how they're going to learn programming online and then get a job as a developer. Almost all of them fail.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#484

Post by melagonster »

Mengkudulangsat wrote: post #431
rohansood15 wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Students want the diploma because it has value. It has value because a student can only get it by learning and problem-solving. If students find a way to get a diploma without doing the work, it will soon be worth less than the paper on which it is printed.

> If students find a way to get a diploma without doing the work, it will soon be worth less than the paper on which it is printed. Amen. I look forward to the era where we train professionals the old fashion way: apprenticeships. It sure worked for blacksmiths and artisans for hundreds of years.

Teenagers and children were treated as a free servant for several years, and probably cannot learn anything.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#485

Post by dheera »

sn9 wrote: post #221

> I should hope that the purpose of a class writing exercise is not to create an artifact of text but force the student to think; a language model produces the former, not the latter. It's been incredibly blackpilling seeing how many intelligent professionals and academics don't understand this, especially in education and academia. They see work as the mere production of output, without ever thinking about how that…

I think this is going to be a problem as long as the metrics by which we evaluate students are intolerant of human errors and prioritize right answers over thinking skills.

The current situation is that people need to pass exams, get certain GPA's, etc. to have opportunities unlocked to them. Education today is largely about collecting these "stamps" that open doors and not about actual learning.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#486

Post by andai »

hnfong wrote: post #449
tcmart14 wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also say some of the attitude shift is also contradictory. The amount of people I interact with who have a lot of bad things to say about the education who tell me universities should focus on education in a general meanwhile also say that schools to should focus on student getting jobs. Probably one that has been heard before, something along the lines of, "why don't high schools teach plumbers courses." I m…

[flagged]

Our CS department head was overheard saying, "Our job is to create researchers."

I found this quite striking, since something like 10% of undergrads go into research. Most people really are there to help them get a job.

So the program is designed not to meet the needs of 90% of its "customers".

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#487

Post by szundi »

sn9 wrote: post #221

> I should hope that the purpose of a class writing exercise is not to create an artifact of text but force the student to think; a language model produces the former, not the latter. It's been incredibly blackpilling seeing how many intelligent professionals and academics don't understand this, especially in education and academia. They see work as the mere production of output, without ever thinking about how that…

[dead]

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#488

Post by xeyownt »

zeroq wrote: post #255
sn9 wrote: post #221

> I should hope that the purpose of a class writing exercise is not to create an artifact of text but force the student to think; a language model produces the former, not the latter. It's been incredibly blackpilling seeing how many intelligent professionals and academics don't understand this, especially in education and academia. They see work as the mere production of output, without ever thinking about how that…

You're missing trees for forest. When I was a kid and got an assignement for writing an essey about "why good forces prevailed in Lords of the Rings" as a gate check to see if I actually read the novel I had three choices: (a) read the novel and write the essey myself (b) find an already written essey - not an easy task in pre-internet era but we had books with esseys on most common topics you could "copy-paste" - an…

> Novice programmer will claim that LLM give them power to take on hard tasks and programm in languages they were not familiar before. But they are not gaining any skill nor knowledege from that experience.

Not true.

Using LLM to learn quickly a new programming language + being productive is best method ever. If you pay attention, you acquire rapidly new skill and knowledge, and those that are relevant to your job.

Using LLM is MUCH more efficient than reading a book going through all the minute details of the language prior telling how to use it. It's the same as learning a language from your parents compared to learning a language from a class. You might not know all the grammar rules, but you'll be way more proficient. And nothing prevents you from learning the grammar later on.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#489

Post by lmm »

godelski wrote: post #411
chongli wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is broken. For every coveted job there are thousands of applicants. Employers will accept any signal that reliably predicts a modicum of intelligence, conscientiousness, and agreeability. University degrees cover all three. But that's just the job market. The other elephants in the room are inflation and the housing market. People who don't have top-notch jobs (that require degrees) can't afford to buy a house. Th…

> We are a society of ladder-pullers. I don't disagree, but often we complain about people pulling up ladders and when faced with the same decision we follow suit. Ultimately we can't change this behavior if no one is willing to defect from "conventional wisdom"

We can't fix the problem by making better choices as individuals, and exhorting people to do so saps energy and distracts. The system interprets integrity as damage and routes around it.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#490

Post by dkdbejwi383 »

kevinventullo wrote: post #224
necovek wrote: post #54

I've already asked a number of colleagues at work producing insane amount of gibberish with LLMs to just pass me the prompt instead: if LLM can produce verbose text with limited input, I just need that concise input too (the rest is simply made up crap).

Something I’ve found very helpful is when I have a murky idea in my head that would take a long time for me to articulate concisely, and I use an LLM to compress what I’m trying to say. So I type (or even dictate) a stream of consciousness with lots of parentheticals and semi-structured thoughts and ask it to summarize. I find it often does a great job at saying what I want to say, but better. (See also the famous Pa…

Like the linked article, I’d rather read your original text, even if it’s less structured and rough
Post reply on HN