I just don't see it. What's truly sad is that a field allegedly filled with technically proficient people is filled with trend chasing and FOTM trends. To this day, people with nuanced takes are far and between and most people either go full force into LLM evangelism or LLM denial, the first more annoying, by far. I'm really getting tired of the programming obituaries. As if LLMs didn't fail at any complex task, as i…
I quit. The clankers won
501–510 of 515 posts
Re: I quit. The clankers won
#502Earlier quoted context omitted.
>If enough of the time it matches reality... But what is "enough of the time"?
Does it have to be a specific number? Whatever you feel like its worth using it over not. If I write code for medical devices I might not tolerate even one AI-induced issue. If I write glorified web apps, I could tolerate dozens of them as long as it still helps get stuff done faster when it works. Your car fails ocassionally and needs service. If most of the time it gets you there, enough that you find it worth it o…
"feel" is a bad way to do statistics. The whole problem with LLMs hallucinating the output 100% of time is that it makes people "feel" it is a lot more capable than it actually is.
Re: I quit. The clankers won
#503Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think your argument is predicated on LLM coding tools providing significant benefit when used effectively. Personally I still think the answer is "not really" if you're doing any kind of interesting work that's not mostly boilerplate code writing all day.
How much of software programmer work is interesting? A fraction of a percent? I'd argue most of us including most startups work on things that help make businesses money and that's pretty "boring" work.
Re: I quit. The clankers won
#504Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your set of statements and their surrounding context reminds me very much of the mass grave scene in Kubrick's Vietnam War movie Full Metal Jacket : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=670Y3ehmU74 >
I'm not sure why it would. Kubrick was criticizing the false morality of the entire adventure, mixed with common bureaucratic fuckups in an unaccountable environment, with tragic results. I'm talking about a change brought on by a new technology, where the market (i.e. all of us collectively) push it forward, like the internet revolution and subsequent consolidation. Good shit happens. Bad shit happens. People get ri…
Oh, no doubt. I'm certain that that is because
> Kubrick was criticizing the false morality of the entire adventure, mixed with common bureaucratic fuckups in an unaccountable environment, with tragic results.
relying on a "intro to cinema criticism"-level summary of the themes of the entire work almost always leaves you entirely ignorant of the specific themes and characterizations that are explored in a particular scene.
Watch the scene with your actual eyes and ears, maybe a couple of times. Ruminate on it and consider what aspects of your statements and their surrounding context might cause someone to be reminded of it.
Re: I quit. The clankers won
#505Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can't disagree that Claude ships much much faster. It is also nice to be able to type up a plan of what I'd like to build and have it go after verifying the plan it generates. I guess it's iterating in plain English instead of iterating in code that I'm having trouble latching onto. It's a "left brain vs right brain" kind of situation for me (not sure how valid that trope is, but it best expresses what I'm feeling).…
I'm also a lifelong vim user. I guess what I'm getting at is that I find the journey even more engaging now. I think I'm a good programmer. I've worked at great companies. I was competitive in ACM contests and Top Coder. But I find the journey even more engaging now because I can focus on really, really deeply understanding something, and less time on glue. Writing code by hand is still fun, don't get me wrong, but I…
Re: I quit. The clankers won
#506I quit. The clankers won. I don't see any proof that software development is not dead. Software engineering is not, and it's much more than writing code, and it can be fun. But writing code is dead, there is no point of doing it if an LLM can output the same code 100x faster. Of course, architecture and operations stays in our hands (for now?). Initially I was very sceptic, first versions of ChatGPT or Claude were ra…
Verifying generated code and writing code are not equivalent at all. You're replacing a builder's mindset with a supervisor's mindset, and the supervisor's workers are dumb. You're bound to end up with the same class of problems we always had when programmers were reviewing their own code or testing their own features. Blind spots.
Fine for personal hobby tools or quick scripts. Not acceptable for business-critical software.
The LLM hype seems to have made an entire profession forget the painfully learned lessons of the last 70 years.
Re: I quit. The clankers won
#507> I’m not protective over the word “art”. Generative AI is art. It’s irredeemably shit art; end of conversation. A child’s crayon doodle is also lacking refined artistry but we hang it on our fridge because a human made it and that matters. More pretentious gatekeeping from luddites who like to yell at clouds. This is someone who would love a piece of artwork created using ai tools right up until someone told them it…
Apart from the fact that, yes, GenAI art is overwhelmingly shit and by definition derivative, it's also not unreasonable to not want to be lied to. People look for human connection. They like being lied to about human expression in a piece of art about as much as they like being catfished.
Re: I quit. The clankers won
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
> sythansized audio playback Thats generated audio. It may not be LLM generated but it's not read by a human. To draw an arbitrary line between _this kind_ of generated content but not _that kind_ is seemingly a matter of perspective and preferences.
Perspective and preferences are two out of N parts that make up a person’s opinion, which in turn is something that makes a judgement about distinguishing two things NOT arbitrary. But partly overlapping with perspective is reasoning (subjective or objective), which is also something that makes a judgement not arbitrary. But your pre-judgement here tells me that that part is uninteresting to you.
The fact is, it's generated content, less sophisticated code was use to generate it, but it's still generated from text input.
Re: I quit. The clankers won
#509Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another one is: Don't use GPS in your own city. Try to learn where you live. Read the map in advance if you are going somewhere new and memorise the turns. A shocking number of my coworkers plot every single trip (even to work!) and claim this helps with traffic or undercover cameras or some other cope. But the traffic will be there regardless, and they shouldnt need Google Maps to remind them not to speed. They'd ra…
> But the traffic will be there regardless Isn't the point to use the GPS to avoid the traffic? In my experience, it's pretty effective a lot of times for that.
In my experience, if you are trying to dodge congestion at a peak time, so is everybody else. Excepting in the first 15-20 mins after a major incident, the alternate routes end up congested and settle to an equilbrium time because everyone is trying to do the same thing.
Re: I quit. The clankers won
#510Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perspective and preferences are two out of N parts that make up a person’s opinion, which in turn is something that makes a judgement about distinguishing two things NOT arbitrary. But partly overlapping with perspective is reasoning (subjective or objective), which is also something that makes a judgement not arbitrary. But your pre-judgement here tells me that that part is uninteresting to you.
It's still arbitrary, even if you attempt to backfill reasoning and conflate opinion with fact. The fact is, it's generated content, less sophisticated code was use to generate it, but it's still generated from text input.
Backill reasoning? Providing reasoning later is less legitimate? Why?
Some people state things without spelling out the reasoning because they assume it is common sense.
> The fact is, it's generated content, less sophisticated code was use to generate it, but it's still generated from text input.
Your opinions are fact. Counter-arguments are opinions masquerading as facts. Your comments here are textbook arbitrariness. ;)
To dig a little into it: it is generated content, but that’s not necessarily what their arguments hinge on at all. But there’s no point going further with this, clearly.