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Writing code is cheap now

simonwillison.net

521–522 of 522 posts

Re: Writing code is cheap now

#521
post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I hate that idea. Saying "only those who have earned it through effort and discipline should be allowed to do X" goes against how I want most of the world to work. Let's keep that kind of regulation to pursuits like flying helicopters, not using computers.

This is almost a willful misinterpretation of what I said. I didn't say it should be regulated or illegal. I just expressed a thought that perhaps we shouldn't reorient everything around making things easy for the laziest among us.

Fair enough. I have a bit of a trigger finger reaction to anything that hints at suggesting that regular people shouldn't be trusted to use this stuff.

Re: Writing code is cheap now

#522
post #282

> any time our instinct says "don't build that, it's not worth the time" fire off a prompt anyway I disagree with this sentiment. This approach leads down to huge maintenance burden.

In context, this bit is about how to deal with the fact that our intuitions on what's worth it vs not worth it in terms of the time it takes to build are likely out-of-date with these new tools: > For now I think the best we can do is to second guess ourselves: any time our instinct says "don't build that, it's not worth the time" fire off a prompt anyway, in an asynchronous agent session where the worst that can hap…

I think I misread this as an encouragement to pick up work out of order w.r.t prioritization.

That coding got cheaper shouldn't change prioritization post planning. It should definitely factor into prioritization at planning time.

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