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Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

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Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#571

Post by nl »

falloutx wrote: post #216
esperent wrote: post #42

> But I'm worried for the folks that will get fired. It is not clear what the dynamic at play will be: will companies try to have more people, and to build more? This is the crux. AI suddenly became good and society hasn't caught on yet. Programmers are a bit ahead of the curve here, being closer to the action of AI. But in a couple of years, if not already, all the other technical and office jobs will be equally aff…

In one of the scenarios programmers get replaced then the progress slows, thus saving jobs of writers, lawyers, marketing, scientists, artists. At this point I am okay with that scenario seeing how programmers have showed no solidarity while every other field has been rejecting AI. Lawyers have even started hiring junior lawyers back and Art industry has basically shoved AI into a bin of irrelevance.

> Lawyers have even started hiring junior lawyers back

I assure you that this isn't anything like the level before.

Lawyering has changed forever.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#572

Post by colordrops »

epolanski wrote: post #484
colordrops wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The split I'm seeing with those around me is: 1. Those who see their codebase as a sculpture, a work of art, a source of pride 2. Those who focus on outcomes. They are not contradictory goals, but I'm finding that if your emphasis is 1, you general dislike LLMs, and if your emphasis is 2, you love them, or at least tolerate them.

Why would you dislike LLMs for 1? I have my personal projects where every single line if authored by hand. Still, I will ask LLMs for feedback or look for ideas when I have the feeling something could be rearchitected/improved but I don't see how. More often than not, they fluke, but occasionally they will still provide valid feedback which otherwise I'd missed. LLMs aren't just for the "lets dump large amounts of lo…

I don't disagree with you - LLMs are not at odds with quality code if you use them correctly. But many people who take excessive pride in their code don't even bother to look and see what can be done with them. Though, in the last couple months, I have seen several of the (1) types around me finally try them.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#573

Post by aperrien »

totallykvothe wrote: post #569

I don't understand the stance that AI currently is able to automate away non-trivial coding tasks. I've tried this consistently since GPT 3.5 came out, with every single SOTA model up to GPT 5.1 Codex Max and Opus 4.5. Every single time, I get something that works, yes, but then when I start self-reviewing the code, preparing to submit it to coworkers, I end up rewriting about 70% of the thing. So many important deta…

Have you tried asking one of your peers who claims to get good results to run a test with you? Where you both try to create the same project, and share your results?

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#574

Post by sublinear »

totallykvothe wrote: post #569

I don't understand the stance that AI currently is able to automate away non-trivial coding tasks. I've tried this consistently since GPT 3.5 came out, with every single SOTA model up to GPT 5.1 Codex Max and Opus 4.5. Every single time, I get something that works, yes, but then when I start self-reviewing the code, preparing to submit it to coworkers, I end up rewriting about 70% of the thing. So many important deta…

I think you're spot on.

So many people hyping AI are only thinking about new projects and don't even distinguish between what is a product and what is a service.

Most software devs employed today work on maintaining services that have a ton of deliberate decisions baked in that were decided outside of that codebase and driven by business needs.

They are not building shiny new products. That's why most of the positive hype about AI doesn't make sense when you're actually at work and not just playing around with personal projects or startup POCs.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#575

Post by CuriouslyC »

totallykvothe wrote: post #569

I don't understand the stance that AI currently is able to automate away non-trivial coding tasks. I've tried this consistently since GPT 3.5 came out, with every single SOTA model up to GPT 5.1 Codex Max and Opus 4.5. Every single time, I get something that works, yes, but then when I start self-reviewing the code, preparing to submit it to coworkers, I end up rewriting about 70% of the thing. So many important deta…

I think it comes down to what you mean by sub par code. If you're talking a mess of bubblesorts and other algorithmic problems, that's probably a prompting issue. If you're talking "I just don't like the style of the code, it looks inelegant" that's not really a prompting issue, models will veer towards common patterns in a way that's hard to avoid with prompts.

Think about it like compiler output. Literally nobody cares if that is well formatted. They just care that they can get fairly performant code without having to write assembly. People still dip to assembly (very very infrequently now) for really fine performance optimizations, but people used to write large programs in it (miserably).

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#576

Post by [deleted] »

totallykvothe wrote: post #569

I don't understand the stance that AI currently is able to automate away non-trivial coding tasks. I've tried this consistently since GPT 3.5 came out, with every single SOTA model up to GPT 5.1 Codex Max and Opus 4.5. Every single time, I get something that works, yes, but then when I start self-reviewing the code, preparing to submit it to coworkers, I end up rewriting about 70% of the thing. So many important deta…

[deleted]

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#577

Post by virgildotcodes »

totallykvothe wrote: post #569

I don't understand the stance that AI currently is able to automate away non-trivial coding tasks. I've tried this consistently since GPT 3.5 came out, with every single SOTA model up to GPT 5.1 Codex Max and Opus 4.5. Every single time, I get something that works, yes, but then when I start self-reviewing the code, preparing to submit it to coworkers, I end up rewriting about 70% of the thing. So many important deta…

On the subpar code, would the code work, albeit suboptimally?

I think part of the problem a lot of senior devs are having is that they see what they do as an artisanal craft. The rest of the world just sees the code as a means to an end.

I don't care how elegantly my toaster was crafted as long as it toasts the bread and doesn't break.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#578

Post by FloorEgg »

totallykvothe wrote: post #569

I don't understand the stance that AI currently is able to automate away non-trivial coding tasks. I've tried this consistently since GPT 3.5 came out, with every single SOTA model up to GPT 5.1 Codex Max and Opus 4.5. Every single time, I get something that works, yes, but then when I start self-reviewing the code, preparing to submit it to coworkers, I end up rewriting about 70% of the thing. So many important deta…

I have been doing the same since GPT-3. I remember a time, probably around 4o when it started to get useful for some things like small React projects but was useless for other things like firestore rules. I think that surface is still jagged, it's just that it's less obviously useless in areas that it's weaker.

When things really broke open for me was when I adopted windsurf with Opus 4, and then again with Opus 4.5. I think the way the IDE manages the context and breaks down tasks helps extend llm usefulness a lot, but I haven't tried cursor and haven't really tried to get good at Claude code.

All that said, I have a lot of experience writing in business contexts and I think when I really try I am a pretty good communicator. I find when I am sloppy with prompts I leave a lot more to chance and more often I don't get what I want, but when I'm clear and precise I get what I want. E.g. if it's using sloppy patterns and making bad architectural choices, I've found that I can avoid that by explaining more about what I want and why I want it, or just being explicit about those decisions.

Also, I'm working on smaller projects with less legacy code.

So in summary, it might be a combination of 1, 2 and the age/complexity of the project you're working on.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#579

Post by MattSayar »

abustamam wrote: post #566
embedding-shape wrote: post #95

> But what was the fire inside you, when you coded till night to see your project working? It was building. I feel like this is not the same for everyone. For some people, the "fire" is literally about "I control a computer", for others "I'm solving a problem for others", and yet for others "I made something that made others smile/cry/feel emotions" and so on. I think there is a section of programmer who actually do…

I think all programmers are like LEGO builders. But different programmers will see each brick as a different kind of abstraction. A hacker kind of programmer may see each line of code as a brick. An architect kind of programmer may see different services as a brick. An entrepreneur kind of programmer may see entire applications as a brick. These aren't mutually exclusive, of course. But we all just like to build thin…

This is exactly the way I see it. You can always get better performance at lower levels of abstraction, but there are trade-offs. Sometimes the trade-offs are worth it (like building bigger things), and sometimes they aren't (it's a buggy mess).

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#580

Post by mvkel »

totallykvothe wrote: post #569

I don't understand the stance that AI currently is able to automate away non-trivial coding tasks. I've tried this consistently since GPT 3.5 came out, with every single SOTA model up to GPT 5.1 Codex Max and Opus 4.5. Every single time, I get something that works, yes, but then when I start self-reviewing the code, preparing to submit it to coworkers, I end up rewriting about 70% of the thing. So many important deta…

> Other people are just less picky than I am

I think this is part of it.

When coding style has been established among a team, or within an app, there are a lot of extra hoops to jump through, just to get it to look The Right Way, with no detectable benefit to the user.

If you put those choices aside and simply say: does it accomplish the goal per the spec (and is safe and scalable[0]), then you can get away with a lot more without the end user ever having a clue.

Sure, there's the argument for maintainability, and vibe coded monoliths tend to collapse in on themselves at ~30,000 LOC. But it used to be 2,000 LOC just a couple of years ago. Temporary problem.

[0]insisting that something be scalable isn't even necessary imo

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