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I'm OK being left behind, thanks

shkspr.mobi

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Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#581

Post by apsurd »

mekoka wrote: post #564
apsurd wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this thread and sub-discussion is about specifically early web fundamentals. The web is special in this sense, it's intentionally long-lived warts and all. So the fundamentals pay outsized dividends. The rube goldberg machine that is modern JS dev still spits out an index.html result. Being a good professional developer means getting the primitives and the data model not horribly pointed in the wrong direction. S…

The discussion is centered around the idea that "adopting early" provides some future proofing in a rapidly evolving (and largely non-standard) terrain. I share the FA's position that it does not. > The web is special in this sense, it's intentionally long-lived warts and all. So the fundamentals pay outsized dividends. Fundamentals pay dividends, but what makes you think that what you learn as an early adopter are f…

Good points and thoughtful reply.

You're right, fundamentals are distilled, so to think they are free just by getting in early is likely backwards. And earning one's professional chops doesn't stop or start based on when you enter.

Web dev definitely is nostalgic. I miss the early days but I also conveniently erased ie6, binding data to HTML, the need for backbone and jQuery to do anything. hmmm yeah doesn't matter when you start, it's all a grind if you dig deep enough.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#582

Post by stavros »

mekael wrote: post #565
stavros wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that can write features 5-10x faster with these tools than by hand, at a comparable level of quality (though it hasn't been long enough for me to judge what'll happen in a year).

Would you be able to give an example of a feature? For my example, I need to query an ancient undocumented database , pull back a pile of data, do some validations on it, and then show it to the user or pass it along with another processing step. The human part is researching the database and the data living in it, and implementing the validation(s) while talking to a business user, everything else can be templated.

Oh yes, this is what LLMs excel at. Introspecting a database, either the schema or the live data, running a few checks to see whether all the data had the same shape (or how many different shapes it has), writing validations to catch edge cases, they do this extremely quickly and pretty accurately, whereas it would have taken me hours of trawling.

Then I can look at the output and say things like "what if the data is lowercase?" or anything else I suspect they may have missed. A few rounds of these and I have a pretty good feel for the quality of the resulting checks, while taking a few minutes of my attention/tens of minutes of wallclock time to do.

I have a more detailed example here: https://www.stavros.io/posts/how-i-write-software-with-llms/

I'd share all my plans but I once found that the LLM used my actual phone number as test data, so I don't share those any more, just in case.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#583

Post by thankyoufriend »

tayo42 wrote: post #480
sharkjacobs wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the funniest possible answer to "Sounds like you've never changed a tire. Or at least not outside of a very controlled environment." "Oh, you think I've never changed a tire? Well here is my abstract high level understanding of the steps to changing a tire! And have you considered the quintessential controlled environment for putting tires onto cars?"

We all change tires with a jack and a spare? It's like a simple skill? I don't get the point your making then?

The "edge cases" make a simple task like this more difficult. What if the nuts are stripped? What if the terrain under/around the car is uneven or not solid ground? What if it's raining or snowing or hailing? What if the driver of the car is irrationally upset and kicks your tire-changing robot over? What if a tire change was requested, but it's clear (to a human) that there is more work that needs to be done?

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#584

Post by HDThoreaun »

xigoi wrote: post #551
linhns wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you ask it to write a library at the start, it's likely it will not do that well. Start small, spoon feed some examples.

If you have to put in this much effort, why not just write it yourself?

When you write a library the first step is always designing it. LLMs dont get rid of that step, they get rid of the next step where you implement your design.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#585

Post by GetTheFacts »

jrjeksjd8d wrote: post #244
mh- wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing I've mandated for engineers is that folks give it a try occasionally, as models, best practices, and tooling improves. I'm currently tracking exactly two numeric metrics: total MAUs (to track the aforementioned), and total DAUs (to gauge adoption and rightsize seat-licensed contracts.)

Why do you care so much? If these are really revolutionary tools that vastly optimize work, why bother forcing people to "try new models and best practices"? If the benefit is there people will use it or get left behind, there's no sense having a mandate that people resentfully try the new tooling. Imagine you had a developer who writes Java using vim. It sounds insane but they are just as productive as everyone else…

>If these are really revolutionary tools that vastly optimize work, why bother forcing people to "try new models and best practices"?

"If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to get the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing multitude. See in college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leaving the natural method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and insisting that you shall learn what you have no taste or capacity for. The college, which should be a place of delightful labor, is made odious and unhealthy, and the young men are tempted to frivolous amusements to rally their jaded spirits. I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor."

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#586

Post by spwa4 »

stiiv wrote: post #33

> If this tech is as amazing as you say it is, I'll be able to pick it up and become productive on a timescale of my choosing not yours. Broadly speaking, I think this is a wise assessment. There are opportunities for productivity gains right now, but it I don't think it's a knockout for anyone using the tech, and I think that onboarding might be challenging for some people in the tech's current state. It is safe to…

This is the central thing that changes in a person with age. When you are born, the only thing you do is pick up new things. Literally nothing else. When you're young, picking up new things is how you improve your social position. It's what you do to even be talked to in the first place. It's what you do to get a girl/boyfriend, or be the best student in class, or to be the best (or worst even) employee at your first job ...

Once you have a good social position, or at least one you're happy with, you stop doing this, and you grow ever more irritated at others doing it ... because it's your social position that they're coming after. And they're younger, more motivated and hungrier. More than that, a decent chunk of these people want a better social position, even if that means taking yours.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#587

Post by jrjeksjd8d »

mh- wrote: post #391
jrjeksjd8d wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you care so much? If these are really revolutionary tools that vastly optimize work, why bother forcing people to "try new models and best practices"? If the benefit is there people will use it or get left behind, there's no sense having a mandate that people resentfully try the new tooling. Imagine you had a developer who writes Java using vim. It sounds insane but they are just as productive as everyone else…

> FWIW in the face of these kind of mandates I have been using tokens but ignoring the output. So it's costing my employer money and they have a warped metric of whether the tool is actually useful. What you're actually doing here, from my POV, is incentivizing your employer to use more invasive metrics when they tried to stay hands-off and mandate the absolute bare minimum of "uh, give it a shot and see if you think…

When the CEO, CTO and Director are all saying "everyone has to use AI" I think it's pretty naive to think people will speak out openly. The bare minimum would be making the tools available and letting people do their jobs.

Go ahead and spend more time collecting more granular metrics spying on your employees. Apparently there aren't more valuable things for you to do than micromanaging individual developers.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#588

Post by krackers »

aaurelions wrote: post #85

Why launch Voyager-1 if, in X years, no matter how far it flies, we’ll catch up to it and overtake it using a new version?

Because the planetary alignments won't allow for another launch any time soon... which I guess has a natural correspondence in that the macroeconomic conditions (read: bubble) mean that now is a great time to play around with things while they're basically giving it away to get you hooked.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#589

Post by casey2 »

stiiv wrote: post #33

> If this tech is as amazing as you say it is, I'll be able to pick it up and become productive on a timescale of my choosing not yours. Broadly speaking, I think this is a wise assessment. There are opportunities for productivity gains right now, but it I don't think it's a knockout for anyone using the tech, and I think that onboarding might be challenging for some people in the tech's current state. It is safe to…

No. It just assumes there is no utility in the underlying tech, someone who believes vaccines don't work could make the same argument. Most people trust Morgan-Stanley when it comes to financial instruments more than some bozo on the internet.

You do have to drag stubborn people, kicking and screaming, into the future or they will continue using old tech. The article is framed in the past tense, "someone tried", "the crypto grift was". As if it's not currently swallowing the world. I guess he is so maximally sensible that he self-assess faster than MS and realizes bitcoin just isn't for him every time.

He has a strange hyper-specific definition of utility and productivity, (wrote my MSc, had fun) don't count.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#590

Post by sarchertech »

spwa4 wrote: post #586
stiiv wrote: post #33

> If this tech is as amazing as you say it is, I'll be able to pick it up and become productive on a timescale of my choosing not yours. Broadly speaking, I think this is a wise assessment. There are opportunities for productivity gains right now, but it I don't think it's a knockout for anyone using the tech, and I think that onboarding might be challenging for some people in the tech's current state. It is safe to…

This is the central thing that changes in a person with age. When you are born, the only thing you do is pick up new things. Literally nothing else. When you're young, picking up new things is how you improve your social position. It's what you do to even be talked to in the first place. It's what you do to get a girl/boyfriend, or be the best student in class, or to be the best (or worst even) employee at your first…

Sure, but this is mostly irrelevant because software dev is one of the youngest fields. Something like 70% of professional devs are under 35 depending on which survey you look at. And the number of CS graduates exploded over the last decade.

The only reason the numbers aren’t even more tilted is because people stopped hiring juniors 2 years ago. But they’re out there, and if there’s a new technology around that makes them vastly more productive than the seniors today, there’s nothing stopping companies from hiring them.

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