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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

#601

Post by sarchertech »

leptons wrote: post #561
laserlight wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“You're holding it wrong.” is the most common response I get, when I talk about problems I had with LLM-assisted coding.

You aren't holding it wrong, the truth is AI is a mixed bag, leaning towards a liability. If people really counted all the time they spend coddling the AI, trying again, then trying again and again and again to get a useful output, then having to clean up that output, they would see that the supposed efficiency gains are near zero if not negative. The only people it really helps are people who were not good at coding…

Imagine you are a JS dev and github comes out with a new search feature that's really good. it lets you use natural language to find open source projects really easily. So whenever you have a new project you check to see if something similar exists. And instead of starting from scratch you start from that and tweak it to fit what you want to do.

If you were the type of person who makes tiny toy apps, or you worked on lots of small already been done stuff, you'd love doing this. It would speed you up so much.

But if you worked on a big application with millions of users that had evolved into it's own snowflake through time and use, you'd get very little from it.

I think I probably could benefit from looking at existing open source solutions and modifying them a lot of the time, and I kinda started out doing that at first. But eventually you realize that even though starting with something can save you time, it can also cost you a ton of time so it's frequently a wash or a net negative.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#602

Post by aworks »

rewgs wrote: post #521
another-dave wrote: post #110

On the otherhand, when Cloud Computing started to come in, I knew a bunch of sysadmins. Some were in the "it'll never take off" camp and no doubt they know it now, kicking and screaming. But the curious early adopters were the ones best positioned to be leading the charge on "cloud migration" when the business finally pulled the trigger. Similarly with mobile dev. As a Java dev at the time that Android came along, I…

But here's the thing: learning Android dev is nothing like "learning" to use an LLM. Obviously there are tons of tools and systems building up around LLMs, and I don't intend to minimize that, but at the end of the day, an LLM is more analogous to a tool such as an IDE than a programming language. And I've never seen a job posting that dictated one must have X number of years in Y IDE; if they exist, they're rare, an…

"must have X number of years in Y IDE"

Not quite on topic but as an engineering manager responsible for IDE development, explaining to recruiters and candidates I wanted engineers who developed IDEs, not just used them. Unfortunately, that message couldn't get through so I saw many resumes claiming, say 5 years of Eclpse experience, but I would later determine they knew nothing of the internals of an IDE.

Presumably, people now claim 3 years of machine learning experience but via ChatGPT prompting.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#603

Post by sarchertech »

abustamam wrote: post #572
gamerdonkey wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's use AI or be replaced by AI I think they want to sell that perception, but the biggest thing the tech execs want in their SWEs is fear. Fear that makes us stay in our jobs, even when raises and bonuses stagnate, because the market is scary with all the "AI layoffs" (which have largely been regular downsizing with the AI label slapped on). Fear that makes us use the LLMs and then put in extra hours when we don'…

I think you're right that it is fear. But it's kind of a self fulfilling fear. Teams are requiring employees to use AI, probably because of this fear. Maybe it isn't directly taking my job, but it is necessary for me to use Ai to keep my job.

You can always hang your shingle and work for clients directly.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#604

Post by plagiarist »

bikelang wrote: post #373
komali2 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Her boss mandated that managers replace 50% of the staff with AI within a year I bet we could replace nearly all the CEOs in the country with chatgpt controlling a ceo@thatcompany.com email and nobody would notice.

We’d probably get better outcomes too.

For society, yeah, since the AI training corpus is more normal people than sociopaths. Shareholders would be mad, I bet.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#605

Post by aworks »

etwigg wrote: post #444

I don't think the "craftsman" self-identification is going to work for software engineers anymore. The tool capabilities are too dynamic, you have to be some sort of opportunistic pirate/entrepreneur. Sure you can jump in and get up to speed on some aspect of the toolchain later on, but the identity shift is the hard and slow part that I think it's wise to get started on ASAP.

If this is a real strategic shift, some will adapt and some won't or can't.

From Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions:

"a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents... but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it"

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#606

Post by apsurd »

sarchertech wrote: post #598
mekoka wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This sounds exactly right. I'm someone who learned the web back when IE6 was something we wished everyone was on, and also someone who learned the fundamentals of the web and CS in general enough to try writing a book about it to teach everyone else. Picking up the web early didn't help with the latter. I spent most of my early time memorizing tips and tricks that only applied to old browsers. I didn't pick up the fu…

web fundamentals and web development fundamentals are different.

How HTML, CSS and javascript come together is extremely relevant to developers 20 years ago and today.

I do support and agree with the parent comment, see the discussion, but I do credit getting into web development when it was raw and open paid dividends for me. Todays ecosystem is opaque in comparison. You don't think there's more friction today?

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#607

Post by HolyLampshade »

rurp wrote: post #319
HolyLampshade wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've never seen anything like it for a technically optional tool Cloud had a very similar vibe when it was really running advertising to CIO/CTOs hard. Everything had to be jammed into the cloud, even if it made absolutely no sense for it to be run there. This seems to come pretty frequently from visionless tech execs. They need to justify their existence to their boss, and thus try to show how innovative and/or co…

I agree with you but man the absurdity of aggressively pushing cloud or AI adoption as a cost cutting move is off the charts.

Easier to justify monthly costs than big capital asks (even if your infra is depreciated at a normal rate) is where I think many saw (incorrectly) cost savings. It’s also a bit of these execs mortgaging the future, banking on either being out of their role when the real cost comes due or that people will have incredibly short memories (not a wild assumption).

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#608

Post by eks391 »

reaperducer wrote: post #163
yunwal wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A flat tire is a flat tire, no matter whether a recession is going on or whether LLMs are causing chaos in white collar work. There’s really not much stopping changing tires from being automated away. Further standardization of tires or wage increases would probably do the trick. There’s still plenty of software to be created. You’ll probably have to learn some ML tricks or whatever, but there’s nothing going away,…

There’s really not much stopping changing tires from being automated away. Sounds like you've never changed a tire. Or at least not outside of a very controlled environment.

I wouldn't be so sure. I have been impressed by several things that seem to be complex but a way to be automated was found. Sure a no controlled environment is not conducive to automation, but who said a tow truck wouldn't be a part of the process? Washing a car has been automated with the precursor that the car is brought to the controlled environment first.

I have even replaced car tires before and yet still have this opinion.

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#609

Post by HolyLampshade »

genthree wrote: post #280
HolyLampshade wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've never seen anything like it for a technically optional tool Cloud had a very similar vibe when it was really running advertising to CIO/CTOs hard. Everything had to be jammed into the cloud, even if it made absolutely no sense for it to be run there. This seems to come pretty frequently from visionless tech execs. They need to justify their existence to their boss, and thus try to show how innovative and/or co…

I think this is the result of a c-suite that has never actually done the work of the businesses they're running. The MBAificiation of management. Of course they constantly do brain-dead shit, they literally don't have a clue how anything actually works in "their" own business.

I was trying to think of a way to word this exact argument. I think it’s especially easy when your business technology is not your primary means of revenue generation. Having these execs understand how things work is significantly less critical in these scenarios, so it becomes much easier to hire for alternative characteristics (golf game, pedigree, gender, whatever).

Re: I'm OK being left behind, thanks

#610

Post by m463 »

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…

I don't know, I kind of wonder if this applies to all technologies equally.

for example, (dodging the whole full-self-driving controversy) tesla cars have had advanced safety features like traffic aware cruise control and autosteer for over a decade.

so, buying into safety early...

for other technologies, there's sort of the rugpull effect. The people who get in early enjoy something with little drama vs the late adopters. ask people who bought into sonos early vs late, probably more exampless of this.

so getting technology the founders envisioned, vs later enshittified versions.

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