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I trusted an LLM, now I'm on day 4 of an afternoon project

nemo.foo

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Re: I trusted an LLM, now I'm on day 4 of an afternoon project

#71

Post by jdietrich »

acedTrex wrote: post #60
jdietrich wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is quite remarkable that we are already at the stage where saying "this AI is about as competent as an inexperienced college graduate" constitutes criticism . It is entirely proper for people to be engaging sceptically with LLMs at their current level of capability, but I think we should also keep in mind the astonishingly rapid growth rate in their performance. LLMs were a toy two years ago, they're now a useful…

I mean 2 years ago they were at about the same place, theres been very little practical gain from gpt4 in my opinion. No matter the model the fundamental failure cases have remained the same.

Reasoning models like o1 or QwQ absolutely destroy 4o in coding, let alone GPT-4 circa 2022.

Re: I trusted an LLM, now I'm on day 4 of an afternoon project

#72

Post by simonw »

talldayo wrote: post #31
potsandpans wrote: post #10

Counterexample: Ive been able to complete more side projects in the last month leveraging llms than i have ever in my life. One of which I believe to have potential as a viable product, and another which involved complicated rust `no_std` and linker setup for compiling rust code onto bare metal RISCV from scratch. I think the key to being successful here is to realize that you're still at the wheel as an engineer. Th…

> which involved complicated rust `no_std` and linker setup for compiling rust code onto bare metal RISCV from scratch. That's complicated, but I wouldn't say the resulting software is complex. You gave an LLM a repetitive, translation-based job, and you got good results back. I can also believe that an LLM could write up a dopey SAAS in half the time it would take a human to do the same. But having the right paramet…

A tool that can "write up a dopey SAAS in half the time it would take a human to do" is a pretty incredible thing to add to your toolbox!

Re: I trusted an LLM, now I'm on day 4 of an afternoon project

#73

Post by simonw »

nrb wrote: post #37
pieix wrote: post #7

> AI isn’t a co-pilot; it’s a junior dev faking competence. Trust it at your own risk. This is a good take that tracks with my (heavy) usage of LLMs for coding. Leveraging productive-but-often-misguided junior devs is a skill every dev should actively cultivate!

> Leveraging productive-but-often-misguided junior devs is a skill every dev should actively cultivate! Feels like this is only worthwhile because the junior dev learns from the experience; an investment that yields benefits all around, in the broad sense. Nobody wants a junior around that refuses to learn in perpetuity, serving only as a drag on productivity and eventually your sanity.

That's somewhere that the AI-as-junior-dev analogy breaks down a little.

There's still incredible accumulated value here, but it's at the other end. The more times you successfully use an LLM to produce working code, the more you learn about how to use them - what they're good at, what they're bad at, how to effectively prompt them.

Re: I trusted an LLM, now I'm on day 4 of an afternoon project

#75

Post by j_bum »

adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #47
baxtr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it reasonable to assume that more senior devs benefit more from LLMs?

I believe so. In my experience, you need to have that gut intuition (or experience) to say, “No way. That’s totally wrong.” Since AI will capitulate and give you whatever you want. You also have to learn how to ask without suggesting because it will take whatever you give it and agree.

Yep. I think a default state of skepticism is an absolute necessity when working with these tools.

I love LLMs. I agree with OP them expanding my hobby capacity as well. But I am constantly saying (in effect) “you sure…?” and tend to have a pretty good bs meter.

I’m still working to get my partner to that stage. They’re a little too happy to accept an answer without pushback or skepticism.

I think being ‘eager to accept an answer’ is the default mode of most people anyway. These tools are likely enabling faster disinformation consumption for the unaware.

Re: I trusted an LLM, now I'm on day 4 of an afternoon project

#76

Post by simonw »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #51
mordymoop wrote: post #41

I am frankly tired of seeing this kind of post on HN. I feel like the population of programmers is bifurcating into those who are committed to mastering these tools, learning to work around their limitations and working to leverage their strengths… and those who are committed to complaining about how they aren’t already perfect Culture Ship Minds. We get it. They’re not superintelligent at everything yet. They couldn…

Nobody is complaining that LLMs aren't perfect Culture minds. People disagree with the premise that they are useful tools given their current capabilities. Your portrayal of those with whom you disagree is such a strawman that it might as well be set to a soy-vs-wojak meme.

"People disagree with the premise that they are useful tools given their current capabilities."

I will argue the opposite of that forever. They're very evidently useful, if you take the time to learn how to apply them.

Re: I trusted an LLM, now I'm on day 4 of an afternoon project

#77

Post by insane_dreamer »

> junior dev faking competence

A bit on a tangent, but has there been any discussion of how junior devs in the future are ever going to get past that stage and become senior dev calibre if companies can replace the junior devs with AIs? Or is the thinking we'll be fine until all the current senior devs die off and by then AI will be able to replace them too so we won't need anyone?

1. CS/Eng degree 2. ??? 3. Senior dev!

Re: I trusted an LLM, now I'm on day 4 of an afternoon project

#78

Post by [deleted] »

cmdtab wrote: post #20

Today, I needed to write a proxy[0] that wraps an object and log all method calls recursively. I asked claude to write the initial version. It came up with a complicated class based solution. I spent more than 30 minutes getting a good abstract to come out. I was copy pasting typescript errors and applying fixes it suggested without thinking much. In the end, I gave up and wrote what I wanted myself in 5 minutes. 0]…

[deleted]

Re: I trusted an LLM, now I'm on day 4 of an afternoon project

#79

Post by dstainer »

One of the areas where I've struggled to get effective use out of the LLM's is with UI/UX. That isn't my primary area of expertise (backend) so it definitively could be operator error here, but I use tools like v0.dev and just can't quite get it to do what I need it to do. Anybody have any tools, workflows, suggestions for this?

Re: I trusted an LLM, now I'm on day 4 of an afternoon project

#80

Post by dambi0 »

suddenlybananas wrote: post #69
dambi0 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of the comment makes you think they are claiming that?

The part I quoted? I don't really see how to interpret it any other way.

Thanks, I’m not thinking clearly at all. I had it in my head that programming instruction are not the only way that a computer might do as it’s told. For example, if we delete a folder in a UI by accident we shouldn’t be surprised the folder is gone. But it doesn’t really quite fit the parent analogy. Sorry about that.
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