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A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks

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Re: A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks

#701

Post by globular-toast »

> LLM coding will split up engineers based on those who primarily liked coding and those who primarily liked building.

Who doesn't like building? Building without any thought is literally a toy, like Lego or paint by numbers. That's the entire reason those things are popular. But a game is not a job. Sometimes I feel like half the people in this career are children. Never had any real responsibility. "Oh, everyone writes bugs, who tf cares". "Move fast, break stuff" was literally and unironically the tag line for a company that should have been taking far more responsibility.

This trend isn't limited to programmers either. Wherever I look I see people not taking responsibility. Lots of children in adult bodies. I do hope there are some adults who are really pulling the strings somewhere...

Re: A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks

#702

Post by jjfoooo4 »

chrisjj wrote: post #535
_dark_matter_ wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your docs are a contact. You can verify that contract using integration tests

Contract? These docs are information answering user queries. So if you use a chatbot to generate them, I'd like to be reasonably sure they aren't laden with the fabricated misinformation for which these chatbots are famous.

It's a very reasonable concern. My solution is to have the bot classify what the message is talking about as a first pass, and have a relatively strict filtering about what it responds to.

For example, I have it ignore messages about code freezes, because that's a policy question that probably changes over time, and I have it ignore urgent oncall messages, because the asker there probably wants a quick response from a human.

But there's a lot of questions in the vein of "How do I write a query for {results my service emits}", how does this feature work, where automation can handle a lot (and provide more complete answers than a human can off the top of their head)

Re: A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks

#703

Post by dkubb »

daxfohl wrote: post #65

I worry about the "brain atrophy" part, as I've felt this too. And not just atrophy, but even moreso I think it's evolving into "complacency". Like there have been multiple times now where I wanted the code to look a certain way, but it kept pulling back to the way it wanted to do things. Like if I had stated certain design goals recently it would adhere to them, but after a few iterations it would forget again and g…

You could probably combat this somewhat with a skill that references to examples of the code you don't want and the code you do. And then each time you tell it to correct the code you ask it to put that example into the references.

You then tell your agent to always run that skill prior to moving on. If the examples are pattern matchable you can even have the agent write custom lints if your linter supports extension or even write a poor man’s linter using ast-grep.

I usually have a second session running that is mainly there to audit the code and help me add and adjust skills while I keep the main session on the task of working on the feature. I've found this far easier to stay engaged than context switching between unrelated tasks.

Re: A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks

#704

Post by direwolf20 »

aswegs8 wrote: post #619
daxfohl wrote: post #65

I worry about the "brain atrophy" part, as I've felt this too. And not just atrophy, but even moreso I think it's evolving into "complacency". Like there have been multiple times now where I wanted the code to look a certain way, but it kept pulling back to the way it wanted to do things. Like if I had stated certain design goals recently it would adhere to them, but after a few iterations it would forget again and g…

"For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they…

He was right. It did.

Re: A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks

#705

Post by pvab3 »

taylorius wrote: post #696
draxil wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This to me is the point.. LLMs can't be responsible for things. It sits with a human.

Why can LLMs not be responsible for things? (genuine question - I'm not certain myself).

because it doesn't have any skin in the game and can't be punished, and can't be rewarded for succeeding. Its reputation, career, and dignity are nonexistent.

Re: A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks

#706

Post by direwolf20 »

jatari wrote: post #654
wjSgoWPm5bWAhXB wrote: post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, but people just really like to predict dooms and they also like to be convinced that they live in some special era in human history

We are very clearly living through a moment in history that will be studied intensely for thousands of years.

Because of the collapsing empire, mind you, not because of the LLMs.

Re: A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks

#707

Post by direwolf20 »

ryandrake wrote: post #658
KronisLV wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like most apps at most companies can just build an app and deploy it using some modern paas-like thing. Most companies (in the global, not SV sense) would be well served by an app that runs in a Docker container in a VPS somewhere and has PostgreSQL and maybe Garage, RabbitMQ and Redis if you wanna get fancy, behind Apache2/Nginx/Caddy. But obviously that’s not Serious Business™ and won’t give you zero downt…

> Most companies (in the global, not SV sense) would be well served by an app that runs in a Docker container in a VPS somewhere and has PostgreSQL and maybe Garage, RabbitMQ and Redis if you wanna get fancy, behind Apache2/Nginx/Caddy. That’s still too much complication. Most companies would be well served by a native .EXE file they could just run on their PC. How did we get to the point where applications by defaul…

When I was in primary school, the librarian used a computer this way, and it worked fine. However, she had to back it up daily or weekly onto a stack of floppy disks, and if she wanted to serve the students from the other computer on the other side of the room, she had to restore the backup on there, and remember which computer had the latest data, and only use that one. When doing a stock–take (scanning every book on the shelves to identify lost books), she had to bring that specific computer around the room in a cart. Such inconveniences are not insurmountable, but they're nice to get rid of. You don't need to back up a cloud service and it's available everywhere, even on smaller devices like your phone.

There's an intermediate level of convenience. The school did have an IT staff (of one person) and a server and a network. It would be possible to run the library database locally in the school but remotely from the library terminals. It would then require the knowledge of the IT person to administer, but for the librarian it would be just as convenient as a cloud solution.

Re: A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks

#708

Post by direwolf20 »

pvab3 wrote: post #705
taylorius wrote: post #696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can LLMs not be responsible for things? (genuine question - I'm not certain myself).

because it doesn't have any skin in the game and can't be punished, and can't be rewarded for succeeding. Its reputation, career, and dignity are nonexistent.

This doesn't seem to have stopped anyone before.

Re: A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks

#709

Post by direwolf20 »

sarchertech wrote: post #590
throwup238 wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long until “the LLM did it it” is just as effective as “AWS is down, not my fault”?

Never because the only reason that works with Amazon is that everyone is down at the exact same time.

Everyone will suffer from slop code at the same time.

Re: A few random notes from Claude coding quite a bit last few weeks

#710

Post by dullcrisp »

raducu wrote: post #453
striking wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just brain atrophy, I think. I think part of it is that we're actively making a tradeoff to focus on learning how to use the model rather than learning how to use our own brains and work with each other. This would be fine if not for one thing: the meta-skill of learning to use the LLM depreciates too. Today's LLM is gonna go away someday, the way you have to use it will change. You will be on a forever trea…

> let myself atrophy, run on a treadmill forever, for something You're lucky to afford the luxury not to atrophy. It's been almost 4 years since my last software job interview and I know the drills about preparing for one. Long before LLMs my skills naturally atrophy in my day job. I remember the good old days of J2ME of writing everything from scratch. Or writing some graph editor for universiry, or some speculative…

That was on NBC.
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