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I miss thinking hard

jernesto.com

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Re: I miss thinking hard

#751

Post by johnnyanmac »

bdangubic wrote: post #740
docmars wrote: post #739

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Be the change you want to see in the world. Gladly! I think what I would choose is building on-shore teams exclusively. That's the change I'd like to see more of, while overseas teams build their own economies instead of ripping away jobs from domestic citizens in an already difficult job market.

almost feels like this could be a good political slogan for a campaign… like “america first” or something like that… oh wait… :)

If it was really America First they might not be so screwed for a free and fair election on November.

If it was really America first, their priorities wouldn't be to try and attack free and fair elections instead of reflecting and actually practicing what they preach.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#752

Post by johnnyanmac »

tayo42 wrote: post #697
wheelinsupial wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's going to come across very naive and dumb, but I believe we can and people just aren't aware of or they simply aren't implementing the basics. Harvard Business Review and probably hundreds of other online content providers provide some simple rules for meetings yet people don't even do these. 1. Have a purpose / objective for the meeting. I consider meetings to fall into one of three broad categories information…

Probably like most businesses issues, it's a people problem. They have to care in the first place and idk if you can make people who don't care starting caring. I agree the info is out there about how to run effective meetings.

You can make people care easily. But people these days aren't incentivized to care. They announce layoffs and get a stock boost many times. You leave a company as a career suite and get paid millions. You speak corporate BS in meetings and get promoted.you bribe a government and you get tax breaks. I can go on for paragraphs about influencers, grifters, government, etc. It's entrenched everywhere.

We in tech like talking about meritocracy, but that's all collapsed, and even the illusion of it has collapsed now.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#753

Post by johnnyanmac »

docmars wrote: post #738
hirvi74 wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> choosing to use AI isn't all or nothing. That's how I have been using AI the entire time. I do not use Claude Code or Codex. I just use AI to ask questions instead of parsing the increasingly poor Google search results. I just use the chat options in the web applications with manual copy/pasting back and forth if/when necessary. It's been wonderful because I feel quite productive, and I do not really have much of a…

It's funny you say this because this is considered the "old" way to use LLMs since agents can write code so well, but I don't think enough people realize how much more efficient your preferred approach is compared to the era before LLMs were widely available at all. Gone are the days of hopeless Googling where 20 minutes of research becomes 3 hours with the possibility of having zero solutions. The sheer efficiency o…

"Reliable" is still a huge misnomer here. You definitely need to grok through hallucinations and sometimes come up empty.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#754

Post by johnnyanmac »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #630
sgarland wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The higher-ups at my company are, like most places, breathlessly talking about how AI has changed the profession - how we no longer need to code, but merely describe the desired outcome. They say this as though it’s a good thing. They’re destroying the only thing I like about my job - figuring problems out. I have a fundamental impedance mismatch with my company’s desires, because if someone hands me a weird…

They’re destroying the only thing I like about my job - figuring problems out. So, tackle other problems. You can now do things you couldn't even have contemplated before. You've been handed a near-godlike power, and all you can do is complain about it?

>So, tackle other problems.

Or get laid off. That works too.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#755

Post by johnnyanmac »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #612
docmars wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why this is getting downvoted, but you're right — being able to crank out ideas on our own is the "killer app" of AI so to speak. Granted, you would learn a lot more if you had pieced your ideas together manually, but it all depends on your own priorities. The difference is, you're not stuck cleaning up after someone else's bad AI code. That's the side to the AI coin that I think a lot of tech workers are st…

What would I learn that I don’t already know? The exact syntax and property of Terraform and boto3 for every single one of the 150+ services that AWS offers? How to modify a React based front end written by another developer even though I haven’t and have actively stayed away from front end development for well over a decade? Will a company pay me more for knowing those details? Will I be more affectively able to arc…

> I am not bragging, I’m old those are table stakes to being able to stay in this game for 3 decades

I'm not old. But slightly past where most would call "young". I see a decent career for the first 5-6 years and then a disruption that completely cuts down on the things you likely had your entire career. Enough time to get a taste of the good times,not enough time to get stable. Meanwhile you buult networks, accomplishments, a seal of trust, in times with overall lower standards.

I don't even use AI but AI has shaped the way I need to navigate the job market and verify knowledge. If you have plenty of pre-AI colleagues and projects to point to you skip all this. But it's a hellscape for people like me.

And I'm sure its an absolute wasteland for new grads

Re: I miss thinking hard

#756

Post by johnnyanmac »

balamatom wrote: post #344
Terr_ wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put it another way, a high-temperature mad-libs machine will write a very unusual story, but that isn't necessarily the same as a clever story.

So why is this "temperature" not on, like, a rotary encoder? So you can just, like, tweak it when it's working against your intent in either direction?

Because you will own nothing and like it. The incentives in this economy is not about providing the best service to customers.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#757

Post by johnnyanmac »

noslenwerdna wrote: post #671
ericmcer wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? Other then calling utility functions that C++ doesn't have you can't just like skip understanding what you are coding by using Python. If you are importing libraries that do stuff for you that wouldn't be any different than if someone wrote those libs in C++.

Are you saying I was incorrect for feeling that way? The reason is that you no longer really know what's going on. (And yes, that feeling would be the same if C++ had as rich a library of packages as python for numerical analysis.) If you are doing something that requires precision you need to know everything that is happening in that library. Also IIRC, I think not knowing what type something is bothered me at the t…

>Are you saying I was incorrect for feeling that way?

I think they just wanted clarification. If a program is just "make lines of code do thing" then it wouldn't be different.

But if you are used to ummanged code and considering the hardware architecture and memory management when you make a high performance program, working on python can feel like a black box. Things will slow down because there's a lot of "magic" weighing down the program. But not everyone works in that space.

Unlike LLMs, at least thos box can be peered inside of you really want to.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#758

Post by CrimsonRain »

dudewhocodes wrote: post #554
CrimsonRain wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you don't like it? Find a place that doesn't enforce it. Can't find it? Then either build it or accept that you want a horse carriage while people want taxi.

How can you be so sure to think you're not replaceable? Because when you use the tools, you're giving data to companies to eventually get even you.

No wonder. You are selfish. Only think of how you can earn money without proving any benefit to society. All you know is how to drive a horse carriage and now taxies scare you. You feel threatened.

More power to society if my skills become easily replaceable. I can learn new things, contribute to society in different ways. I'm not afraid.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#760

Post by chadcmulligan »

conception wrote: post #726
chadcmulligan wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a very good analogy - sliced shop bread is tasteless and not that good for you compared to sourdough. Likewise awful store bought tomatoes taste like nothing compared to heirloom tomatoes and arguably have different nutritional content. Shop bread and tomatoes though can be manufactured without any thought of who makes them, though they can be reliably manufactured without someone guiding an LLM which is perh…

I 100% agree. Though i would argue that, like trash sliced bread, 99% of software is just CRUD reinvented over and over. Which, like a deli sandwich, is probably fine not to have artisanal bread for.

not sure I agree, the transport layer sure - which can be automated without LLM's anyway, it's the business logic which differs every time, and is the hard part.
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