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AI code and software craft

alexwennerberg.com

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Re: AI code and software craft

#81

Post by tripledry »

hackyhacky wrote: post #51
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New technology does not eliminate old technology or craftsmanship. It just shifts who uses it and what for. - Power tools didn't annihilate the craftsmanship of hand-tool woodworking. Fine woodworkers are still around and making money using hand tools, as well as hobbyists. But contractors universally switched to power tools because they help them make more money with less labor/cost/time. - A friend of mine still kn…

You give examples where crafts based on pre-industrial technology still exist. You're right, but you're proving the GP's point. 200 years ago, being a blacksmith was a viable career path. Now it's not. The use of hand tools, hand knitting, and hand forging is limited to niche, exotic, or hobbyist areas. The same could be said of making clothes by hand or developing film photographs. Coding will be relegated to the sa…

I don't think that's a good comparison though. We shouldn't compare AI/Software to handcrafting one item, you should compare to handcrafting the machine that crafts the items.

If I knit a hat, I can sell it once, but if I make a game, I can run or sell it repeatedly.

However, I still agree with the outcome - if AI becomes even better and is economically viable - number of people handcrafting software will reduce drastically.

Re: AI code and software craft

#82

Post by makapuf »

XenophileJKO wrote: post #79
worksonmine wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you still use your car if you ended up in the wrong destination half the time?

Yes, because I can drive to the other end of the state in an afternoon. Then if I get lost, I can just course correct.

Generating lots of pollution, cost, jams, noise and accidents globally. Not all cities need to be made for cars, right tool for the job etc.

Re: AI code and software craft

#84

Post by cess11 »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #40
skybrian wrote: post #2

Enterprise software tends to particularly bad because it's being sold to managers who won't use it themselves. Consumer software tends to be more user-friendly (or it won't sell), but popular software isn't always what you want. When writing software for yourself, there is a bias towards implementing just the features you want and never mind the rest. Sometimes the result can be pretty sloppy, but it works. However,…

Enterprise software is also particularly bad because many of the customers get to demand that things work the way they want. Leading to a million weird functions, toggles, configurability because some manager in charge of making a big purchase demanded that first it must do X, many of these features left with not even a single user after the original requester leaves. While consumer software the individual consumers…

Right, and then you also have public sector software, and transnational software generally, where the provider actually needs to cater to a plethora of rules and regulations.

Re: AI code and software craft

#85

Post by Terr_ »

fwip wrote: post #66
Terr_ wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hold up, why it changed matters to parent-poster's argument. Consider the difference between: 1. "The technology's capability was inferior to what humans were creating, therefore the quality of the output dropped." 2. "The costs of employing humans created a floor to the price/quality you could offer and still make a profit. Without the human labor, a lower-quality product became possible to offer." The first is a qu…

Some of both. The fabric and clothes were worse, and cheaper. This put many traditional workers out of business, making actually good clothes scarcer, and eventually, more expensive than they previously were.

I think the poster's "LLMs are not like textile machines" point hinges on whether a step down in quality is required due to engineering issues or not, at least for an equivalent product. (E.g. bulk cloth, rather than fine embroidery.)

Re: AI code and software craft

#86

Post by storystarling »

will__ness wrote: post #17

> But there are serious limits. [Your coding agent] will lie to you, they don't really understand things, and they often generate bad code. I think that really high quality code can be created via coding agents. Not in one prompt, but instead an orchestration of planning, implementing, validating, and reviewing. Its still engineering work. The code still matters. Its just a different tool to write the code. I'd compa…

The practical limit is the latency and inference cost. A full planning and validation loop burns a lot of tokens, and waiting for that cycle breaks flow compared to just writing the code.

Re: AI code and software craft

#87

Post by anhner »

bfung wrote: post #32
odo1242 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The result being worse generally doesn't stop humans from being displaced. Clothes made today are notably worse than the handmade ones.

Is clothes today really worse? We have clothes and materials like gortex now that blocks rain and snow no handmade jacket could ever hope to perform at the same level to be lightweight AND dry.

> We have clothes and materials like gortex now that blocks rain and snow no handmade jacket could ever hope to perform at the same level to be lightweight AND dry.

At the cost of massive environmental, animal and human health.

Re: AI code and software craft

#88

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

hackyhacky wrote: post #51
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New technology does not eliminate old technology or craftsmanship. It just shifts who uses it and what for. - Power tools didn't annihilate the craftsmanship of hand-tool woodworking. Fine woodworkers are still around and making money using hand tools, as well as hobbyists. But contractors universally switched to power tools because they help them make more money with less labor/cost/time. - A friend of mine still kn…

You give examples where crafts based on pre-industrial technology still exist. You're right, but you're proving the GP's point. 200 years ago, being a blacksmith was a viable career path. Now it's not. The use of hand tools, hand knitting, and hand forging is limited to niche, exotic, or hobbyist areas. The same could be said of making clothes by hand or developing film photographs. Coding will be relegated to the sa…

I know people who make their living doing those niche things. So what if they're niche? Enterprise Software Architect is niche. Aerospace Engineer is niche. Hell, finding somebody under the age of 40 who can write Assembly is niche.

Everything gets worse overtime. Even before AI, I was constantly complaining about how technology is enshittifying. I'm sure my parents complained about things getting worse, and their parents. Yet here we are, the peak achievement of living beings on this planet, making do. I think we will be OK without typing in by hand a thing that didn't even exist 70 years ago.

Re: AI code and software craft

#89

Post by anhner »

ekianjo wrote: post #80
trollbridge wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Materials other than cotton (like wool and leather) existed.

yup, but polymers are much, much cheaper to produce. And some have properties that no natural fabric can offer.

> properties that no natural fabric can offer

like polluting every inch of the Earth with microplastics!

Re: AI code and software craft

#90

Post by delbronski »

Most software engineers were not “crafting” before AI. They were writing sloppy code for the sake of profit, getting a pay check, and going home. Which is why AI also outputs the same crappy code.

Rumor has it there were a few elite crafters among the lot. Software wizards who pondered about systems and architecture as they had a $10 espresso macchiato.

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