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Code is cheap. Show me the talk

nadh.in

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Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#81

Post by crazylogger »

Waterluvian wrote: post #34

I think if your job is to assemble a segment of a car based on a spec using provided tools and pre-trained processes, it makes sense if you worry that giant robot arms might be installed to replace you. But if your job is to assemble a car in order to explore what modifications to make to the design, experiment with a single prototype, and determine how to program those robot arms, you’re probably not thinking about…

You are describing tradition (deterministic?) automation before AI. With AI systems as general as today's SOTA LLMs, they'll happily take on the job regardless of the task falling into class I or class II.

Ask a robot arm "how should we improve our car design this year", it'll certainly get stuck. Ask an AI, it'll give you a real opinion that's at least on par with a human's opinion. If a company builds enough tooling to complete the "AI comes up with idea -> AI designs prototype -> AI robot physically builds the car -> AI robot test drives the car -> AI evaluates all prototypes and confirms next year's design" feedback loop, then theoretically this definitely can work.

This is why AI is seen as such a big deal - it's fundamentally different from all previous technologies. To an AI, there is no line that would distinguish class I from II.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#82

Post by funnyfoobar »

negamax wrote: post #13

I keep on wondering how much of the AI embrace is marketing driven. Yes, it can produce value and cut corners. But it seems like self driving by 2016 Musk prediction. Which never happened. With IPO/Stock valuations closely tied to hype, I wonder if we are all witnessing a giant bubble in the making How much of this is mass financial engineering than real value. Reading a lot of nudges how everyone should have Google…

What you are saying may have made sense at the start of 2025 where people were still using github copilot tab auto completes(atleast I did) and was just toying with things like cursor, but unsure.

Things have changed drastically now, engineers with these tools(like claude code) have become unstoppable.

Atleast for me, I have been able to contribute to the codebases i was unfamiliar with, even with different tech stacks. No, I am not talking about generating ai slop, but I have been enabled to write principal engineer level code unlike before.

So i don't agree with the above statement, it's actually generating real value and I have become valuable because of the tools available to me.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#83

Post by dbtablesorrows »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #45
dbtablesorrows wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize many are disappointed (especially by technical churn, star-based-development JS projects on github without technical rigour). I don't trust any claim on the open web if I don't know the technical background of the person making it. However I think - Nadh, ronacher, the redis bro - these are people who can be trusted. I find Nadh's article (OP) quite balanced.

When you mention Redis bro, I think you are talking about Antirez correct?

yeah, forgot his name.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#84

Post by jdjeeee »

bheadmaster wrote: post #79
javier_e06 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I listened to an segment on the radio where a College Teacher told their class that it was okay to use AI assist you during test provided: 1. Declare in advance that AI is being used. 2. Provided verbatim the questions and answer session. 3. Explain why the answer given by the AI is good answer. Part of the grade will include grading 1, 2, 3 Fair enough.

This is actually a great way to foster the learning spirit in the age of AI. Even if the student uses AI to arrive at an answer, they will still need to, at the very least, ask the AI to give it an explanation that will teach them how it arrived to the solution.

No this is not the way we want learning to be - just like how students are banned from using calculators until they have mastered the foundational thinking.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#85

Post by wrs »

gipp wrote: post #5

I see a lot of the same (well thought out) pushback on here whenever these kinds of blind hype articles pop up. But my biggest objection to this "engineering is over" take is one that I don't see much. Maybe this is just my Big Tech glasses, but I feel like for a large, mature product, if you break down the time and effort required to bring a change to production, the actual writing of code is like... ten, maybe twen…

My recent experience demonstrates this. I had a couple weeks of happily cranking out new code and refactors at high speed with Claude’s help, then a week of what felt like total stagnation, and now I’m back to high velocity again.

What happened in the middle was I didn’t know what I wanted. I hadn’t worked out the right data model for the application yet, so I couldn’t tell Claude what to do. And if you tell it to go ahead and write more code at that point, very bad things will start to happen.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#86

Post by polytely »

optymizer wrote: post #73

> because one is hooked on and dependent on the genie, the natural circumstances that otherwise would allow for foundational and fundamental skills and understanding to develop, never arise, to the point of cognitive decline. After using AI to code, I came to the same conclusion myself. Interns and juniors are fully cooked: - Companies will replace them with AI, telling seniors to use AI instead of juniors - As a jun…

as someone who is sort of a medior programmer it is very hard to balance, trying to keep up with the advancements in AI while not shooting myself in the foot by robbing myself of learning experiences

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#87

Post by aesch »

javier_e06 wrote: post #70
enlyth wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A software engineer with an LLM is still infinitely more powerful than a commoner with an LLM. The engineer can debug, guide, change approaches, and give very specific instructions if they know what needs to be done. The commoner can only hammer the prompt repeatedly with "this doesn't work can you fix it". So yes, our jobs are changing rapidly, but this doesn't strike me as being obsolete any time soon.

I listened to an segment on the radio where a College Teacher told their class that it was okay to use AI assist you during test provided: 1. Declare in advance that AI is being used. 2. Provided verbatim the questions and answer session. 3. Explain why the answer given by the AI is good answer. Part of the grade will include grading 1, 2, 3 Fair enough.

Props to the teacher for putting in the work to thoughtfully grade an AI transcript! As I typed that I wondered if a lazy teacher might then use AI to grade the students AI transcript?

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#89

Post by quadrifoliate »

jdjeeee wrote: post #66
quadrifoliate wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are hyper-focusing on the headline, which is just a joke. The underlying article does not indicate to me that the author is ignorant of code, and if you care to look, they seem to have a substantial body of public open source contributions that proves this quite conclusively. The underlying point is just that while it was very cognitively expensive to back up a good design with good code back in 2000, it'…

And… the design (artistry) aspect is always the toughest. So explain to me, where do the returns come from if it is seemingly obviously only those who are very well informed of their domains/possess general intelligence can benefit from this tool? Personally I don’t see it happening. This is the bitter reality the LLM producers have to face at some point.

> So explain to me, where do the returns come from if it is seemingly obviously only those who are very well informed of their domains/possess general intelligence can benefit from this tool?

I...don't think this is true at all. "The design of the car is more important than what specific material you use" does not mean that the material is unimportant", just that it is relatively* less important. To put a fake number on it, maybe 10% less important.

I think people who have domain knowledge and good coding skills will probably benefit the most from this LLM producer stuff.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#90

Post by altmanaltman »

Waterluvian wrote: post #69
altmanaltman wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is it? I really fail to see the metaphor as an F1 fan. The cars do not change that much; only the setup does, based on track and conditions. The drivers are fairly consistent through the season. Once a car is built and a pecking order is established in the season, it is pretty unrealistic to expect a team with a slower car to outcompete a team with a faster car, no matter what track it is (since the conditions affect…

I wonder about how true this was historically. I imagine race car driving had periods of rapid, exciting innovation. But I can see how a lot of it has probably reached levels of optimization where the rules, safety, and technology change well within the realm of diminishing returns. I'm sure there's still a ridiculous about of R&D though? (I don't really know race car driving)

Sure there is crazy levels of R&D but that mostly happens off season or if there is a change in regulations which happen every 4-5 years usually. Interestingly, this year the entire grid starts with new regs and we don't really know the pecking order yet.

But my whole point was that race to race, it really isn't that much different for the teams as the comment implied and I am still kind of lost how it fits to SWE unless you're really stretching things.

Even then, most teams dont even make their own engines etc.

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