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Ape Coding [fiction]

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Re: Ape Coding [fiction]

#81

Post by justinhj »

aspenmartin wrote: post #51
aqua_coder wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a notable difference between say, calculating long division through a calculator compared to prompting an AI to calculate the derivative of a simple continuous function. one requires _understanding_ of the function, while the other just skips the understanding and returns the required derivative. One is just a means to skip labor intensive and repetitive actions, while the other is meant to skip the entire p…

I'm not quite sure I understand the logic of this and how people don't see that these claims of "well now everyone is going to be dumber because they don't learn" has been a refrain literally every time a major technological / Industrial Revolution happens. Computers? The internet? Calculators? The skills we needed before are just no longer as relevant. It doesn't mean the world will get dumber, it will adapt to the…

100%. I have been learning so much faster as the models get better at both understanding the world and how to explain it me at whatever level I am ready for.

Using AI as just a generator is really missing out on a lot.

Re: Ape Coding [fiction]

#82

Post by shepherdjerred »

saghm wrote: post #27
segmondy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the goal?

Producing code that does what's intended. The metric is fuzzy and based on the usage of the software, not the scale of lines of code. The extent of the importance of the code itself is that I'm practice software tends not to be "one and done", so you need to be able to go back and modify it to fix bugs, add features, etc., and it turns out that's usually hard when the code is sloppy. Those needs still should stem fro…

Would my user rather have a program that works 100% in 2 weeks, or a program that works 80% in one day?

When the user needs a change made, would they prefer I spend another two weeks extending my perfect program, or throw a few LLMs at their sloppy code and have it done in a day?

Re: Ape Coding [fiction]

#83

Post by robby_w_g »

delichon wrote: post #13

I am ape writing this post after ape cooking breakfast, and then I'll go for an ape walk. In the future, maybe by Thursday, I can have agents do all of that and relax.

> In the future, maybe by Thursday, I can have agents do all of that and relax.

Wall-E seems like it’s getting closer to reality every day

Re: Ape Coding [fiction]

#84

Post by shepherdjerred »

I think this piece makes an excellent point.

Maybe the LLMs today are deeply flawed and cannot replace programmers. But, one day, LLMs (or some other AI approach) _will_ be successful in replacing programmers. It might not be this year or the year after.

I do however feel pretty confident in saying that there will be few programmers in 2076. This piece will look quite prescient.

It's just like how we say "can you imagine programming on a punchcard?"

Re: Ape Coding [fiction]

#85

Post by AnimalMuppet »

g9yuayon wrote: post #66

I like the Chinese alternative better: 古法编程. It feels like playful self-deprecation, suggesting old-school, handcrafted coding with a wink. Ape coding sounds harsher and more insulting, implying mindless or sloppy work rather than humor.

"Ancient programming", for those who don't read Chinese. (I had to use Google Translate.)

Re: Ape Coding [fiction]

#86

Post by dang »

AreShoesFeet000 wrote: post #7
hanifbbz wrote: post #3

WTF is this?! Sattire? AI generated propaganda? I honestly don't get it. Can OP elaborate why it's a good content worthy of people’s time? Thanks in advance.

[flagged]

Please don't cross into personal attack, no matter how wrongheaded another comment is or you feel it is.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Ape Coding [fiction]

#87

Post by umairnadeem123 »

NGL the flaw in this piece is the same flaw in every "AI will replace X" argument - it assumes the bottleneck was ever the typing.it wasn't. the bottleneck is knowing what to build and why.I use AI agents for probably 80% of my code output now and IMO i'm more productive than ever, but only because i spent years "ape coding" first and can immediately tell when the agent is heading somewhere stupid. the people i see struggling with AI coding are exactly the ones who skipped that part. tbf the calculator analogy that keeps coming up in this thread is backwards - nobody is arguing you don't need to understand math to use a calculator. that's literally the point. you DO need to understand it, which is why "ape coding" isn't going away as some niche hobby.it's the prerequisite

Re: Ape Coding [fiction]

#88

Post by gwern »

Naturally, when hobbyists spend a lot of time in a single block to get results (as they are unable to parallelize or meaningfully coordinate over multiple invocations of themselves, due to lacking key cognitive capabilities such as embeddings), they refer to it as 'going ape'.

Re: Ape Coding [fiction]

#89

Post by ylee »

>The main value of modern ape coding appears to be recreational. Ape coders manifest high levels of engagement during coding sessions and report feelings of relaxation after succeeding in (self-imposed) coding challenges. Competitive ape coding is also popular, with top ranked ape coders being relatively well-known in their communities.

I have never been paid to write code, and my formal CS education is limited to AP Computer Science, and a one-credit Java class in college. I wrote 20 years ago a backup script implementing Mike Rubel's insight http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/> about using `rsync` and hard links to create snapshots backups. It's basically my own version of `rsnapshot`. I have deployed it across several of my machines. Every so often I fix a bug or add a feature. Do I need to do it given `rsnapshot`'s existence? No. Is it fun to work on it? Yes.

(I've over the years restored individual files/directories often enough from the resulting backups to have reasonable confidence in the script's effectiveness, but of course one never knows for certain until the day everything gets zapped.)

Re: Ape Coding [fiction]

#90

Post by ylee »

g-b-r wrote: post #50

This is meant to insult AI skeptics, let's not pretend to be idiots. It should be flagged and taken down.

> This is meant to insult AI skeptics, let's not pretend to be idiots.

Only an idiot would read the piece in that way.

>It should be flagged and taken down.

Even if it really did "insult AI skeptics" (and, again, no one with any reasonable ability to comprehend wit and satire would take it that way), how is that justification to get it "flagged and taken down"?!?

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