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It used to be hard

praf.me

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Re: It used to be hard

#81

Post by ducktective »

simonw wrote: post #76
ducktective wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain this "adapting". The LLM sellers' holygrail is * you just need to crank our model bro *. With this mindset, there is no adaptation needed, save a couple of weeks of getting up to speed with nuances of using the models, the / commands and integration of their APIs into your workflow.

You gotta ignore what the LLM sellers are saying and listen to the people who don't have a financial incentive to sell a particular message.

It's not just corpo talk. The ultimate goal in LLM and AI progress is "replacement" of professional knowledge workers. In the march of the 9s of the accuracy of the generated LLM output, the engineers role would matter less and less.

It's asking engineers to "adapt" to being efficient in filling out the last 10% then 1% then 0.1% then 0.01%.

Re: It used to be hard

#82

Post by evanelias »

mohsen1 wrote: post #25
simonw wrote: post #21

If you're not finding it hard to write software any more, write more ambitious software . I'm taking on massively more ambitious projects than I was just a year ago, and it's taking every inch of my skill and experience to do that. Building software feels harder now, and I'm really enjoying it.

This is the right take. I wouldn't dare to write a TypeScript compiler a year ago but now I'm trying it and I have to say this has taught me so much about compilers, Rust and performance overall that wouldn't be possible before. It's a lot of fun to embrace the new technology and do bigger things. Doing this sort of project is giving me a glimpse of what it is going to be like managing software projects. As software…

> The DJ analogy is useful actually.

Maybe, but the author's DJ analogy in the post was rather off the mark. Skill-wise, DJing is actually a perfect example of "it used to be hard" in pretty much every aspect -- beatmatching on vinyl, mixing in key, discovering new records, building and reaching a fanbase, getting distribution for mixes, physically carrying tons of records around and sometimes getting them stolen or damaged.

If everyone is a DJ now, it's because software and technology has made it so much easier than it used to be. Although to be clear, I completely agree with your comment on how successful DJs are the ones who leverage modern tools and understand the market.

But in terms of the analogy in the original post, the author is making some weird comparison between guitar players and DJs, which is totally apples to oranges... not to mention that selling out stadiums solo has never been easy for anyone, regardless of year or whether you're a guitar player or a DJ.

Re: It used to be hard

#83

Post by motbus3 »

ghusto wrote: post #58
motbus3 wrote: post #46

This is simplistic. The hard part of writing professional software has never been the code. All the remaining problems still exists and I dare to say they were made worse.

Whilst you're writing "professional" software, people are publishing to app stores and earning money.

I'm sorry your day has been tough dude. Tomorrow will be better!

Re: It used to be hard

#84

Post by bitbasher »

I read this blog post and the authors other blog posts. They give off a strange vibe to me.

It's almost like a reverse doomer-doomer-ism. I'm terribly sad because others don't see the value in this thing I grew to value. It is very New York hipster.

Re: It used to be hard

#85

Post by ipdashc »

threetonesun wrote: post #28

TBQH it used to be easy. I remember watching one person with Access set up dashboards that worked 1000x better than all of the dozen SAAS tools no one can wrangle together today. Small businesses pushed updates and menus from Frontpage. We used to spin up quick code on our calculators, meanwhile our much more powerful phones act like executing our own code is an act of terrorism. LLMs (maybe) get us a little closer t…

> Access set up dashboards that worked 1000x better than all of the dozen SAAS tools no one can wrangle together today

I will always maintain that it's disgraceful that we still don't have anything with the ease of use / accessibility of Access and Visual Basic. How did we so thoroughly lose them?

Re: It used to be hard

#86

Post by skydhash »

ipdashc wrote: post #77
skydhash wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think writing code was ever hard. It’s basically the same level of difficulty as learning to write sheet music, a foreign language, or mathematical formula. Same with basic computer concepts. The hardest part is the formal logic, recursive reasoning, and how to abstract. It’s a thinking mode that some find difficult to adopt. As for domain knowledge, I don’t think that has ever been difficult to obtain. Just…

> It’s basically the same level of difficulty as learning to write sheet music, a foreign language, or mathematical formula. I mean, all of those are pretty dang hard. Maybe you're just particularly skilled (genuinely, no shade intended), I certainly couldn't do any of those without a significant level of effort. I'd also personally consider "formal logic, recursive reasoning, and how to abstract" as parts of writing…

> It feels like implying that search engines weren't a major upgrade to research because you could always just go to the library and look through books to find your answer

I do agree with you on that point as local libraries (where I am) and the internet has been a true treasure of information for me. And yes, AI is way easier for accessing information (even with the high risk of hallucinations). What I tend to argue against is statements that basically said that before AI, it was a dark age of information.

Re: It used to be hard

#87

Post by davidw »

simonw wrote: post #70
davidw wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only have as much freedom as you can buy from a handful of huge corporations.

Or download for free from half a dozen Chinese AI labs (at least for the moment.) ... or Google Gemma or Mistral.

Aren't those widely regarded as 'not as good', because right now LLM's are a game of "who has the most resources wins"? And even those require very high end personal computers.

The freedom pendulum looks like it swung away from individuals.

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48542100

Re: It used to be hard

#88

Post by ipdashc »

skydhash wrote: post #86
ipdashc wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s basically the same level of difficulty as learning to write sheet music, a foreign language, or mathematical formula. I mean, all of those are pretty dang hard. Maybe you're just particularly skilled (genuinely, no shade intended), I certainly couldn't do any of those without a significant level of effort. I'd also personally consider "formal logic, recursive reasoning, and how to abstract" as parts of writing…

> It feels like implying that search engines weren't a major upgrade to research because you could always just go to the library and look through books to find your answer I do agree with you on that point as local libraries (where I am) and the internet has been a true treasure of information for me. And yes, AI is way easier for accessing information (even with the high risk of hallucinations). What I tend to argue…

> What I tend to argue against is statements that basically said that before AI, it was a dark age of information.

For sure, agreed entirely on that.

Re: It used to be hard

#89

Post by skydhash »

blanched wrote: post #75
skydhash wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing code, IMO, is mostly the typing. AKA the syntax and whatever libraries/platforms you’re using. They are incidental to creating a software solution to whatever problems. It requires rigor, but it’s not particularly difficult. Abstractions, logic, and reasoning is not helped by AI tools. Yes they can give you a ready-made solution, but you’ll need to exercise judgement to see if it really fits the problem. And…

I would agree with that. Whenever I’ve delegated more than what feels like ~80% to the agent (“vibe coding”, I suppose) is when it starts feeling bloated, messy, and bug-prone. On the flip side, having a design written ahead of time, ideally with reviews by peers and AI and as little as possible AI “content”, seems to almost always go well. Obviously very subjective!

I don’t disagree with you, when building with Xcode or Android studio, kinda like 90 percent of the code is generated or copied from examples in the doc. Same with HTML when using a CSS framework. I learned vim, just to be efficient with copypasting :) So far for me to throw shades to anyone using tools.

My arguments is more about throwing slop at fellow collaborators, not ensuring correctness of the code, and various claims that try to justify those behaviors. “The agent wrote it” is no more of an excuse than “It was the accepted answer on Stack Oveflow”.

Re: It used to be hard

#90

Post by blanched »

skydhash wrote: post #89
blanched wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree with that. Whenever I’ve delegated more than what feels like ~80% to the agent (“vibe coding”, I suppose) is when it starts feeling bloated, messy, and bug-prone. On the flip side, having a design written ahead of time, ideally with reviews by peers and AI and as little as possible AI “content”, seems to almost always go well. Obviously very subjective!

I don’t disagree with you, when building with Xcode or Android studio, kinda like 90 percent of the code is generated or copied from examples in the doc. Same with HTML when using a CSS framework. I learned vim, just to be efficient with copypasting :) So far for me to throw shades to anyone using tools. My arguments is more about throwing slop at fellow collaborators, not ensuring correctness of the code, and variou…

Oh for sure, I think we’re on the same page. I wasn’t trying to change your mind on anything, just adding my two cents :)
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