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We mourn our craft

nolanlawson.com

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Re: We mourn our craft

#831

Post by fnord123 »

abustamam wrote: post #694
layer8 wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thread is about what software developers like. It’s common knowledge that many programmers like working with computers because that’s different in specific ways from working with people. So saying that LLMs are just like people doesn’t help here.

Yeah there's a reason there is a stereotype/trope about programmers not liking people. I like a lot of people. But I would hate to work with many of them even if I like hanging out with them. That said, I do like having an LLM that I can treat like the crappy bosses on TV treat their employees. When it gets something totally wrong I can yell at it and it'll magically figure out the right solution, but still keep a ch…

Be careful. You get good at what your practice.

Re: We mourn our craft

#832

Post by another_twist »

Ronsenshi wrote: post #93

Agree with the author. I like the process of writing code, typing method names and class definitions while at the same time thinking ahead about overall architecture, structure, how much time given function would run for, what kind of tests are necessary. I find it unsettling how many people in the comments say that they don't like writing code. Feels aliens to me. We went into this field for seemingly very different…

For me its the money. Software paid and does pay well when I got in. I have actually been trying to get the eff out as fast as I can and move to management/research (I work in ML). I have avoided web dev shit like the plague since it is indeed very low value added work. The fact that LLMs can finish all this crappy work for 20bucks a month where I dont have to do it by hand is a welcome step. Otoh, I dont think point and trust is the way to do AI assisted coding. You get better output when you know the business logic and can make sense of the code. In fact, I prompt many many times until the AI spits out something I understand.

Honestly all the complaining about dying of a craft is just pathetic. In one of the jobs I worked, there were specific performance rubrics under "Craft" and those really annoyed me. Software / Code is just a tool to solve a problem.

Re: We mourn our craft

#833

Post by another_twist »

jryio wrote: post #216

These comments are comical. How hard is it to understand that human beings are experiential creatures. Our experiences matter, to survival, to culture, and identity. I mourn the horse masters and stable boys of a century past because of their craft. Years of intuition and experience. Why do you watch a chess master play, or a live concert, or any form of human creation? Should we automate parts of our profession? Yes…

A much more measued and pragmatic take.

Re: We mourn our craft

#834

Post by Anamon »

Nextgrid wrote: post #466
jauntywundrkind wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. And I'm excited as hell. But I also have no idea how people are going to think about what code to write when they don't write code. Maybe this is all fine, is ok, but it does make me quite nervous!

That is definitely a problem, but I would say it’s a problem of hiring and the billion-dollars worth of potential market cap resting on performative bullshit that encourages companies to not hire juniors to send a signal to capture some of those billions regardless of actual impact on productivity. LLMs benefit juniors, they do not replace them. Juniors can learn from LLMs just fine and will actually be more producti…

I agree that they can be used this way, and it would be less of a problem if they were. However, the current evidence we see from universities is that those who use LLMs to actually learn something are in the minority. The dopamine hit of something working without having had to do anything for it is much stronger.

Re: We mourn our craft

#835

Post by franga2000 »

chickensong wrote: post #780
autoexec wrote: post #723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we're definitely in a golden age of computing. Certainly not. Computers are still magic, but much of that magic is now controlled and being restricted by someone other than you. Today most people's only computer is a cell phone, which is heavily locked down and designed for media consumption and to collect and give away every scrap of their personal/private data. Most people's desktop computers aren't much better.…

What you're saying might be true, but it's also a choice to delegate responsibility to someone other than yourself. I'm not saying that the adversarial state of computing is ok, just that most people don't care, or don't like the alternatives. Even as someone concerned with the issues you mention, the shift happening now feels pretty magical to me. I can only imagine how non-technical people must feel.

People definitely care about things that a more open platform brings you, but today's open platforms have really bad downsides. The thing is, those downsides are artificial. They were manufactured by the corporations that prefer to be in control of our devices. It's not the natural state of things.

I often get asked by friends and family "can I get rid of annoyance X" or "can I have feature Y" on their Android phones, usually because they see that I've done it on my phone [0]. The answer is always "yes, I can set that up for you, but this will take an hour, I need to wipe all your data and a bunch of your apps will stop working".

There is no reason it should be like that. That was a choice by the manufacturers. They developed these DRM features and actively market them to developers - to the point where I can't submit an update to my little bus app without getting a prompt to add SafetyNet to it. They even somehow concinced pentesters to put "no cert pinning, root check and remote attestation" into their reports, so bank and government apps are the worst offenders.

It's not like people decided they prefer closed to open. They prefer working to non-working. And open platforms were broken intentionally by the developers of the closed ones.

It's like saying Americans all love their cars and simply decided not to use public transport. No, their public transport was crippled to the point of uselessness and their neighbourhoods were built in a way that makes public transport unfeasible. Cars work for them and trains don't. This was not their choice and it's painfully obvious when you see them go literally anywhere else on the planet and be amazed at how great trains are.

[0] Things like: global adblock, removing bloatware, floating windows or splitsceen, miracast, slide for brightness/volume, modded apps, lockscreen gestures, app instances, working shared clipboard, NFC UID emulation, automatic tethering, audio EQ...

Re: We mourn our craft

#836

Post by pducks32 »

another_twist wrote: post #832
Ronsenshi wrote: post #93

Agree with the author. I like the process of writing code, typing method names and class definitions while at the same time thinking ahead about overall architecture, structure, how much time given function would run for, what kind of tests are necessary. I find it unsettling how many people in the comments say that they don't like writing code. Feels aliens to me. We went into this field for seemingly very different…

For me its the money. Software paid and does pay well when I got in. I have actually been trying to get the eff out as fast as I can and move to management/research (I work in ML). I have avoided web dev shit like the plague since it is indeed very low value added work. The fact that LLMs can finish all this crappy work for 20bucks a month where I dont have to do it by hand is a welcome step. Otoh, I dont think point…

Coding is a tool to solve a problem, but, to many it is also a culture. It has a history, it has connections, it has lore, it had some loosely commonly held values, and yes it absolutely was a craft. It’s okay for people to mourn that. It’s not the same as someone who may have taken it up for money. That itself, is seeing coding as a tool for income—which is valid.

Calling it pathetic I think lacks empathy and perhaps an appreciation for what it might mean to other people outside the letters we type. Those letters, the languages we type, compilers that process them, and libraries that enable them were, at the end of the day, made by people.

Re: We mourn our craft

#837

Post by chickensong »

mcdeltat wrote: post #808
chickensong wrote: post #780

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're saying might be true, but it's also a choice to delegate responsibility to someone other than yourself. I'm not saying that the adversarial state of computing is ok, just that most people don't care, or don't like the alternatives. Even as someone concerned with the issues you mention, the shift happening now feels pretty magical to me. I can only imagine how non-technical people must feel.

Sure it's technically always a choice, but because society exists, some options are dramatically more plausible than others. For example, say phones become more and more locked down and invasive. Technically you can choose not to have a phone, but how are you meant to function in today's society without a phone? Basically everything of importance assumes you have a phone. Technically you could make your own phone, I…

I know, the expectation of phones and "just install our app" sucks, but it's easier than the alternatives for most people.

I don't think we should be ok with the status quo, and I think complaining about issues can be a catalyst for change, but rather than just complain about the state of affairs, I'm pointing out that alternatives exist, so it's on us to enact change.

TBH, I'm pessimistic about my words making a difference, but I want to promote independent/DIY mindset anyway. It's ironic that the frontier LLMs are proprietary platforms, yet they're enabling more independence to their users. Regardless, if everything goes to shit, we can still opt out and go back to the previous generation's lifestyle. No mobile phones and moving at the speed of snail mail doesn't sound all that bad, though I'd sure miss Google Maps.

Re: We mourn our craft

#838

Post by popalchemist »

autoexec wrote: post #804
Dumblydorr wrote: post #768

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typical HN comment. They’re so in the weeds of edge case 1% concerns they can’t see the golden age around them. Most people living through golden ages might not know it. Many workers in Industrial Revolution saw a decline in relative wages. Many in the Roman Empire were enslaved or impoverished. That doesn’t mean history doesn’t see these as golden ages, where golden age is defined loosely as a broad period of enhanc…

> Many workers in Industrial Revolution saw a decline in relative wages. Yeah! Why weren't all those children with mangled limbs more optimistic about the future? Why weren't they singing the praises of the golden age around them? Do you think it would have resulted in a golden age for anyone except a very small few if the people hadn't spoken out against the abuses of the greedy industrialists and robber barons and…

The question should be "golden age FOR WHOM?" because the traditional meaning of that phrase implies a society-wide raising of the quality of life. It remains to be seen whether the advent of AI signifies an across-the-board improvement or a furthering of the polarization between the haves and have nots.

Re: We mourn our craft

#839

Post by bluedel »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #776
hnlmorg wrote: post #755

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it's not. Traditional algorithms are well understood because they're deterministic formulas. We know what the output is if we know the input. The surprises that happen with traditional algorithms are when they're applied in non-traditional scenarios as an experiment. Whereas with LLMs, we get surprised even when using them in an expected way. This is why so much research happens investigating how these models…

I don’t know what to tell you other than to say that the concept of determinism in engineering is extremely new Everything you said right now holds equally true for chemical engineering and biomedical engineering so like you need get some experience

I refuse to believe you sincerely think this is a salient point. Determinism was one of the fundamental axioms of software engineering.

Re: We mourn our craft

#840

Post by nialv7 »

sosomoxie wrote: post #10

I started programming over 40 years ago because it felt like computers were magic. They feel more magic today than ever before. We're literally living in the 1980s fantasy where you could talk to your computer and it had a personality. I can't believe it's actually happening, and I've never had more fun computing. I can't empathize with the complaint that we've "lost something" at all. We're on the precipice of somet…

> I can't empathize with the complaint that we've "lost something" at all.

you won't feel you've lost something if you've never had it.

sorry.

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