Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

techtrenches.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

861–870 of 896 posts

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#861

Post by gonzalohm »

nomel wrote: post #760
gonzalohm wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are right, but it also makes sense. Human communication is inherently inefficient. Points of view, miscommunication, interpretation... It's the obvious point to automate. Not defending it, just my thoughts

I have a couple of colleagues that run all communication through an LLM. It really helps their writing, but it does nothing to help their understanding . It also makes me hate communicating with them because they'll (somewhat obviously) prompt the LLM to make the conclusion they want. For example, "respond to this jira with why this isn't an issue"

Yes, fully agree. Automatic communications should always be optional in the sense that you should offer that to someone but never force

Sometimes I don't feel like having to make a phone call, but sometimes I much rather talk to a human

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#863

Post by dd8601fn »

RataNova wrote: post #566
dd8601fn wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have always had a problem, worse than most I think, where if I’m away from a language for a bit I lose my ability to write it quickly and competently, real quick. It doesn’t matter if I was quite competent in it… the mechanical bits fade fast. Doing llm assisted work is going to be like pouring bleach on my brain. I can feel it. The more I use it the worse it will be for me. I can still formulate what I need, and p…

There is a difference between understanding the shape of a solution and keeping the "finger memory" of a language alive

For sure. I just… I feel really really dumb every time I have to knock the rust off to use a language again.

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#864

Post by zombot »

jdw64 wrote: post #17

The real issue, in my view, is not AI itself. The problem is a management pattern: removing people and organizational slack because they don’t generate immediate profit, and then expecting the knowledge to still be there when it’s needed. Short-term cost cutting leads to less junior hiring, and removes the slack that experienced engineers need in order to teach. As a result, tacit knowledge stops being transferred. W…

> What remains is documentation and automation.

In my experience, documentation is unwanted because it creates work and no revenue. Which makes the tacit knowledge all the more valuable.

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#865

Post by afpx »

WalterBright wrote: post #600
spiorf wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the process has impeded even higher standard of living, because it misallocates resources from value generation to value appropriation. It's the extreme short term profit maximization that makes the economy a zero sum game. Otherwise it is not.

Do you really think the economy is zero sum? For example, who was Elon Musk's wealth transferred from? What do you think about all that money being invested into AI? Is that "extreme short term profit maximization"?

Partly this is because total global debt is 3x global GDP.

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#866

Post by eszed »

alecco wrote: post #217
eszed wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in Wikipedia you can spend hours reading banal pop-slop content or instead spend that time reading amazing articles about history, literature, arts, and science. I'm not saying you're personally doing anything wrong, but there's a parallel here, when smart and curious people read articles about history and literature and art and science, rather than engaging directly with the real thing. Or then the next level down…

I meant it as a simple to understand parallel. Absolutely deep reading and thought is much better than Wikipedia or an LLM chat.

I didn't think you thought otherwise, and apologize if I left that impression. As I said, I spend more time reading Wikipedia articles and watching YouTube videos than I do on any kind of "deep" study, and I think I am less well-equipped for that kind of work than I was twenty years ago. Some of that is life-circumstances - I have a kid, and a more-demanding (time-wise and cognitively) job than I did back then - but some of it is also the ease of access to the shallow stuff, and the instant gratification that it brings. That's cultural, and it's been created (along with, of course, many benefits) of our information revolution. I haven't been inside a library in years.

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#867

Post by AnthonyMouse »

don_esteban wrote: post #836
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citizens United was a pretty pro-speech decision and is unfairly maligned, and "money is speech" predates it by quite a few years. The real problem is when huge corporations control the flow of information. Which is a bigger problem, that corporations can pay for political ads, or that one corporation has 90% search market share? That there are political ads on Facebook or Twitter, or that those corporations control…

Sorry, no. Both are problem. And it is not pro-speech at all, it is pro-$$$. It is a standard practice to drown the unwanted speech in the noise of the paid-for 'speech'. Nothing about pro-speech for ordinary people there. Furthermore, Citizen's United makes it harder to make any necessary legislative changes. Including the anti-trust. Focusing only on one issue while leaving the other heads of the hydra intact just…

> And it is not pro-speech at all, it is pro-$$$.

Suppose you don't own a major media outlet or social media company and you have something to say that the major media outlets and social media companies don't like. What are your options for getting more than six people to hear what you have to say if you're not allowed to spend money?

> It is a standard practice to drown the unwanted speech in the noise of the paid-for 'speech'.

This is literally the opposite of what happens. The companies that own distribution channels can make speech they don't like disappear, or even just speech that doesn't drive sufficient "engagement", by putting it at the end of the feed behind six trillion lolcats and enough rage bait to keep everyone glued to the screen. Then the only way to be seen when your message isn't a dopamine hit is to pay money.

> Furthermore, Citizen's United makes it harder to make any necessary legislative changes. Including the anti-trust.

Citizens United has very little to say about anti-trust. What argument are you making that it would prevent e.g. laws requiring adversarial interoperability or break ups of large companies? For that matter, much of the interoperability problem comes from companies using laws like the CFAA and DMCA 1201, and then you don't even need laws to be passed, you need them to be repealed.

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#868

Post by brabel »

andrewstuart wrote: post #175
brabel wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Technically you don't have to be an employed developer to become a senior developer. That's incredibly unlikely. Do you need to be an employed surgeon to become a senior (or whatever they call it) surgeon?? I very much doubt you can be senior without having actually spent years doing it professionally. The experience is everything, no book will give you the sort of understanding you need. That's unfortunately human…

Analogies to other professions give your argument an air of legitimacy, with none. There’s plenty of people in this world who are expert programmers without following any traditional path. “Oh yeah, like who”, you say. Con Kolivas, anaesthetist, work on kernel schedulers including the Staircase Deadline (RSDL) scheduler which was a precursor to the Completely Fair Scheduler in Linux and the Brain Fuck Scheduler and t…

I don’t say you cannot learn by yourself, my claim is you cannot learn without doing. Was that really unclear??

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#869

Post by leptons »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #661
leptons wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think the people dealing with the LLMs' code won't also be using LLMs to "deal with it"? We're all now basically junior coders who have no idea what is in the codebase. Without LLMs, we won't be able to "deal" with any of it. And I don't like it one bit.

Because you can’t assume everyone else is as indifferent about wasting people’s time as you are. Some of us don’t want to actively make our colleagues/customers miserable. That decision forces me to decide if I will be a part of the problem even if I generally do good work I can stand behind. You’re forcing me into a decision making process purely out of your desire to not do the bare minimum when working. That’s not…

Maybe you missed the part where I said "And I don't like it one bit"?

Re: The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code

#870

Post by _heimdall »

sofixa wrote: post #853
_heimdall wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I didn't understand why anyone thought the warning was wrong. Who sends their navy around Europe, collects 100k troops on the border, and ships blood reserves to the front for a training exercise?

Because it was just so dumb . Putin had previously done things to sabre rattle to get concessions, and talks were happening at the same time, so many thought he wouldn't be dumb enough to invade, but just wants more to negotiate.

Whether it was a smart choice is separate from whether they were actually going to do it though. The naval movement was a big red flag IMO, but by the time blood supplies were brought up it was clear regardless of an outside perspective of the strategy.
Post reply on HN