I feel in a really weird position where I both really dislike what AI is doing to the experience and practice of writing code, to the point where I want a job doing literally anything else besides using the computer, but also think that these tools are extremely powerful and only getting better. I think Mitchell's point is well taken -- it's possible for these tools to introduce rotten foundations that will only be f…
I've never had more fun coding, but the key is actually still writing the code yourself. The LLM has terrible judgment but an encyclopedic knowledge and the ability to pick out important details in a sea of information. Their worse use is producing code, but somehow that gets all the energy. Being an LLM babysitter is energy draining and you feel less and less in control. No job is worth being miserable doing somethi…
Bingo. Claude can bang out nearly correct code when I give it an idea, but it doesn't have the idea and repeatedly misjudges both how much work remains and what kind.
On the other hand, I don't know all the ins or outs of macro expansion in yaml at compile time or when and where macros run, enabling us to conaume their results elsewhere in the yaml. Frankly, if I had time, I'd happily spend time on that and learn more about it. I don't, though. Claude knows and does the guessing and checking. So I provide the concept and it translates into a horrible soup of yaml. Clearly I'm able to press forward with ignorance, which is dangerous. There's a real risk that I'll wind up with the kinds of unhealthy work that worries the author of the tweet.