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Well you got me. I’d agree about that workflow, but something more rapid like a few seconds generating code and then a couple minutes reading it can be more engaging to me than writing it out yourself. I think it’s near time we all stop having such strong opinions about the matter either way personally.

by danggggg12 hours ago|

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> I think it’s near time we all stop having such strong opinions about the matter either way personally.

I don't think this is reasonable given how abusive the pro-AI rhetoric has been for years now.

by dullcrisp12 hours ago|

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I’m entitled to my opinion about your opinion just like you’re entitled to your opinion about my opinion about your opinion.

by danggggg12 hours ago|

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If you don't accept my opinion as your own you're going to lose your job and become a member of a permanent underclass.

by dullcrisp10 hours ago|

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You make it sound like it’s a motivated opinion.

by slopinthebag9 hours ago|

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Yeah I kinda agree. The AI boosters have been super annoying for a while.

I’m not anywhere close to an AI booster but I find value in it. I think we should think of it less like some intelligent being or “agent” and more as a code generation tool. It would both be more productive and healthier.

by danggggg2 hours ago|

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> I think we should think of it less like some intelligent being or “agent” and more as a code generation tool.

I think the jury is still out on whether AI code generation is worthwhile at all. Maybe it's a done deal for management because it allows them to spy on their workers, but I think it's less efficient and significantly more dull than writing code by hand.

by slopinthebag12 hours ago|

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It’s worthwhile to me under specific conditions, mainly that the codebase has existing patterns and abstractions that the LLM utilizes, and they’re actually good. It’s not a common case but I’m lucky that one of the codebases I’m in is one I built myself mostly by hand, and LLMs are really effective in it at the moment. My main concern is making sure the generated code maintains the high standard, but it’s definitely saving me time.

I’ve kind of changed my mind on prompting, it’s definitely a skill. It’s a skill based on your own skills in the domain. I’m at the point where I can get the LLM to generate the same code (roughly speaking) that I would have written. So it’s basically generating the same thing I would write, just faster. So it’s like reading your own code. Using it as a crutch to do things you aren’t capable of is where people run into trouble. That’s where the massive amounts of code review come into play. For me, I’m only ever reviewing 100-300 loc changes at a time. Often less. Because I know what I’m doing and can break things down into manageable diffs.

Can’t see myself going back, but also can’t see myself doing it without the experience I have without LLMs. Which is a bit of an issue for new developers. Not sure what the solution is for that.

by deimos_286 hours ago|

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I’ve reached a similar conclusion, but there’s a part that worries me: the expertise that allows us to judge AI’s output was itself built by doing the work we’re now delegating. So there’s a risk that our judgement will decay over time. I’ve been thinking about the problem as choosing where we can afford to “borrow” comprehension, versus where we need to keep exercising it, and how to “claim back” the critical comprehension we lost.

by hypfer5 hours ago|

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A possible heuristic: Everywhere the LLM made a design decision is probably a place to revisit later. You can ship it now, but to stay in the game you need to stay in the loop.

If you need the LLM to explain to you the concept behind something - or even if you figure out yourself what it did - that's likely wrong and will lead to the undesirable outcomes you've mentioned.

As long as it just types and doesn't think otoh, you should be good. There is - I'd argue - little to no value in manually typing if (foo) {}. And it's also great for bouncing ideas around.

by danggggg2 hours ago|

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> So there’s a risk that our judgement will decay over time.

It's happening in real time and those of us who don't use AI code generators can tell.

by dullcrisp12 hours ago|

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That plus if you’ve ever stared at your code and then searched StackOverflow to see if you could find a better way of doing it, it’s like having that running continuously.

by slopinthebag9 hours ago|

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Yeah it’s great for prompting for improvements, granted you can actually judge the suggestions for yourself. They’re often slightly or majorly bad.

by danggggg2 hours ago|

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> Yeah it’s great for prompting for improvements, granted you can actually judge the suggestions for yourself. They’re often slightly or majorly bad.

I agree with this comment.

That being said, the major errors in some of the suggestions make me terrified of the people who say things like "AI is great for researching and strategizing".

I don't think these people are on the whole engaged or knowledgeable enough to understand the dead ends that AI research is leading them to or the concepts that it doesn't (or can't) discuss.

Really I just feel like AI has turned subpar engineers into dangerous, supercharged Dunning-Kruger cases. Everyone backing AI code generation online acts like a "10x developer", and I think the point of the AI coding tools are to make you feel that way.

I think most of you would be better off slowing down and writing the code by hand in a focused, methodical manner.