What We Lost the Last Time Code Got Cheap (www.poppastring.com)
from codeinabox@programming.dev to programming@programming.dev on 10 May 08:06
https://programming.dev/post/50153094

#programming

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ell1e@leminal.space on 10 May 08:32 next collapse

We need the equivalent investment now. If average code is cheap, then the scarce resource is no longer the ability to produce it. The scarce resource is the ability to read it, to navigate it

You know what would help a lot with understanding the code one is working on? Writing it yourself without turning your brain off via AI.

But that’s an insight the article somehow seems to be missing.

Nomad@infosec.pub on 10 May 11:23 collapse

I always ask myself how many of these anti ai warriors are actually proficient professional coders. And I’m talking like engineer level, not hobby level.

LLMs are a tool. Give a package power tool to a fool and the result is stupid at best, bloody at the worst. Let’s call that vibe tooling and ask if there is a difference to vibe coding.

Imho there is not. LLMs are a tool that can lift up the quality of coding work to a common level if used by proficient people. It helps with searching through and understanding vast outputs as long as you know what to expect. Its a miracle in intuition.

Its not a mind reading tool that will just code your fantasy software for you. Hate it all you like, AI is here to stay, this is like hating cars in the age of horses. Cars are not magic, neither is “AI”.

luciole@beehaw.org on 10 May 11:12 collapse

AI tools can generate functional, adequate, perfectly average code at a speed and cost that would have been unimaginable even five years ago. And like the outsourcing wave of the early 2000s, the economics are real and rational. Nobody is wrong for using these tools. The code they produce is often fine. It works. It passes tests. It might ship as-is.

Not the first time I’ve read this kind of statement and I always struggle to reconcile this with my personal experience. I’m seriously doubting that I’m just not a “good enough prompter”. I know how to explain context from domain to tech and vice versa, that’s like, a good 20% of my job. I’d say that AI tools are good at producing code that already exists.

The LLMs are an interface to a corpus of written material. They’ve never had a thought, a chat around the coffee machine, or any experience in the largest sense of the world. This is a hard barrier on any induction they may emulate.