3 ms·

By lowering the barrier of entry of programming further, I wonder if we'll see more bugs (like the price discount) as a result of this?

colordrops 6y ago
Similar problem to automated driving - as long as it's better than most humans, occasional bugs will be ok. Virtually no software is bug free. It's much more difficult problem than automated driving though - for software, the space of intents of the user is orders of magnitude greater in size. It's the job of the model to determine the intent of the "programmer". Perhaps we could meet the model half way and come up with heavily-structured natural language to communicate intent.
bufferoverflow 6y ago
You still need a programmer to find the bugs. I think it's actually harder to spot and fix a bug, than to write a simple method that involves one.
- neatze 6y ago
  Programming skills are directly correlated to programmer ability to debug, I will go as far stating; programming is not about writing code, but in ability to find bugs and figure out how to resolve them.
  - grensley 6y ago
    I've always found it easier to debug code I wrote, mostly because I find it the easier to read the code I wrote, since I understand the author's intent.
- bauerm97 6y ago
  But as the programmer finds bugs and corrects them, they are simultaneously generating more, accurate data for training. So over time this should theoretically improve
joshuak 6y ago
I notice that the bug was in the user's failure to communicate the intent of the scalar. Presumably with regular use users would learn to be more clear and/or anticipate the likely fixes to ambiguous labels. Also, since it would be used to build tests as well, I'd expect such misunderstandings to be pretty obvious. I would be willing to bet you'd see a net reduction in bugs, and a substantial reduction in typo related bugs. But if you mean by lowered barrier of entry you mean the population of programmers would be less competent, yes bugs in the design might increase, however being able to more quickly get to the point of evaluating a design is a great way to learn better design.

colordrops 6y ago

Similar problem to automated driving - as long as it's better than most humans, occasional bugs will be ok. Virtually no software is bug free. It's much more difficult problem than automated driving though - for software, the space of intents of the user is orders of magnitude greater in size. It's the job of the model to determine the intent of the "programmer". Perhaps we could meet the model half way and come up with heavily-structured natural language to communicate intent.

bufferoverflow 6y ago

You still need a programmer to find the bugs. I think it's actually harder to spot and fix a bug, than to write a simple method that involves one.

neatze 6y ago
Programming skills are directly correlated to programmer ability to debug, I will go as far stating; programming is not about writing code, but in ability to find bugs and figure out how to resolve them.
- grensley 6y ago
  I've always found it easier to debug code I wrote, mostly because I find it the easier to read the code I wrote, since I understand the author's intent.
bauerm97 6y ago
But as the programmer finds bugs and corrects them, they are simultaneously generating more, accurate data for training. So over time this should theoretically improve

joshuak 6y ago

I notice that the bug was in the user's failure to communicate the intent of the scalar. Presumably with regular use users would learn to be more clear and/or anticipate the likely fixes to ambiguous labels. Also, since it would be used to build tests as well, I'd expect such misunderstandings to be pretty obvious. I would be willing to bet you'd see a net reduction in bugs, and a substantial reduction in typo related bugs. But if you mean by lowered barrier of entry you mean the population of programmers would be less competent, yes bugs in the design might increase, however being able to more quickly get to the point of evaluating a design is a great way to learn better design.