5 ms·

Pretty much agree about everything except copilot. Short term gains using copilot is good but long term it will make your brain inferior since you are by defaul

Pretty much agree about everything except copilot. Short term gains using copilot is good but long term it will make your brain inferior since you are by default searching for an autocomplete response from copilot. Your brain is literally an autocompleter. You are getting paid a lot because you are are very good at it. Loosing that edge by relying on an AI to do that for you and not practising your skill would make you worthless in long term.

pieix 5y ago
This sentiment echoes Socrates' famous position regarding the written word: >If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. Both his point about writing and your point about Copilot are likely true in part or in whole. Ultimately it doesn't matter — the technology is here to stay and its adoption will be determined by the utility it provides its user.
- blocked_again 5y ago
  I don't know. Remebering is one thing. Making Mircosoft do the thinking for you is another thing. Both are diffrent.
- pdimitar 5y ago
  I have respect for Socrates but this was not one of his good quotes. It reeks of "get off my lawn", very strongly. Many studies show writing things down (on a paper medium, not phones or any electronics however) is very helpful for gaining focus and regaining productivity. We're not storage media; our brains are immensely creative machines but our memory preservation is inferior so we found a good workaround.
Nowado 5y ago
I too avoid using Google services not to dull my internal something.
jstummbillig 5y ago
> Loosing that edge by relying on an AI to do that for you and not practising your skill would make you worthless in long term. If you bank on your brain being the better autocompleter, I got very bad short to mid term news for you.
- blocked_again 5y ago
  The senenence you just wrote was autocompleted by your brain. The thought automatically came in your mind. Even solving math prblems are autocompletion. The brain automatically generates the thoughts. You think you generated it. But in reality it's just an autocompletion process that was trained through your lifetime and the generations before through evolution.
  - Noumenon72 5y ago
    You're projecting. I don't program much of anything by habit -- I stop and think, store snippets and choose. My brain doesn't Ctrl+Space through sentences like a preacher going through a well-worn illustration. I stop, consider, discard, and rework. Many people have more pattern-forming brains than I do -- everyone notices before me when something has happened two weeks in a row or something they expected to happen didn't happen. My brain just doesn't try to predict.
    - blocked_again 5y ago
      > I stop and think thinking is auto completing by your brain. You don't create thoughts. It appears automatically. Sam Harris explains it perfectly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FanhvXO9Pk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FanhvXO9Pk
      - Noumenon72 5y ago
        Don't have 1.5 hours to watch a video, but strongly disagree. Autocomplete selects from a list of previously-selected choices or choices that are made available by the context you're in. "Thinking" purposefully varies the context each neuron is firing in so that it has a chance to make a connection that's _different_ from all the ones it could complete automatically. There are people who talk to find out what they think, and those who must think before they can talk. You sound like the first type telling the second everyone is that way.
cdrini 5y ago
That's what folks used to say (and some still say) about IDE autocomplete in general. And it is the case that when I type without all that IDE-goodness, I type slower (eg is it `new URL().searchParams.get`? Or `new Url()`? Or `.params.get?), but I don't think it makes my brain "corrode". If I use one of these APIs frequently enough, I will learn it from the autocomplete because of the frequent repetition. If I don't, I don't see the need to memorize it. This lets me stay focused on the actual problem I'm solving; the higher level problem. My job as programmer is not an autocompleter -- if it was I'd be doing something else. I think your hypothesis is valid, but when comparing the impact of IDE autocomplete on my experience, it seems unlikely. We'd have to try copilot to be sure though. Note I think the situation is different for beginner developers and professional developers.

pieix 5y ago

This sentiment echoes Socrates' famous position regarding the written word: >If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. Both his point about writing and your point about Copilot are likely true in part or in whole. Ultimately it doesn't matter — the technology is here to stay and its adoption will be determined by the utility it provides its user.

blocked_again 5y ago
I don't know. Remebering is one thing. Making Mircosoft do the thinking for you is another thing. Both are diffrent.
pdimitar 5y ago
I have respect for Socrates but this was not one of his good quotes. It reeks of "get off my lawn", very strongly. Many studies show writing things down (on a paper medium, not phones or any electronics however) is very helpful for gaining focus and regaining productivity. We're not storage media; our brains are immensely creative machines but our memory preservation is inferior so we found a good workaround.

Nowado 5y ago

I too avoid using Google services not to dull my internal something.

jstummbillig 5y ago

> Loosing that edge by relying on an AI to do that for you and not practising your skill would make you worthless in long term. If you bank on your brain being the better autocompleter, I got very bad short to mid term news for you.

blocked_again 5y ago
The senenence you just wrote was autocompleted by your brain. The thought automatically came in your mind. Even solving math prblems are autocompletion. The brain automatically generates the thoughts. You think you generated it. But in reality it's just an autocompletion process that was trained through your lifetime and the generations before through evolution.
- Noumenon72 5y ago
  You're projecting. I don't program much of anything by habit -- I stop and think, store snippets and choose. My brain doesn't Ctrl+Space through sentences like a preacher going through a well-worn illustration. I stop, consider, discard, and rework. Many people have more pattern-forming brains than I do -- everyone notices before me when something has happened two weeks in a row or something they expected to happen didn't happen. My brain just doesn't try to predict.
  - blocked_again 5y ago
    > I stop and think thinking is auto completing by your brain. You don't create thoughts. It appears automatically. Sam Harris explains it perfectly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FanhvXO9Pk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FanhvXO9Pk
    - Noumenon72 5y ago
      Don't have 1.5 hours to watch a video, but strongly disagree. Autocomplete selects from a list of previously-selected choices or choices that are made available by the context you're in. "Thinking" purposefully varies the context each neuron is firing in so that it has a chance to make a connection that's _different_ from all the ones it could complete automatically. There are people who talk to find out what they think, and those who must think before they can talk. You sound like the first type telling the second everyone is that way.

cdrini 5y ago

That's what folks used to say (and some still say) about IDE autocomplete in general. And it is the case that when I type without all that IDE-goodness, I type slower (eg is it `new URL().searchParams.get`? Or `new Url()`? Or `.params.get?), but I don't think it makes my brain "corrode". If I use one of these APIs frequently enough, I will learn it from the autocomplete because of the frequent repetition. If I don't, I don't see the need to memorize it. This lets me stay focused on the actual problem I'm solving; the higher level problem. My job as programmer is not an autocompleter -- if it was I'd be doing something else. I think your hypothesis is valid, but when comparing the impact of IDE autocomplete on my experience, it seems unlikely. We'd have to try copilot to be sure though. Note I think the situation is different for beginner developers and professional developers.