3 ms·

I am not much into ML code assistants either, though it may change in the future as technology becomes better and more reliable. But I don't buy the "joy of wr

by GuB-42 4y ago

I am not much into ML code assistants either, though it may change in the future as technology becomes better and more reliable. But I don't buy the "joy of writing code" argument. Coding is all about making a computer work for you, and I think that taming AIs to be more efficient without letting it introduce random crap will become both important and enjoyable. I think the techniques we have now are too crude for that, but it will improve. Keep in mind that even if you are writing C, you are already at high level, using libraries and compilers other people wrote, bugs included. Now there is a certain charm being close to "hands on" programming, but if that's the case, go get an Amiga and make a few demos. It won't pay the bills, but it can be fun.

discreteevent 4y ago
>But I don't buy the "joy of writing code" argument. Coding is all about making a computer work for you That is an absolutely valid point of view. But it doesn't apply to everyone. Programming is something that can take me into the zone like nothing else. And it has the added side effect of making me think more precisely about higher level problems as well. It's one of those excercises that help me stop fooling myself (in the Feynman sense).
- popinman322 4y ago
  This reminds me of a discussion I had with a friend while playing Factorio together. Traditionally you'd put a list of recipe ratios into a spreadsheet and then calculate what you need. But there's a mod called Helm that can handle all those calculations for you, so you just need to specify what logistics components you'll be using. His immediate comment was "that takes all the fun out of it", to which I responded "it just moves the fun elsewhere." In this case, the programmer still provides intent and strategy for the bot. We know roughly how efficient the final algorithm should be, and roughly what the data model might be-- being able to get 90% of the code written in 30s-1min should free up more time to think about the system as a whole, I think. (Though this point has been beaten nearly to death, now that I ruminate on it.) At least in my own experience with Copilot it's been very convenient not having to worry about the finer details. More "should I model the problem this way?" and less "and now I bring in the inner for loop, then I overwrite the first part of the buffer up to index j...".
  - danielbln 4y ago
    A programmer who "gets in the zone like nothing else" wouldn't want to write Assembly and MOV, CMP AND BMI their way to the goal (=solved problem) either. As technology has advanced, most of us think at a higher abstraction level to solve the problem at hand, and I feel that the recent ML advancements have further raised that level. Instead of thinking through the minutia of steps the computer should take, I task it on a higher level. Give me this component, make it do this thing, integrate it into the stack, add some unit codes. Great, on to the next problem. There's something liberating about it, and it's only going to get better from here.
- DennisP 4y ago
  Same here, but what takes me out of the zone is googling for sample code and digging through documentation to find the API calls I need and how to use them together. If AI can just give me the exact samples I need so I don't have to sift through docs and a pile of google results that aren't quite what I need, then I can stay focused on the fun stuff.

by GuB-42 4y ago

discreteevent 4y ago

>But I don't buy the "joy of writing code" argument. Coding is all about making a computer work for you That is an absolutely valid point of view. But it doesn't apply to everyone. Programming is something that can take me into the zone like nothing else. And it has the added side effect of making me think more precisely about higher level problems as well. It's one of those excercises that help me stop fooling myself (in the Feynman sense).

popinman322 4y ago
This reminds me of a discussion I had with a friend while playing Factorio together. Traditionally you'd put a list of recipe ratios into a spreadsheet and then calculate what you need. But there's a mod called Helm that can handle all those calculations for you, so you just need to specify what logistics components you'll be using. His immediate comment was "that takes all the fun out of it", to which I responded "it just moves the fun elsewhere." In this case, the programmer still provides intent and strategy for the bot. We know roughly how efficient the final algorithm should be, and roughly what the data model might be-- being able to get 90% of the code written in 30s-1min should free up more time to think about the system as a whole, I think. (Though this point has been beaten nearly to death, now that I ruminate on it.) At least in my own experience with Copilot it's been very convenient not having to worry about the finer details. More "should I model the problem this way?" and less "and now I bring in the inner for loop, then I overwrite the first part of the buffer up to index j...".
- danielbln 4y ago
  A programmer who "gets in the zone like nothing else" wouldn't want to write Assembly and MOV, CMP AND BMI their way to the goal (=solved problem) either. As technology has advanced, most of us think at a higher abstraction level to solve the problem at hand, and I feel that the recent ML advancements have further raised that level. Instead of thinking through the minutia of steps the computer should take, I task it on a higher level. Give me this component, make it do this thing, integrate it into the stack, add some unit codes. Great, on to the next problem. There's something liberating about it, and it's only going to get better from here.
DennisP 4y ago
Same here, but what takes me out of the zone is googling for sample code and digging through documentation to find the API calls I need and how to use them together. If AI can just give me the exact samples I need so I don't have to sift through docs and a pile of google results that aren't quite what I need, then I can stay focused on the fun stuff.