4 ms·

That sounds like a really dull way to work to me, but I suppose I'd be a hypocrite if I complained about new software making my job rote and uninteresting.

fbrncci 3y ago
Well to each it’s own. I want to hack together stuff and make it work. The less time spend on code, the faster I can figure out what does and not.
nemothekid 3y ago
Some parts of engineering are really just copying and pasting the most banal scaffolding for some framework that refuses to work. I've been working on a side project where I get to play generics golf in Rust to my hearts content, but having to constantly Google what magic incantation I have to write to get react-hook-form to properly allow me to write variable input fields for an array of strings is mind numbing. [hint: useFieldsArray only works with objects, but the TS compiler wasn't smart enough to suggest that me]
- emodendroket 3y ago
  True, products like Copilot do seem promising in that way.
  - aksss 3y ago
    Copilot is great for this and it’s impressive how the code it suggests is in keeping with the conventions used in the existing code base. Will be even better when I can highlight something like a string literal SQL statement in code and have it suggest optimizations. That’s just a tooling issue but that kind of context switching within the IDE will be fantastic.
    - emodendroket 3y ago
      I used a competing product due to work restrictions and it feels like it _could_ be really useful but in practice mostly was just helpful for banging out really repetitive tests. I think Copilot is probably more robust though.
      - 9dev 3y ago
        It really is. We use Copilot with three senior and two junior devs, and all of them really reported that it consistently suggests code snippets that are exactly what they were about to type. Initially, I was a bit concerned about handing it over to the juniors, but it turns out, they aren’t really used to working with an IDE and context aware suggestions yet, so they don’t use Copilot to its fullest extent and often type stuff out even if it’s suggested to them.
    - easton 3y ago
      The Copilot Chat thingy they have in private beta has this, you can highlight a block and ask it to simplify/optimize. Not sure how well it works in big multi-file examples, but I had a block of PowerShell in a single file it was able to work with.
      - aksss 3y ago
        I’m still waiting on my invitation for the vs2022 copilot chat preview. :( Looking forward to it though.
anonzzzies 3y ago
I write (when I write anything; I am a product manager) mostly compilers, databases, optimisations and create/invent programming languages and DSLs for the former. This work contains a lot of tedious stuff which I hate, but also contains (80/20 rule) work that takes by far the most time and least code; hardcore and cutting computer science mixed with a lot of cross cutting decisions (a wrong decision will destroy a lot of work all over the place). That’s the work I like. I don’t see that work being replaced by AIs soon (10+ years), but the tedious work I hope will be replaced today, and it is getting there; currently large swaths are now done by copilot or gpt for us.

fbrncci 3y ago

Well to each it’s own. I want to hack together stuff and make it work. The less time spend on code, the faster I can figure out what does and not.

nemothekid 3y ago

Some parts of engineering are really just copying and pasting the most banal scaffolding for some framework that refuses to work. I've been working on a side project where I get to play generics golf in Rust to my hearts content, but having to constantly Google what magic incantation I have to write to get react-hook-form to properly allow me to write variable input fields for an array of strings is mind numbing. [hint: useFieldsArray only works with objects, but the TS compiler wasn't smart enough to suggest that me]

emodendroket 3y ago
True, products like Copilot do seem promising in that way.
- aksss 3y ago
  Copilot is great for this and it’s impressive how the code it suggests is in keeping with the conventions used in the existing code base. Will be even better when I can highlight something like a string literal SQL statement in code and have it suggest optimizations. That’s just a tooling issue but that kind of context switching within the IDE will be fantastic.
  - emodendroket 3y ago
    I used a competing product due to work restrictions and it feels like it _could_ be really useful but in practice mostly was just helpful for banging out really repetitive tests. I think Copilot is probably more robust though.
    - 9dev 3y ago
      It really is. We use Copilot with three senior and two junior devs, and all of them really reported that it consistently suggests code snippets that are exactly what they were about to type. Initially, I was a bit concerned about handing it over to the juniors, but it turns out, they aren’t really used to working with an IDE and context aware suggestions yet, so they don’t use Copilot to its fullest extent and often type stuff out even if it’s suggested to them.
  - easton 3y ago
    The Copilot Chat thingy they have in private beta has this, you can highlight a block and ask it to simplify/optimize. Not sure how well it works in big multi-file examples, but I had a block of PowerShell in a single file it was able to work with.
    - aksss 3y ago
      I’m still waiting on my invitation for the vs2022 copilot chat preview. :( Looking forward to it though.

anonzzzies 3y ago

I write (when I write anything; I am a product manager) mostly compilers, databases, optimisations and create/invent programming languages and DSLs for the former. This work contains a lot of tedious stuff which I hate, but also contains (80/20 rule) work that takes by far the most time and least code; hardcore and cutting computer science mixed with a lot of cross cutting decisions (a wrong decision will destroy a lot of work all over the place). That’s the work I like. I don’t see that work being replaced by AIs soon (10+ years), but the tedious work I hope will be replaced today, and it is getting there; currently large swaths are now done by copilot or gpt for us.