5 ms·

I'd love if the ambiguities could be a dialogue of question/answer, rather than being fully specified ahead of time like we generally have programming today. It

I'd love if the ambiguities could be a dialogue of question/answer, rather than being fully specified ahead of time like we generally have programming today. It seems much more efficient.

dools 3y ago
That's what programming with ChatGPT is like.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 3y ago
  Yep! And I'd bet that's a huge part of why it took off. An equally capable model with a "write a better prompt and try again" UX wouldn't be nearly as useful.
- anothernewdude 3y ago
  A massive pain in the ass?
  - dools 3y ago
    Have you not spent much time working with ChatGPT? Or maybe you haven't upgraded to plus so you get GPT4? It's so fucking good. It's a bit like pair programming. Even though it can't always give you the result you want, it does so an appreciable percentage of the time and it's a fabulous way to think through problems, especially as a complement to the "google -> stackoverflow -> copy -> paste" style programming when you're trying things out or unsure of how to do something.
    - cookieperson 3y ago
      Do people actually do that much copy paste programming? People I work with are more inclined to read the docs and lean on intellisense. The people I've seen cling to chatgpt have been spending a lot of time forgetting LSPs exist and wondering why some hallucinated method doesn't exist... They also tend to think really long 1 liners are good code over explicit easy to read 3 liners...
      - dools 3y ago
        > Do people actually do that much copy paste programming? So much: https://stackoverflow.blog/2021/12/30/how-often-do-people-actually-copy-and-paste-from-stack-overflow-now-we-know/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2021/12/30/how-often-do-people-ac...
        cookieperson 3y ago
        Yea but when you really look at the numbers most people are copy pasting git commands, npm package manager commands, warning suppression syntax, etc. That's not really programming and is a symptom that the tools people are using stink or that they don't use those features very often. Not to say there aren't millions of other copy pasted but most of the remaining ones seem to be about data science, which is again a good hint that an API is complicated, and the fallout there isn't too bad because as data scientists work they check their manipulations.
grt_thr 3y ago
The ambiguity is exponential. I wish that the people hyping on llms read the older literature and sentence parsing. The only reason why people are so impressed is that chatgpt sometimes gives better results than Google. Which just ought to tell you hiw bad google has gotten.
- wolfgang42 3y ago
  Well, programmers provide a natural language interface and somehow we usually manage the ambiguity and complexity OK. In my experience, a lot of support requests for bespoke/in-house software go like this: > User: Why is my wibble being quarked? This shouldn’t be happening! > Dev: Wibble ID, please? > User: ID 234567. This is terrible! > Dev: [rummages in git blame] Well, this wibble is frobnicated, and three years ago [links to Slack thread] you said that all frobnicated wibbles should be automatically quarked. > User: Yes, but that was before we automated the Acme account. We never frobnicate their wibbles! > Dev: ...so, is there a way for me to tell if a client wants their wibbles unfrobnicated, or should I hard-code an exception for Acme? (And then, six months later: “Why are none of Acme’s wibbles being frobnicated automatically?”) If you could introduce an AI assistant that could answer these questions instantly (instead of starting with a support ticket), it’d cut the feedback loop from hours or days down to seconds, and the users (who are generally pretty smart in their field, even if my frustration is showing above) would have a much better resource for understanding the black box they’ve been given and why it works the way it does.
  - wolfgang42 3y ago
    Oops, only now do I realize that should have been “we never quark their wibbles” and “a client wants their wibbles unquarked.” (Hopefully doesn’t make a difference to comprehension since they’re nonsense words anyway, but there you go.)
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    > If you could introduce an AI assistant that could answer these questions instantly If you have some change documentation so good that you are able to answer that kind of question for things that a previous developer changed, you may have a chance of making the computer answer it. Personally, I have never seen the first part done.
quickthrower2 3y ago
Sounds like agile (small a) as opposed to waterfall.

I'd love if the ambiguities could be a dialogue of question/answer, rather than being fully specified ahead of time like we generally have programming today. It seems much more efficient.

dools 3y ago

That's what programming with ChatGPT is like.

6gvONxR4sf7o 3y ago
Yep! And I'd bet that's a huge part of why it took off. An equally capable model with a "write a better prompt and try again" UX wouldn't be nearly as useful.
anothernewdude 3y ago
A massive pain in the ass?
- dools 3y ago
  Have you not spent much time working with ChatGPT? Or maybe you haven't upgraded to plus so you get GPT4? It's so fucking good. It's a bit like pair programming. Even though it can't always give you the result you want, it does so an appreciable percentage of the time and it's a fabulous way to think through problems, especially as a complement to the "google -> stackoverflow -> copy -> paste" style programming when you're trying things out or unsure of how to do something.
  - cookieperson 3y ago
    Do people actually do that much copy paste programming? People I work with are more inclined to read the docs and lean on intellisense. The people I've seen cling to chatgpt have been spending a lot of time forgetting LSPs exist and wondering why some hallucinated method doesn't exist... They also tend to think really long 1 liners are good code over explicit easy to read 3 liners...
    - dools 3y ago
      > Do people actually do that much copy paste programming? So much: https://stackoverflow.blog/2021/12/30/how-often-do-people-actually-copy-and-paste-from-stack-overflow-now-we-know/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2021/12/30/how-often-do-people-ac...
      - cookieperson 3y ago
        Yea but when you really look at the numbers most people are copy pasting git commands, npm package manager commands, warning suppression syntax, etc. That's not really programming and is a symptom that the tools people are using stink or that they don't use those features very often. Not to say there aren't millions of other copy pasted but most of the remaining ones seem to be about data science, which is again a good hint that an API is complicated, and the fallout there isn't too bad because as data scientists work they check their manipulations.

grt_thr 3y ago

The ambiguity is exponential. I wish that the people hyping on llms read the older literature and sentence parsing. The only reason why people are so impressed is that chatgpt sometimes gives better results than Google. Which just ought to tell you hiw bad google has gotten.

wolfgang42 3y ago
Well, programmers provide a natural language interface and somehow we usually manage the ambiguity and complexity OK. In my experience, a lot of support requests for bespoke/in-house software go like this: > User: Why is my wibble being quarked? This shouldn’t be happening! > Dev: Wibble ID, please? > User: ID 234567. This is terrible! > Dev: [rummages in git blame] Well, this wibble is frobnicated, and three years ago [links to Slack thread] you said that all frobnicated wibbles should be automatically quarked. > User: Yes, but that was before we automated the Acme account. We never frobnicate their wibbles! > Dev: ...so, is there a way for me to tell if a client wants their wibbles unfrobnicated, or should I hard-code an exception for Acme? (And then, six months later: “Why are none of Acme’s wibbles being frobnicated automatically?”) If you could introduce an AI assistant that could answer these questions instantly (instead of starting with a support ticket), it’d cut the feedback loop from hours or days down to seconds, and the users (who are generally pretty smart in their field, even if my frustration is showing above) would have a much better resource for understanding the black box they’ve been given and why it works the way it does.
- wolfgang42 3y ago
  Oops, only now do I realize that should have been “we never quark their wibbles” and “a client wants their wibbles unquarked.” (Hopefully doesn’t make a difference to comprehension since they’re nonsense words anyway, but there you go.)
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  > If you could introduce an AI assistant that could answer these questions instantly If you have some change documentation so good that you are able to answer that kind of question for things that a previous developer changed, you may have a chance of making the computer answer it. Personally, I have never seen the first part done.

quickthrower2 3y ago

Sounds like agile (small a) as opposed to waterfall.