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I wonder what the rise in AI assistants like Github Copilot will mean for new projects like this? Will people avoid adopting them because code won't be auto-ge

I wonder what the rise in AI assistants like Github Copilot will mean for new projects like this? Will people avoid adopting them because code won't be auto-generated efficiently? It wouldn't be a barrier for me or many people that read hacker news, but I suspect there is a growing subset of the developer community for who this would be an issue.

tipiirai 3y ago
Depends on whether Nue becomes relevant. New projects are obviously unknown to AI, but they learn as the world starts adopting them.
professoretc 3y ago
That's what I'm a bit afraid of. Will software engineering get "stuck" with just the tools we have right now, because LLMs won't be able to help with anything newer? If you're thinking, all we have to do is wait for OpenAI to re-scrape the web and re-train GPT on the new material, well... LLMs don't "learn" so much by looking at documentation, as by looking at examples. And a new tool is not going to have a lot of examples out there, simply by virtue of being new.
- smokel 3y ago
  Also, people are already misusing LLMs to generate blog spam, which regurgitates existing knowledge. Future LLMs will have to train on that as well. The "Selfish Gene" strikes again.
- sparkie 3y ago
  LLMs don't just regurgitate examples, but the have some internal model of the world and can learn new things. See this example: https://szopa.medium.com/teaching-chatgpt-to-speak-my-sons-invented-language-9d109c0a0f05 https://szopa.medium.com/teaching-chatgpt-to-speak-my-sons-i.... A sophisticated enough LLM should be able to read a documentation and learn a language faster than a human programmer, but we're nowhere near that stage yet. Aside, this is not going to stop people learning and using a language if it provides benefits. Not everyone is on the AI hype train. I personally couldn't care less - I don't trust any current AIs to write correct, bug-free code and so I just avoid them. Then again, I also don't trust most humans to write bug-free code and I tend to avoid them too. Formal verification should be the way forward, and this is why new languages, which can embed proofs, should continue being developed and improved, ignoring the AI hype. When the AI can write code in formal verification languages, I might consider it.
satvikpendem 3y ago
You are assuming the level of LLMs is static. An alternative future is one where LLMs get so good that they can generalize over new patterns and learn Nue themselves to then help you code in it.
awb 3y ago
When it becomes easier to have an LLM read website content on the fly, this will hopefully become less of an issue.
imiric 3y ago
I can't believe I have to say this, but there are still developers who don't use AI assistants to program. They write code "manually" by reading documentation and reference material, as our ancestors (mostly) did. They might be a dying breed, but they're out there. Personally, I'm waiting for the space to settle, and for an offline, self-hosted and OSS version to reach feature parity with the proprietary SaaS offerings. Those might exist already, I'm not evaluating the options frequently, but I'm in no hurry. On-topic: NueJS looks interesting. I'm very worn out and weary of shiny new JS frameworks, but I like the simplicity here. Will keep an eye on the project and consider it again once it matures, but for now Svelte is my best friend.
- m4tthumphrey 3y ago
  I haven’t even considered using AI to “help” me code! Is this really that widespread in dev land? Surely not.
  - PennRobotics 3y ago
    For a long time, you've had dropdowns while typing that list possible matches. If you introduce a feature where someone writes int i=0; and the IDE goes, "Hey dude, probably writing a loop, should I manage that for you?" and it's C++ 17/20/23 or Rust or Go best practice and looks back a little bit in your code and in its compendium of great project examples to see what the loop logic should/could be... I would probably let the IDE write the loop header for me. And the string formatting. And modify the function I'm writing to support multithreading. And tell me it looks like I was trying to change each instance of pxX to pxY and graphX to graphY but also forgot to change one rotX to rotY. Hell, if the IDE could read a PDF datasheet and automatically import addresses and bitfields and assign them to variable names, much of my current career workflow would be automated and I could focus mental effort on more creative work.
    - imiric 3y ago
      No thanks to all of that. Following that train of thought, most programming could be considered a chore. And to me, it's not. I like my tools to get out of my way, and not guess what I'm _trying_ to do, but let me do what I _want_ to do. Autocomplete is far less intrusive, and doesn't fall into this category. I can quickly refine the results since the scope is greatly reduced, and I don't have to read a large chunk of code to understand whether it does what I want it to do, or whether it introduces subtle bugs I'll have to hunt down later. Besides, we've had code snippets, macros and refactoring tools for decades to help with writing code quickly, so AI tools are not groundbreaking in that sense. Even once AI tools are absolutely correct in guessing my intention, and write entirely bug-free code, I think I'll still prefer typing code out manually. By that point, AI will be capable of writing complex programs from prose prompts, so that creative work you mention will also be automated away. Yet human programmers will still exist in some form, if nothing for the joy of it. We'll probably value programs written by humans in the same way we value handcrafted tools that are not mass produced today.
deleted 3y ago
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tipiirai 3y ago

Depends on whether Nue becomes relevant. New projects are obviously unknown to AI, but they learn as the world starts adopting them.

professoretc 3y ago

That's what I'm a bit afraid of. Will software engineering get "stuck" with just the tools we have right now, because LLMs won't be able to help with anything newer? If you're thinking, all we have to do is wait for OpenAI to re-scrape the web and re-train GPT on the new material, well... LLMs don't "learn" so much by looking at documentation, as by looking at examples. And a new tool is not going to have a lot of examples out there, simply by virtue of being new.

smokel 3y ago
Also, people are already misusing LLMs to generate blog spam, which regurgitates existing knowledge. Future LLMs will have to train on that as well. The "Selfish Gene" strikes again.
sparkie 3y ago
LLMs don't just regurgitate examples, but the have some internal model of the world and can learn new things. See this example: https://szopa.medium.com/teaching-chatgpt-to-speak-my-sons-invented-language-9d109c0a0f05 https://szopa.medium.com/teaching-chatgpt-to-speak-my-sons-i.... A sophisticated enough LLM should be able to read a documentation and learn a language faster than a human programmer, but we're nowhere near that stage yet. Aside, this is not going to stop people learning and using a language if it provides benefits. Not everyone is on the AI hype train. I personally couldn't care less - I don't trust any current AIs to write correct, bug-free code and so I just avoid them. Then again, I also don't trust most humans to write bug-free code and I tend to avoid them too. Formal verification should be the way forward, and this is why new languages, which can embed proofs, should continue being developed and improved, ignoring the AI hype. When the AI can write code in formal verification languages, I might consider it.

satvikpendem 3y ago

You are assuming the level of LLMs is static. An alternative future is one where LLMs get so good that they can generalize over new patterns and learn Nue themselves to then help you code in it.

awb 3y ago

When it becomes easier to have an LLM read website content on the fly, this will hopefully become less of an issue.

imiric 3y ago

I can't believe I have to say this, but there are still developers who don't use AI assistants to program. They write code "manually" by reading documentation and reference material, as our ancestors (mostly) did. They might be a dying breed, but they're out there. Personally, I'm waiting for the space to settle, and for an offline, self-hosted and OSS version to reach feature parity with the proprietary SaaS offerings. Those might exist already, I'm not evaluating the options frequently, but I'm in no hurry. On-topic: NueJS looks interesting. I'm very worn out and weary of shiny new JS frameworks, but I like the simplicity here. Will keep an eye on the project and consider it again once it matures, but for now Svelte is my best friend.

m4tthumphrey 3y ago
I haven’t even considered using AI to “help” me code! Is this really that widespread in dev land? Surely not.
- PennRobotics 3y ago
  For a long time, you've had dropdowns while typing that list possible matches. If you introduce a feature where someone writes int i=0; and the IDE goes, "Hey dude, probably writing a loop, should I manage that for you?" and it's C++ 17/20/23 or Rust or Go best practice and looks back a little bit in your code and in its compendium of great project examples to see what the loop logic should/could be... I would probably let the IDE write the loop header for me. And the string formatting. And modify the function I'm writing to support multithreading. And tell me it looks like I was trying to change each instance of pxX to pxY and graphX to graphY but also forgot to change one rotX to rotY. Hell, if the IDE could read a PDF datasheet and automatically import addresses and bitfields and assign them to variable names, much of my current career workflow would be automated and I could focus mental effort on more creative work.
  - imiric 3y ago
    No thanks to all of that. Following that train of thought, most programming could be considered a chore. And to me, it's not. I like my tools to get out of my way, and not guess what I'm _trying_ to do, but let me do what I _want_ to do. Autocomplete is far less intrusive, and doesn't fall into this category. I can quickly refine the results since the scope is greatly reduced, and I don't have to read a large chunk of code to understand whether it does what I want it to do, or whether it introduces subtle bugs I'll have to hunt down later. Besides, we've had code snippets, macros and refactoring tools for decades to help with writing code quickly, so AI tools are not groundbreaking in that sense. Even once AI tools are absolutely correct in guessing my intention, and write entirely bug-free code, I think I'll still prefer typing code out manually. By that point, AI will be capable of writing complex programs from prose prompts, so that creative work you mention will also be automated away. Yet human programmers will still exist in some form, if nothing for the joy of it. We'll probably value programs written by humans in the same way we value handcrafted tools that are not mass produced today.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]