4 ms·

I’m pretty sure the main reasons such documents are not public are: Either nobody documented it or the document is badly written. So it is just too embarrassing

by qznc 3y ago

I’m pretty sure the main reasons such documents are not public are: Either nobody documented it or the document is badly written. So it is just too embarrassing.

ta8645 3y ago
> ...the document is badly written. So it is just too embarrassing. At risk of being accused of being on the A.I. hype train, it seems like having a writing bot that could distill the important points out of poorly written documents, and state them more clearly would be a huge boon. Hopefully it would allow an iterative process where someone could hone their offering to a point where they felt okay releasing it.
- layer8 3y ago
  For software documentation, “badly written” often means that it’s ambiguous, is missing information, and/or is contradictory. AI can’t really help with that.
  - ta8645 3y ago
    I would think that a good AI could actually point out missing and ambiguous information and allow an iterative process where a programmer could more easily fill in the blanks before resubmitting it for another round.
    - tremon 3y ago
      Is "good AI" now the new "true Scotsman"?
      - funcDropShadow 3y ago
        You mean the "sufficiently smart compiler"?
- qznc 3y ago
  Yes, ChatGPT is good enough to help writing this stuff. It is still work though. Work which is not valued much and which most engineers like to avoid. Personally, I like it. For me, there is no better way to achieve clarity than writing about something. So I don’t really understand why they like to avoid it. They apparently value clarity less than I do but that doesn’t explain it. “Everybody is different“ doesn’t really explain anything.
- darkerside 3y ago
  I feel confident that an AI trying to read that info back would suffer the same limitations as any human. What is important depends completely on the audience and why they are reading. The sum of all important points to all people at all times is equal to the content of the computer program itself.

by qznc 3y ago

I’m pretty sure the main reasons such documents are not public are: Either nobody documented it or the document is badly written. So it is just too embarrassing.

ta8645 3y ago

> ...the document is badly written. So it is just too embarrassing. At risk of being accused of being on the A.I. hype train, it seems like having a writing bot that could distill the important points out of poorly written documents, and state them more clearly would be a huge boon. Hopefully it would allow an iterative process where someone could hone their offering to a point where they felt okay releasing it.

layer8 3y ago
For software documentation, “badly written” often means that it’s ambiguous, is missing information, and/or is contradictory. AI can’t really help with that.
- ta8645 3y ago
  I would think that a good AI could actually point out missing and ambiguous information and allow an iterative process where a programmer could more easily fill in the blanks before resubmitting it for another round.
  - tremon 3y ago
    Is "good AI" now the new "true Scotsman"?
    - funcDropShadow 3y ago
      You mean the "sufficiently smart compiler"?
qznc 3y ago
Yes, ChatGPT is good enough to help writing this stuff. It is still work though. Work which is not valued much and which most engineers like to avoid. Personally, I like it. For me, there is no better way to achieve clarity than writing about something. So I don’t really understand why they like to avoid it. They apparently value clarity less than I do but that doesn’t explain it. “Everybody is different“ doesn’t really explain anything.
darkerside 3y ago
I feel confident that an AI trying to read that info back would suffer the same limitations as any human. What is important depends completely on the audience and why they are reading. The sum of all important points to all people at all times is equal to the content of the computer program itself.