4 ms·

Every time one of these come out I hope it DOES take all my dev jobs so I can focus on things that don't require writing code. Every time they fall really short

Every time one of these come out I hope it DOES take all my dev jobs so I can focus on things that don't require writing code. Every time they fall really short.

quickthrower2 3y ago
We will get there eventually. I sort of want LLMs to write code, but more so I want LLMs to help library authors and ecosystem maintainers write better and more cohesive libraries and ecosystems. What if LLMs wrote beautiful code, like the early Lispers dreamed of :-). And by beautiful, I mean an intern with no coding experience at work comes into a codebase and could be productive with hand writing code (like they did in the ol' days before washing machines) but they'll probably just fire up the LLM. What I am imagining is LLM crafts the code in such a way that you can look at a small set of certain files and get a real understanding of the story of that program or service. Some people write code like that but most (including me) can't unless I spend a lot of time crafting, which is not a luxury we get at work. Pedagogical code is probably the word I am looking for! With that you could get an LLM to write a new cryptography library, and assuming you are a crypto expert, you could quickly verify that it is doing the right thing, as it makes it obvious.
alfalfasprout 3y ago
alas all of the benchmarks are based around totally self contained problems.
intelVISA 3y ago
I don't think it's possible in the strictest sense: beyond jr level none of us really 'generate code' as our main value add. That said, I think ML advances may possibly usher in the next gen of low-code tools that may liberate a large portion of web devs from being human LLMs.
- michaelteter 3y ago
  I sure hope so. Honestly, we shouldn't need AI/ML for this. We have so many well established need and use patterns that we should already have standardized "lego" style functionality blocks, optionally with interchangeable wrappers to provide customization options (common automatic options or even programmable ones). The reason we're still all reinvinting wheels all the time is, frankly, because it's too easy to do our own thing. I would never advocate for this (and I'm not an MS guy), but perhaps if Microsoft had won the world and Linux had never existed, we would all be using the same MS libraries and possibly be further down the road than we are.
  - svaha1728 3y ago
    A parallel universe where the internet is built with no code Windows Forms. That’s not exactly heaven.
    - michaelteter 3y ago
      One might imagine that if all the creative talent that is currently spread across a dozen programming languages and dozens of frameworks were focused on a much narrower set of possibilities, we would arrive at better overall options sooner. What I've observed over 20 years is the opposite - a continual expansion, even an explosion of competing (often uncompelling) alternatives.
- dontupvoteme 3y ago
  LLMs are not restricted to generating code either. I think you are right w.r.t. Frontend, it's significantly easier than regular programming as you can(will be able to) simply enumerate a list or tree of the various style choices, generate them all, and allow people to A/B/C/D/...ZYX test between them.
  - yawnxyz 3y ago
    I’ve been able to generate permutations for spreadsheets / curl pretty easily now. Thank goodness; I can never remember curl
- speed_spread 3y ago
  I've met many so called senior devs who shit out code like there's no tomorrow, pretending their value add is based on the usage of the framework du jour. No reflection about tradeoffs, tech debt, onboarding of new devs, documentation, testability or even fitness to requirements. AI code generation is just gonna make them shit out More code and their managers will be none the wiser.
  - intelVISA 3y ago
    Nightmarish, my condolences.

Every time one of these come out I hope it DOES take all my dev jobs so I can focus on things that don't require writing code. Every time they fall really short.

quickthrower2 3y ago

We will get there eventually. I sort of want LLMs to write code, but more so I want LLMs to help library authors and ecosystem maintainers write better and more cohesive libraries and ecosystems. What if LLMs wrote beautiful code, like the early Lispers dreamed of :-). And by beautiful, I mean an intern with no coding experience at work comes into a codebase and could be productive with hand writing code (like they did in the ol' days before washing machines) but they'll probably just fire up the LLM. What I am imagining is LLM crafts the code in such a way that you can look at a small set of certain files and get a real understanding of the story of that program or service. Some people write code like that but most (including me) can't unless I spend a lot of time crafting, which is not a luxury we get at work. Pedagogical code is probably the word I am looking for! With that you could get an LLM to write a new cryptography library, and assuming you are a crypto expert, you could quickly verify that it is doing the right thing, as it makes it obvious.

alfalfasprout 3y ago

alas all of the benchmarks are based around totally self contained problems.

intelVISA 3y ago

I don't think it's possible in the strictest sense: beyond jr level none of us really 'generate code' as our main value add. That said, I think ML advances may possibly usher in the next gen of low-code tools that may liberate a large portion of web devs from being human LLMs.

michaelteter 3y ago
I sure hope so. Honestly, we shouldn't need AI/ML for this. We have so many well established need and use patterns that we should already have standardized "lego" style functionality blocks, optionally with interchangeable wrappers to provide customization options (common automatic options or even programmable ones). The reason we're still all reinvinting wheels all the time is, frankly, because it's too easy to do our own thing. I would never advocate for this (and I'm not an MS guy), but perhaps if Microsoft had won the world and Linux had never existed, we would all be using the same MS libraries and possibly be further down the road than we are.
- svaha1728 3y ago
  A parallel universe where the internet is built with no code Windows Forms. That’s not exactly heaven.
  - michaelteter 3y ago
    One might imagine that if all the creative talent that is currently spread across a dozen programming languages and dozens of frameworks were focused on a much narrower set of possibilities, we would arrive at better overall options sooner. What I've observed over 20 years is the opposite - a continual expansion, even an explosion of competing (often uncompelling) alternatives.
dontupvoteme 3y ago
LLMs are not restricted to generating code either. I think you are right w.r.t. Frontend, it's significantly easier than regular programming as you can(will be able to) simply enumerate a list or tree of the various style choices, generate them all, and allow people to A/B/C/D/...ZYX test between them.
- yawnxyz 3y ago
  I’ve been able to generate permutations for spreadsheets / curl pretty easily now. Thank goodness; I can never remember curl
speed_spread 3y ago
I've met many so called senior devs who shit out code like there's no tomorrow, pretending their value add is based on the usage of the framework du jour. No reflection about tradeoffs, tech debt, onboarding of new devs, documentation, testability or even fitness to requirements. AI code generation is just gonna make them shit out More code and their managers will be none the wiser.
- intelVISA 3y ago
  Nightmarish, my condolences.