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This is a good example of why chatGPT is just useless for so many things. * Why even create a use-time script, when the whole point of the original article is

by b112 3y ago

This is a good example of why chatGPT is just useless for so many things. * Why even create a use-time script, when the whole point of the original article is how these tools should be pre-installed, because the system may be in a state where disk, or network io, or load, prevents easy install of anything, during times of instability/issues * Why bother with a 100+ line script, when you just "apt-get install thing" then use the blasted thing * Who's going to maintain this script down the road? Why are things on it? Why even spend time looking at it, debugging it? It's literally creating extra work, whilst doing nothing useful. Please people. If you don't understand what's going on, or why things are to be done, don't hand it off to chatGPT. Just learn, learn, learn or if you can't/won't learn, go find a job in a different field.

keepamovin 3y ago
And yet, so useful it is, despite flagging. You can have it all in one place, and have Chat GPT write it for you, so you don't have to type it all out. And you've saved yourself time. Is time not important to you? Hahahahaha! :)
keepamovin 3y ago
Wow, that's really mean and narrow response. I get if you're mad about something right now that has nothing to do with this, but please don't bring that here. Rather constructively deal with the source of your feelings, instead of trying to take it out on people and places that don't deserve it! Haha :) In your quest for invective did you consider other possibilities? Perhaps: - you could learn by using these things, with an easy interface - perhaps you're not the expert who knows everything, and other people have use cases beyond what you'd consider? - you don't have to wait until things go wrong to familiarize yourself with these things, you can use the script now to ensure they're installed Personally I think that if you don't think ChatGPT is useful for very many things, you're not using it right! Haha :) In general it seems your comment would benefit from the HN guidelines advice of assuming a generous interpretation, rather than going in other direction! Haha! :) If you want to find "uselessness" or "stupidity" in what you are looking at, well, surely you can always find it if you try. But, truth is, you find there what you bring to it. So, try harder to find something good! Haha :) But also that comment itself could be an example of "not understanding what's going on" yet speaking like there there is that understanding. I understand if the job situation is difficult and you're unhappy with the number of people in the field now, but if you dislike appreciating a diversity of approaches beyond your own, perhaps it is you who ought "go find a job in a different field." Or, learn to be more welcoming and less arrogant in your quest to be "right". You could just apply yourself to finding something useful in whatever you're responding to. That, it seems, would be the way to really be right, and also to make a useful contribution, not just to the forum, but with that attitude, to the field. :)
- jraph 3y ago
  I won't comment on the tone (I can't evaluate for you if they were harsh and how you should take it - I myself didn't find them too rude, more like irritated maybe) but they are right, in essence. I was going to answer something like this too. You want to be 100% sure on what you run on your prod, so you really don't want to automate writing such a script with a tool that can hallucinate things. I only skimmed the script because I don't really want to be reading hallucinated code, that's not very interesting, but I already saw two flaws: - it tries to detect the package manager, among two random ones that exist. Why those two? - there's a list of packages that surely applies to only one on them and will break with the other, if it doesn't already break with the first (who knows before trying or before careful review?). It proposes helpers to run random stuff, but you really want to spend the time learning these tools directly because you will end up having to use them in different ways for different situations. You don't want to spend time learning how to use the generated script, that's extra, pointless, work. You also want to be damn sure the generated helpers are harmless and do the right things so you will have to take a lot of time reviewing them. Of course you could be learning stuff will reviewing these parts, but you really want to learn those things from actually experienced people instead so you get to be pointed at relevant stuff. And then indeed there will be maintenance work. > Personally I think that if you don't think ChatGPT is useful for very many things, you're not using it right! Haha :) Be careful with ChatGPT. Because you've actually just showed us that you are using it in ways that could be detrimental to you or your coworkers. You took a very high quality article and fed it to ChatGPT to generate a script that you thought useful to share to the world on HN. You actually need to know exactly and be familiar with what you are installing on your servers, and you need to know how to use this stuff because otherwise, in time of crisis, you won't know what to do. You need to take the time to learn this stuff. ChatGPT won't help you learn faster here, and this script is a shortcut you can't actually take. It does the opposite of helping you here. It's a bit like your non expert friend doing your homework. They have no responsibility, and you haven't learned what the teacher wanted you to learn yourself, and you are not sure the friend even did good work. > if you dislike appreciating a diversity of approaches beyond your own, perhaps it is you who ought "go find a job in a different field." If the other commenter is anything like me, we are seeing people posting ChatGPT-generated stuff all too frequently and we find this boring. We know ChatGPT exists. We are out there for learning things and read actual insight from the posts and the commenter. LLM Generated things don't come with any insight and actual knowledge. On a personal note, I highly distrust LLM output. Way more than random HN comments. I will need to review carefully what I read on HN from actual people, but even more what the LLM says, with my vague knowledge on how it works. I bet most of us here on HN don't want to see comments citing LLM-generated stuff. And bad luck, the quality difference between this and an article from Brendan Gregg is stupidly huge so we are definitely expecting more when we are just done reading one. About your suggestion to make the script work on different distros: you wouldn't actually want this. You would want a script that is finely adapted to your own, very specific production. You can't actually have general purpose script for this. If you have several distros in your production, you will actually need different scripts because it's likely the servers on different distros will have very different goals and ways of working. Of course the install procedure will be specific to how you deploy and your script will likely won't help because it probably doesn't match how your thing is deployed.
Udo 3y ago
The point about installing tools on demand is correct, however, I have trouble following the other ones. Simplifying or summarizing both the usage and the output of common tools clearly does have value, and people do that all the time to great effect. Maybe the specific choices made here are not to your liking, but attacking the concept of doing that is a weird thing to do. Also, why does it matter how a script was generated if it does the job? Especially given the fact that scripts like these often serve as a starting point for further customization, is there really a meaningful difference between asking ChatGPT and copying off some random person on the internet? You need to double-check for functionality and safety either way.
- jraph 3y ago
  I'm sure someone could find a way to start from ChatGPT generated stuff and do good work knowing full well the risks and the consequences. But posting something you just generated on HN without any refinement is not very helpful and it is obvious at a first glance that the script as posted will not help you at the task it tries to tackle and I'm not even a proper sysadmin. > why does it matter how a script was generated if it does the job? It doesn't here, and that's the point: it's all too easy to believe that ChatGPT does the job. It probably sometimes does, but here it is obvious it didn't. It should have told the user that they should carefully pick the tools they will likely need depending on what their production runs, learn to use them focusing on the features that matter to the situation, and install them the way their production is setup, and that ChatGPT can't really generate a script for this because it would need to know how production is deployed, and what if the prod is setup using immutable images for instance, as the article cites? ChatGPT will answer in a convincing way, before you notice that no proper answer can really be found given the lack of context. And when you have the answer before your nose, it's even more difficult to notice.
  - keepamovin 3y ago
    In fact, it's useful. If you don't find it so, I suggest you simply don't know how to use it. That in itself is expertise of a tool which you lack. Could it be not more humble to consider that you could be educated by this tool that's read millions? I am educated by it. Are you above that? You seem to think so. Hahahahaha! :)

by b112 3y ago

keepamovin 3y ago

And yet, so useful it is, despite flagging. You can have it all in one place, and have Chat GPT write it for you, so you don't have to type it all out. And you've saved yourself time. Is time not important to you? Hahahahaha! :)

keepamovin 3y ago

Wow, that's really mean and narrow response. I get if you're mad about something right now that has nothing to do with this, but please don't bring that here. Rather constructively deal with the source of your feelings, instead of trying to take it out on people and places that don't deserve it! Haha :) In your quest for invective did you consider other possibilities? Perhaps: - you could learn by using these things, with an easy interface - perhaps you're not the expert who knows everything, and other people have use cases beyond what you'd consider? - you don't have to wait until things go wrong to familiarize yourself with these things, you can use the script now to ensure they're installed Personally I think that if you don't think ChatGPT is useful for very many things, you're not using it right! Haha :) In general it seems your comment would benefit from the HN guidelines advice of assuming a generous interpretation, rather than going in other direction! Haha! :) If you want to find "uselessness" or "stupidity" in what you are looking at, well, surely you can always find it if you try. But, truth is, you find there what you bring to it. So, try harder to find something good! Haha :) But also that comment itself could be an example of "not understanding what's going on" yet speaking like there there is that understanding. I understand if the job situation is difficult and you're unhappy with the number of people in the field now, but if you dislike appreciating a diversity of approaches beyond your own, perhaps it is you who ought "go find a job in a different field." Or, learn to be more welcoming and less arrogant in your quest to be "right". You could just apply yourself to finding something useful in whatever you're responding to. That, it seems, would be the way to really be right, and also to make a useful contribution, not just to the forum, but with that attitude, to the field. :)

jraph 3y ago
I won't comment on the tone (I can't evaluate for you if they were harsh and how you should take it - I myself didn't find them too rude, more like irritated maybe) but they are right, in essence. I was going to answer something like this too. You want to be 100% sure on what you run on your prod, so you really don't want to automate writing such a script with a tool that can hallucinate things. I only skimmed the script because I don't really want to be reading hallucinated code, that's not very interesting, but I already saw two flaws: - it tries to detect the package manager, among two random ones that exist. Why those two? - there's a list of packages that surely applies to only one on them and will break with the other, if it doesn't already break with the first (who knows before trying or before careful review?). It proposes helpers to run random stuff, but you really want to spend the time learning these tools directly because you will end up having to use them in different ways for different situations. You don't want to spend time learning how to use the generated script, that's extra, pointless, work. You also want to be damn sure the generated helpers are harmless and do the right things so you will have to take a lot of time reviewing them. Of course you could be learning stuff will reviewing these parts, but you really want to learn those things from actually experienced people instead so you get to be pointed at relevant stuff. And then indeed there will be maintenance work. > Personally I think that if you don't think ChatGPT is useful for very many things, you're not using it right! Haha :) Be careful with ChatGPT. Because you've actually just showed us that you are using it in ways that could be detrimental to you or your coworkers. You took a very high quality article and fed it to ChatGPT to generate a script that you thought useful to share to the world on HN. You actually need to know exactly and be familiar with what you are installing on your servers, and you need to know how to use this stuff because otherwise, in time of crisis, you won't know what to do. You need to take the time to learn this stuff. ChatGPT won't help you learn faster here, and this script is a shortcut you can't actually take. It does the opposite of helping you here. It's a bit like your non expert friend doing your homework. They have no responsibility, and you haven't learned what the teacher wanted you to learn yourself, and you are not sure the friend even did good work. > if you dislike appreciating a diversity of approaches beyond your own, perhaps it is you who ought "go find a job in a different field." If the other commenter is anything like me, we are seeing people posting ChatGPT-generated stuff all too frequently and we find this boring. We know ChatGPT exists. We are out there for learning things and read actual insight from the posts and the commenter. LLM Generated things don't come with any insight and actual knowledge. On a personal note, I highly distrust LLM output. Way more than random HN comments. I will need to review carefully what I read on HN from actual people, but even more what the LLM says, with my vague knowledge on how it works. I bet most of us here on HN don't want to see comments citing LLM-generated stuff. And bad luck, the quality difference between this and an article from Brendan Gregg is stupidly huge so we are definitely expecting more when we are just done reading one. About your suggestion to make the script work on different distros: you wouldn't actually want this. You would want a script that is finely adapted to your own, very specific production. You can't actually have general purpose script for this. If you have several distros in your production, you will actually need different scripts because it's likely the servers on different distros will have very different goals and ways of working. Of course the install procedure will be specific to how you deploy and your script will likely won't help because it probably doesn't match how your thing is deployed.

Udo 3y ago

The point about installing tools on demand is correct, however, I have trouble following the other ones. Simplifying or summarizing both the usage and the output of common tools clearly does have value, and people do that all the time to great effect. Maybe the specific choices made here are not to your liking, but attacking the concept of doing that is a weird thing to do. Also, why does it matter how a script was generated if it does the job? Especially given the fact that scripts like these often serve as a starting point for further customization, is there really a meaningful difference between asking ChatGPT and copying off some random person on the internet? You need to double-check for functionality and safety either way.

jraph 3y ago
I'm sure someone could find a way to start from ChatGPT generated stuff and do good work knowing full well the risks and the consequences. But posting something you just generated on HN without any refinement is not very helpful and it is obvious at a first glance that the script as posted will not help you at the task it tries to tackle and I'm not even a proper sysadmin. > why does it matter how a script was generated if it does the job? It doesn't here, and that's the point: it's all too easy to believe that ChatGPT does the job. It probably sometimes does, but here it is obvious it didn't. It should have told the user that they should carefully pick the tools they will likely need depending on what their production runs, learn to use them focusing on the features that matter to the situation, and install them the way their production is setup, and that ChatGPT can't really generate a script for this because it would need to know how production is deployed, and what if the prod is setup using immutable images for instance, as the article cites? ChatGPT will answer in a convincing way, before you notice that no proper answer can really be found given the lack of context. And when you have the answer before your nose, it's even more difficult to notice.
- keepamovin 3y ago
  In fact, it's useful. If you don't find it so, I suggest you simply don't know how to use it. That in itself is expertise of a tool which you lack. Could it be not more humble to consider that you could be educated by this tool that's read millions? I am educated by it. Are you above that? You seem to think so. Hahahahaha! :)