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"Understanding doesn’t build fluency; instead, fluency builds understanding" Someone else on HN pointed out this great quote from here (my memory might have al

by pipes 2y ago

"Understanding doesn’t build fluency; instead, fluency builds understanding" Someone else on HN pointed out this great quote from here (my memory might have altered it slightly) https://nautil.us/how-i-rewired-my-brain-to-become-fluent-in-math-235085/ https://nautil.us/how-i-rewired-my-brain-to-become-fluent-in... Written by the person who wrote the book "a mind for numbers" Anyway, this idea about teaching how to use AI is backwards: Good luck debugging code you aren't skilled enough to write.

VyseofArcadia 2y ago
I'm waiting for "Google Translate is changing the way languages are taught." "Students don't need to learn grammar and syntax and really any vocabulary. AI assistance lets them understand higher level German concepts without needing to know how to conjugate for gender and number or remember if a noun uses der, die, or das." You see a lot of examples of things that seem absurd when applied to non-technical topics, but as soon as you apply them to computers all skepticism goes out the window. If I told you I have a person who speaks perfect English but frequently lies and outright makes things up, you'd say that's a politician and not to be trusted. But if I say I have a computer with those same properties, suddenly it's the most amazing thing in the world, and we should implicitly trust it to make our decisions and educate our children.
- pixl97 2y ago
  >you'd say that's a politician and not to be trusted And yet, it seems that kind of politician is common and seemingly rules the world at this point. I'll let you decide what that means for the future of humanity.
- lupire 2y ago
  German is the lower level concept. I express a concept in my language and the machine translates it.
  - VyseofArcadia 2y ago
    I feel like you're missing the point. If you're having a machine translate it for you, you aren't learning German. Similarly, if you're having a machine translate an English-language request into Python, you aren't learning Python. To say that, as the article says, "Professors are shifting away from syntax and emphasizing higher-level skills" essentially means "Professors have stopped teaching programing languages and have started teaching how to turn natural language problems into AI prompts." Higher-level problem solving skills are important, but I am skeptical of eschewing a lower-level foundation in favor of only teaching higher-level problem solving skills.
- guitarlimeo 2y ago
  Thanks for this, really helps ground the current situation for me. But as another commenter said, the analogy isn't 1:1. The example would be "Students don't need to learn German, they can just use Google translate for their time in Germany (and be hated for it by the locals)"
  - VyseofArcadia 2y ago
    Ah, but the analogy isn't about using German. It's about learning German. If I signed up for a German class and what they taught me was how to use Google translate, I'd be pretty angry.
- CJefferson 2y ago
  University language schools had many discussions about how google translate and friends effected how, and what, they should teach — now they are having more talks and discussions about how ChatGPT effects things. Are you maybe just in tech circles, not academic language circles?
  - temporarely 2y ago
    https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/affect-vs-effect-usage-difference https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/affect-vs-effect-usa...
    - CJefferson 2y ago
      I’m not a language school person, I just get emails about their events :)
      - temporarely 2y ago
        And I must also say I was not wearing a uniform goose stepping while clutching a dictionary as I made that comment :) We're all here to learn.
- raincole 2y ago
  > If I told you I have a person who speaks perfect English but frequently lies and outright makes things up, you'd say that's a politician and not to be trusted. But if I say I have a computer with those same properties, suddenly it's the most amazing thing in the world, and we should implicitly trust it to make our decisions and educate our children. Because a computer is a tool and a politician deems you a tool. Anyway machine learning will change the way languages are taught. It did change how people learn games like Chess and Go. Having a conversation (with voice-to-text) with a bot in your second/third language will be an important part of language acquisition. It's honestly hard to imagine how it's not the case for me.
  - pwdisswordfishc 2y ago
    Politicians are tools as well. In more than one sense.
- jdeisenberg 2y ago
  I am learning German, and I will read something that I don’t quite understand, make my best guess at what it means, and run it through Google translate. Then I compare the results and it helps me see where I went astray. Similarly, I write something that I think is proper German, and again compare the results to what Google translate says it should be. It’s sort of like having a native speaker sitting next to you and correcting you (except you have to come up with the explanation of the correct answer on your own, which is where knowledge of gender, conjugation, and declension comes in handy).
pixl97 2y ago
> Good luck debugging code you aren't skilled enough to write I mean, at the end of the day I am not a coder, therefore any code I debug I'm probably not good enough to write, yet I've found numerous bugs in both open source and proprietary code with suggestions on how to fix it.
- pipes 2y ago
  I am genuinely surprised you've managed to do that :) You say you aren't a coder, does that mean you've never learned to program in any language? Edit: unless the the bug fixes were trivial
dig1 2y ago
> Good luck debugging code you aren't skilled enough to write. We already have this problem, even without the LLM-generated code. I see younger developers pull out all sorts of tiny libraries because a) they think it will save them time, b) they are insecure about the correctness of their code, and c) they often have no idea where to start when problems start to happen (solving problem is usually writing a github ticket or blindly trying another library). I think LLMs will exacerbate the problem. These days I rarely see engineering spirit in figuring out how things work, willing to understand deeply OS or compiler internals, or even trying some crazy ideas, like "let's write a JIT to speed up our DSL".
theshrike79 2y ago
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Kernighan's Law With an LLM it is possible to write code that's too "clever", thus you won't be able to debug it. And in many cases neither can the LLM.

by pipes 2y ago

VyseofArcadia 2y ago

I'm waiting for "Google Translate is changing the way languages are taught." "Students don't need to learn grammar and syntax and really any vocabulary. AI assistance lets them understand higher level German concepts without needing to know how to conjugate for gender and number or remember if a noun uses der, die, or das." You see a lot of examples of things that seem absurd when applied to non-technical topics, but as soon as you apply them to computers all skepticism goes out the window. If I told you I have a person who speaks perfect English but frequently lies and outright makes things up, you'd say that's a politician and not to be trusted. But if I say I have a computer with those same properties, suddenly it's the most amazing thing in the world, and we should implicitly trust it to make our decisions and educate our children.

pixl97 2y ago
>you'd say that's a politician and not to be trusted And yet, it seems that kind of politician is common and seemingly rules the world at this point. I'll let you decide what that means for the future of humanity.
lupire 2y ago
German is the lower level concept. I express a concept in my language and the machine translates it.
- VyseofArcadia 2y ago
  I feel like you're missing the point. If you're having a machine translate it for you, you aren't learning German. Similarly, if you're having a machine translate an English-language request into Python, you aren't learning Python. To say that, as the article says, "Professors are shifting away from syntax and emphasizing higher-level skills" essentially means "Professors have stopped teaching programing languages and have started teaching how to turn natural language problems into AI prompts." Higher-level problem solving skills are important, but I am skeptical of eschewing a lower-level foundation in favor of only teaching higher-level problem solving skills.
guitarlimeo 2y ago
Thanks for this, really helps ground the current situation for me. But as another commenter said, the analogy isn't 1:1. The example would be "Students don't need to learn German, they can just use Google translate for their time in Germany (and be hated for it by the locals)"
- VyseofArcadia 2y ago
  Ah, but the analogy isn't about using German. It's about learning German. If I signed up for a German class and what they taught me was how to use Google translate, I'd be pretty angry.
CJefferson 2y ago
University language schools had many discussions about how google translate and friends effected how, and what, they should teach — now they are having more talks and discussions about how ChatGPT effects things. Are you maybe just in tech circles, not academic language circles?
- temporarely 2y ago
  https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/affect-vs-effect-usage-difference https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/affect-vs-effect-usa...
  - CJefferson 2y ago
    I’m not a language school person, I just get emails about their events :)
    - temporarely 2y ago
      And I must also say I was not wearing a uniform goose stepping while clutching a dictionary as I made that comment :) We're all here to learn.
raincole 2y ago
> If I told you I have a person who speaks perfect English but frequently lies and outright makes things up, you'd say that's a politician and not to be trusted. But if I say I have a computer with those same properties, suddenly it's the most amazing thing in the world, and we should implicitly trust it to make our decisions and educate our children. Because a computer is a tool and a politician deems you a tool. Anyway machine learning will change the way languages are taught. It did change how people learn games like Chess and Go. Having a conversation (with voice-to-text) with a bot in your second/third language will be an important part of language acquisition. It's honestly hard to imagine how it's not the case for me.
- pwdisswordfishc 2y ago
  Politicians are tools as well. In more than one sense.
jdeisenberg 2y ago
I am learning German, and I will read something that I don’t quite understand, make my best guess at what it means, and run it through Google translate. Then I compare the results and it helps me see where I went astray. Similarly, I write something that I think is proper German, and again compare the results to what Google translate says it should be. It’s sort of like having a native speaker sitting next to you and correcting you (except you have to come up with the explanation of the correct answer on your own, which is where knowledge of gender, conjugation, and declension comes in handy).

pixl97 2y ago

> Good luck debugging code you aren't skilled enough to write I mean, at the end of the day I am not a coder, therefore any code I debug I'm probably not good enough to write, yet I've found numerous bugs in both open source and proprietary code with suggestions on how to fix it.

pipes 2y ago
I am genuinely surprised you've managed to do that :) You say you aren't a coder, does that mean you've never learned to program in any language? Edit: unless the the bug fixes were trivial

dig1 2y ago

> Good luck debugging code you aren't skilled enough to write. We already have this problem, even without the LLM-generated code. I see younger developers pull out all sorts of tiny libraries because a) they think it will save them time, b) they are insecure about the correctness of their code, and c) they often have no idea where to start when problems start to happen (solving problem is usually writing a github ticket or blindly trying another library). I think LLMs will exacerbate the problem. These days I rarely see engineering spirit in figuring out how things work, willing to understand deeply OS or compiler internals, or even trying some crazy ideas, like "let's write a JIT to speed up our DSL".

theshrike79 2y ago

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Kernighan's Law With an LLM it is possible to write code that's too "clever", thus you won't be able to debug it. And in many cases neither can the LLM.