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> I do not consider "prompt engineering" to be a substitute for programming It's also not nearly mature enough for learning it be a good ROI in a degree progra

> I do not consider "prompt engineering" to be a substitute for programming It's also not nearly mature enough for learning it be a good ROI in a degree program. Community college or adult education class? Maybe. Bootcamp track? Sure, I guess. Novelty elective for a few easy credits and some fun? Totally. But if I'm a student in the midst of a prolonged, expensive program spanning years, learning how to coax results out of today's new generative AI tooling is not preparing me very well at all for what I can expect when I try to enter the workforce 2 or 4 or 8 more years. The tools and the ways to interface them, "Prompt Engineering" or whatever else it's called will inevitably evolve dramatically between now and then. So why am I learning it while I'm still deep in my academic bubbles? And what are prospective employers getting from a degree that focused heavily on some now-defunct and dated techniques? My degree is supposed to mean that I've learned foundational material and am ready to be productive on something, but what that mean when too much of what I've learned is outdated?

tombert 2y ago
If there were a class called "Utilizing AI for software engineering" or something, even at the university level, that wouldn't bother me. What bothers me is that people have told me that I should just allow AI for literally everything because it's the future and you should be teaching them the future or something, but I think that's kind of dumb. In those classes, the goal was for them to leave having some competence in with Python, Java, and Object Oriented programming, and I firmly do not believe you can get an understanding of that just by copying and pasting from ChatGPT, and I think even Copilot might hinder the process a bit. To be clear, I love ChatGPT, I use it every day, it's a very valuable tool that people probably should learn how to use, I just don't feel that it's a substitute for actually learning new stuff.
- aaplok 2y ago
  > What bothers me is that people have told me that I should just allow AI for literally everything because it's the future and you should be teaching them the future or something, I wonder what "people" told you that. My personal experience is that such advice usually comes from people who understand neither AI nor what I teach. Most of them are university administrators of sorts, and AI is a problem for them more than for me. Introductory classes teach skills that can be performed reasonably well by AI. Those skills are the foundation you need to build higher level skills. Just like kids need to know how to read to be functional in society and in their later classes, despite screen readers doing an excellent job. When I teach a foundations class this is my focus, and I don't fool myself or my students into thinking that they will be using those skills directly, but I try to convey the idea that the skills pervade through much of what they will later learn and do. However that means that I cannot force students to learn. They can cheat, and it's easy, and I prefer spending my efforts on helping the learners than catching the cheaters. The university administrators, however, are in the business of selling diplomas, which are only worth what the lowest common deminator is worth. So cheaters are a big problem for them. Typically for such people, they just bury their heads in the sand and prefer to claim that teaching students to use chatGPT (that lowest common denominator) is where the value is.
  - tombert 2y ago
    I'm not sure if you're implying that I'm making shit up by putting "people" in quotes, but here's at least a little evidence. [1] [2] [3] Otherwise it's been with in-person conversations and I didn't record them, there's a spectrum to how completely they suggest I allow AI. Everything else you said I more or less agree with. Obviously if someone wants to cheat they're going to do it, but I feel that until we restructure the job market to not take GPAs as seriously (which I think I'd probably be onboard with), we should at least have cursory efforts to try and minimize cheating. I'm not saying we have to have Fort Knox, just basic deterrence. I'm not an adjunct anymore, partly because I took stuff way too personally and it was kind of depressing me, partly because it was time consuming without much pay, but largely because I realized that most universities are kind of a racket (particularly the textbook corporations are a special kind of evil). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36089826 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36089826 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36087840 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36087840 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36087501 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36087501
    - aaplok 2y ago
      I wasn't implying anything. Because your use of the word "people" left the context very vague, I was just cautiously trying to not speak in your name when discussing the people who are pushing me to teach students how to use chatgpt. With respect to deterring teaching I totally agree that we should go for it. There are ways to mitigate the value of cheating and ways to promote the value of learning, both of which are deterrents. Personally I like having lots of small tasks that build and follow on one another. If the student is working and trying to learn it makes sense and we get to reinforce the high level skills that matter. If the student is cheating it should become increasingly harder to keep a consistent story. However if we turn this into a cop and robbers game that's what we're going to get. As for the focus on GPA I think that the tide is turning. Employers need to find an alternative that doesn't eat their time. And yes universities are rackets and aren't good value employers. They don't even offer job security anymore.
- throwthrowuknow 2y ago
  If it’s an introductory course I can see how using generated code would be harmful but I’m guessing the students can’t since they don’t have the experience needed to make a distinction between good and bad code but perhaps that’s the thing you could teach them about LLMs by having a class where they are given an “easy” problem that you might normally assign that an LLM can solve and then also a hard problem that that it will fail to do properly and let the students see the difference for themselves when they have it generate code for both. That may provide valuable insight.
- immibis 2y ago
  Tell them you'll pay them in USDT. It's the future, after all :)

tombert 2y ago

If there were a class called "Utilizing AI for software engineering" or something, even at the university level, that wouldn't bother me. What bothers me is that people have told me that I should just allow AI for literally everything because it's the future and you should be teaching them the future or something, but I think that's kind of dumb. In those classes, the goal was for them to leave having some competence in with Python, Java, and Object Oriented programming, and I firmly do not believe you can get an understanding of that just by copying and pasting from ChatGPT, and I think even Copilot might hinder the process a bit. To be clear, I love ChatGPT, I use it every day, it's a very valuable tool that people probably should learn how to use, I just don't feel that it's a substitute for actually learning new stuff.

aaplok 2y ago
> What bothers me is that people have told me that I should just allow AI for literally everything because it's the future and you should be teaching them the future or something, I wonder what "people" told you that. My personal experience is that such advice usually comes from people who understand neither AI nor what I teach. Most of them are university administrators of sorts, and AI is a problem for them more than for me. Introductory classes teach skills that can be performed reasonably well by AI. Those skills are the foundation you need to build higher level skills. Just like kids need to know how to read to be functional in society and in their later classes, despite screen readers doing an excellent job. When I teach a foundations class this is my focus, and I don't fool myself or my students into thinking that they will be using those skills directly, but I try to convey the idea that the skills pervade through much of what they will later learn and do. However that means that I cannot force students to learn. They can cheat, and it's easy, and I prefer spending my efforts on helping the learners than catching the cheaters. The university administrators, however, are in the business of selling diplomas, which are only worth what the lowest common deminator is worth. So cheaters are a big problem for them. Typically for such people, they just bury their heads in the sand and prefer to claim that teaching students to use chatGPT (that lowest common denominator) is where the value is.
- tombert 2y ago
  I'm not sure if you're implying that I'm making shit up by putting "people" in quotes, but here's at least a little evidence. [1] [2] [3] Otherwise it's been with in-person conversations and I didn't record them, there's a spectrum to how completely they suggest I allow AI. Everything else you said I more or less agree with. Obviously if someone wants to cheat they're going to do it, but I feel that until we restructure the job market to not take GPAs as seriously (which I think I'd probably be onboard with), we should at least have cursory efforts to try and minimize cheating. I'm not saying we have to have Fort Knox, just basic deterrence. I'm not an adjunct anymore, partly because I took stuff way too personally and it was kind of depressing me, partly because it was time consuming without much pay, but largely because I realized that most universities are kind of a racket (particularly the textbook corporations are a special kind of evil). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36089826 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36089826 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36087840 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36087840 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36087501 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36087501
  - aaplok 2y ago
    I wasn't implying anything. Because your use of the word "people" left the context very vague, I was just cautiously trying to not speak in your name when discussing the people who are pushing me to teach students how to use chatgpt. With respect to deterring teaching I totally agree that we should go for it. There are ways to mitigate the value of cheating and ways to promote the value of learning, both of which are deterrents. Personally I like having lots of small tasks that build and follow on one another. If the student is working and trying to learn it makes sense and we get to reinforce the high level skills that matter. If the student is cheating it should become increasingly harder to keep a consistent story. However if we turn this into a cop and robbers game that's what we're going to get. As for the focus on GPA I think that the tide is turning. Employers need to find an alternative that doesn't eat their time. And yes universities are rackets and aren't good value employers. They don't even offer job security anymore.
throwthrowuknow 2y ago
If it’s an introductory course I can see how using generated code would be harmful but I’m guessing the students can’t since they don’t have the experience needed to make a distinction between good and bad code but perhaps that’s the thing you could teach them about LLMs by having a class where they are given an “easy” problem that you might normally assign that an LLM can solve and then also a hard problem that that it will fail to do properly and let the students see the difference for themselves when they have it generate code for both. That may provide valuable insight.
immibis 2y ago
Tell them you'll pay them in USDT. It's the future, after all :)