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> I can't tell how well the abilities would generalize to real world projects. The secret is that it doesn’t ;) I doubt our current statistics based AI method

by dartos 2y ago

> I can't tell how well the abilities would generalize to real world projects. The secret is that it doesn’t ;) I doubt our current statistics based AI methods ever will. Programming requires precision. Code is an exact specification for how a machine should operate. I don’t see how we can get perfectly precise responses from a nondeterministic process.

VMG 2y ago
LLMs are much more deterministic than humans
realharo 2y ago
Well, it's not like I'm just going to trust a comment like this either :) I would like to see it in action, and then I'll form an opinion.
fragmede 2y ago
Maybe if you're inventing a new compiler that hasn't existed before, but if all you're doing is yet another a CRUD app for a newly undiscovered niche, then it doesn't have to generalize beyond what already exists. The fact that it's nondeterministic is irrelevant, I can write the same function a bunch of different ways just by choosing different names for variables, does that stop the code from working?
bakuninsbart 2y ago
The code assistance tools right now are still a bit crude compared to what they will be in a year or two even if capabilities do not increase. I think it will be very useful to have "someone" read along as I code and answer questions I ask, or pose questions on why I do things a certain way. Honestly, even if it is just stuff like "What would be a good variable name for this?" or "What was the map()-syntax like again?", this would already facilitate flow quite a bit. Not having to context switch as much is a real blessing, and I've only reached it in one language in specific contexts. If I can transfer this to many languages and many contexts, my productivity will rise a lot.
- dartos 2y ago
  So What you’re looking for is basically a proactive context aware Google search. LLMs are great for that! Sometimes they’re good at translating from one language to another. They miss idioms from time to time, but they’re usually pretty good with that task. Not so much for writing software themselves.

by dartos 2y ago

VMG 2y ago

LLMs are much more deterministic than humans

realharo 2y ago

Well, it's not like I'm just going to trust a comment like this either :) I would like to see it in action, and then I'll form an opinion.

fragmede 2y ago

Maybe if you're inventing a new compiler that hasn't existed before, but if all you're doing is yet another a CRUD app for a newly undiscovered niche, then it doesn't have to generalize beyond what already exists. The fact that it's nondeterministic is irrelevant, I can write the same function a bunch of different ways just by choosing different names for variables, does that stop the code from working?

bakuninsbart 2y ago

The code assistance tools right now are still a bit crude compared to what they will be in a year or two even if capabilities do not increase. I think it will be very useful to have "someone" read along as I code and answer questions I ask, or pose questions on why I do things a certain way. Honestly, even if it is just stuff like "What would be a good variable name for this?" or "What was the map()-syntax like again?", this would already facilitate flow quite a bit. Not having to context switch as much is a real blessing, and I've only reached it in one language in specific contexts. If I can transfer this to many languages and many contexts, my productivity will rise a lot.

dartos 2y ago
So What you’re looking for is basically a proactive context aware Google search. LLMs are great for that! Sometimes they’re good at translating from one language to another. They miss idioms from time to time, but they’re usually pretty good with that task. Not so much for writing software themselves.