4 ms·

It was a glib comment, but I fundamentally reject the premise that we'll have more personal time because of ChatGPT. It's like saying that buying a faster comp

by muglug 2y ago

It was a glib comment, but I fundamentally reject the premise that we'll have more personal time because of ChatGPT. It's like saying that buying a faster computer that compiles quicker means you can spend more time with your family. Theoretically true, but in practice people who are that way inclined can find myriad other ways to use the new technology to eat up time.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
williamcotton 2y ago
Let's unravel what you've said here. You're saying that there is no way that I'm not a bad parent because I would have found a way to ignore my family regardless of some time saving device. Glib? That's not glib. That's just being a jerk. And fueled by what, your personal distaste for LLMs? People who are that way inclined?
- muglug 2y ago
  I don't think you're a bad parent, but I do think you were using hyperbole when describing how much time ChatGPT saved you. I also don't believe that you would spend a week away from your kids to make a 1,200-line app that just explains how simple bash commands work. https://explainshell.com/ https://explainshell.com/ already does a pretty great job of that. I don't have a personal distate for LLMs — I use ChatGPT weekly and I work for a company that ships LLM-powered functionality that I use daily. But your comment implied that LLMs can today provide a big productivity improvement for developers, and that’s not something I think there’s any concrete evidence for. I do find the hype immensely distateful, especially in response to an article pointing to the environmental downsides of that excitement.
  - williamcotton 2y ago
    What I made is not like explainshell.com at all. It is a GUI for writing command pipelines. Updates to the prompt are parsed into an AST and used to update the GUI. Updates in the GUI are used to build an AST to update the prompt. I wrote it so I didn't have to keep writing things like this into the line editor: pg -d test_database -c 'SELECT * from test_table;' | tsvtocsv | ggplot 'ggplot(df, aes(as.Date(date), value)) + geom_col(fill = "red") + labs(x = "date") + theme_minimal()' | pngtohtml Instead, I could just type in the app: pg | tsvtocsv | ggplot | pngtohtml And then fill in the blanks with an instance of the Monaco code editor, looking like: https://github.com/williamcotton/guish/assets/13163/a5214e93-154b-4c5f-b727-e1d9c0e67c2a https://github.com/williamcotton/guish/assets/13163/a5214e93... It's a small program but it's not a trivial task to get the UX working in a productive manner. I took plenty of the same wrong turns that I would have if I was writing it by hand but was able to iterate much more quickly. It's more exploratory in nature, seeing how text input and GUI input can complement each other in a novel manner. Sure, I could do this by embedding a SQL query in an R script or something but there's just something that rubs me the wrong way about embedding one language in another instead of having them work side by side. It's not "just explaining how simple bash commands work". So thank you for calling me a shitty parent and devaluing my work. You seem awesome.
    - muglug 2y ago
      I’m sure you’re a great parent, but you’re not a convincing advocate for the time-saving power of LLMs. Either way I was wrong — this project does look like a cool idea, and I’m sorry for dismissing it entirely.
      - williamcotton 2y ago
        Apology accepted. And I'm sorry for getting heated!
aoeusnth1 2y ago
The core of your attitude comes through here - that productivity is pointless, computers are worthless and coding is a waste of time. Anyone dismissing LLMs comes from a similar value system of hating technology, as far as I’m concerned.

by muglug 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

williamcotton 2y ago

Let's unravel what you've said here. You're saying that there is no way that I'm not a bad parent because I would have found a way to ignore my family regardless of some time saving device. Glib? That's not glib. That's just being a jerk. And fueled by what, your personal distaste for LLMs? People who are that way inclined?

muglug 2y ago
I don't think you're a bad parent, but I do think you were using hyperbole when describing how much time ChatGPT saved you. I also don't believe that you would spend a week away from your kids to make a 1,200-line app that just explains how simple bash commands work. https://explainshell.com/ https://explainshell.com/ already does a pretty great job of that. I don't have a personal distate for LLMs — I use ChatGPT weekly and I work for a company that ships LLM-powered functionality that I use daily. But your comment implied that LLMs can today provide a big productivity improvement for developers, and that’s not something I think there’s any concrete evidence for. I do find the hype immensely distateful, especially in response to an article pointing to the environmental downsides of that excitement.
- williamcotton 2y ago
  What I made is not like explainshell.com at all. It is a GUI for writing command pipelines. Updates to the prompt are parsed into an AST and used to update the GUI. Updates in the GUI are used to build an AST to update the prompt. I wrote it so I didn't have to keep writing things like this into the line editor: pg -d test_database -c 'SELECT * from test_table;' | tsvtocsv | ggplot 'ggplot(df, aes(as.Date(date), value)) + geom_col(fill = "red") + labs(x = "date") + theme_minimal()' | pngtohtml Instead, I could just type in the app: pg | tsvtocsv | ggplot | pngtohtml And then fill in the blanks with an instance of the Monaco code editor, looking like: https://github.com/williamcotton/guish/assets/13163/a5214e93-154b-4c5f-b727-e1d9c0e67c2a https://github.com/williamcotton/guish/assets/13163/a5214e93... It's a small program but it's not a trivial task to get the UX working in a productive manner. I took plenty of the same wrong turns that I would have if I was writing it by hand but was able to iterate much more quickly. It's more exploratory in nature, seeing how text input and GUI input can complement each other in a novel manner. Sure, I could do this by embedding a SQL query in an R script or something but there's just something that rubs me the wrong way about embedding one language in another instead of having them work side by side. It's not "just explaining how simple bash commands work". So thank you for calling me a shitty parent and devaluing my work. You seem awesome.
  - muglug 2y ago
    I’m sure you’re a great parent, but you’re not a convincing advocate for the time-saving power of LLMs. Either way I was wrong — this project does look like a cool idea, and I’m sorry for dismissing it entirely.
    - williamcotton 2y ago
      Apology accepted. And I'm sorry for getting heated!

aoeusnth1 2y ago

The core of your attitude comes through here - that productivity is pointless, computers are worthless and coding is a waste of time. Anyone dismissing LLMs comes from a similar value system of hating technology, as far as I’m concerned.