4 ms·

I'm curious, what kind of work do you do? Does stack overflow slow you down?

acedTrex 2y ago
Lots of golang kubernetes work these days. Stackoverflow is used when im stuck and searching around for an answer. Its not attempting to do the work for me. At a code level I almost never copy paste from stackoverflow. I also utilize claud and 4o at the same time while attempting to solve a problem but they are rarely able to help.
- kamaal 2y ago
  Kubernetes, AWS, Cloudformation and Terraform etc sort of work is still not good with AI. The current AI code rocket ship is VSCcode + Perl/Python/Node+ReactJS + Co-Pilot. This is basically a killer combination. Mostly because large amounts of Open source code is available out there for training models. Im guessing there will be an industry wide standardisation, and Python use will see a further mad rise. On the longer run some AI first programming language and tooling will be available which will have first class integration with the whole workflow. For now, forget about golang. Just use Python for turbo charged productivity.
  - acedTrex 2y ago
    > For now, forget about golang I write kubernetes controllers. Golang is here to stay. > Just use Python for turbo charged productivity This is my problem with all the "AI" bros. They seem to consistently push the idea that quickly writing code is the end all of "productivity" its akin to "just shovel more shit faster its great" Speed != productivity
    - kamaal 2y ago
      I have seen several rounds of this over decades. Google will make bad programmers, Perl is a write only language, Node is cancer, Eclipse is slow etc etc. Eventually you realise you just can't win against better things. These are juggernauts, fighting them is pointless. Because it doesn't matter when you use it or not. Most people will, and make great progress. You will either be out of the industry or be forced to use it one way or the other.
- everforward 2y ago
  K8s is probably particularly bad because their package convention basically requires vanity imports, and I would wager the vanity names people choose are wildly inconsistent. It also doesn’t help that many packages have 3+ “versions” of themselves, so a vanity import named “core” could be v1alpha1, v1beta1 or v1.
elicksaur 2y ago
Do you use stack overflow for every keystroke?
- owenpalmer 2y ago
  At minimum 6 stack overflow searches per keystroke.
skydhash 2y ago
Not GP, but the kind of search I do mostly are: - Does this language have X (function, methods,...) probably because I know X from another language and X is what I need. If it does not, I will code it. - How do I write X again? Mostly when I'm coming back to a language I haven't touch for a while. Again I know what I want to do, just forgot the minutia about how to write it. - Why is X happening? Where X is some cryptic error from the toolchain. Especially with proprietary stuff. There's also how to do X where X is a particular combination of steps and the documentation is lacking. I heard to forums in that case to know what's happening or get sample code. I only need the manual/references for the first two. And the last one needs only be done once. Accuracy is a key thing for these use cases and I'd prefer snippets and scaffold (deterministic) instead of LLMs for basic code generation.
- theo0833 2y ago
  I use llms exactly and exclusively for the first two cases - just write comments like: // map this object array to extract data, and use reduce to update the hasher And let llms do the rest. I rarely find my self back to the browser - 80% of the time they spit out a completely acceptable solution, and for the rest 20% at least the function/method is correct. Saved me much time from context switching.
  - skydhash 2y ago
    For me the quick refresh is better as I only need to do it once (until I don't use the language/library again) and that can be done without internet (local documentation) or high power consumption (if you were using local models). And with a good editor (or IDEs) all of these can be automated (snippets, bindings to the doc browser,...) and for me, it's a better flow state than waiting for a LLM to produce output. P.S.I type fast. So as soon as I got a solution in my head, I can write it quickly and if I got a good REPL or Edit-Compile-Run setup, I can test just as fast. Writing the specs, then waiting for the LLM's code and then review it to check feel more like being a supervisor than a creator and that's not my kind of enjoyable moment.
    - 2y ago
dkersten 2y ago
I'm just as baffled by the people who use stackoverflow daily. Its increasingly rare that I use it these days, to the point where I deleted my account a few years back and haven't missed it. Don't people read docs anymore? In many ways I feel lucky that I learned at a time when I only had offline docs, which forced me to become good at understanding documentation since its all I had.
- nilsherzig 2y ago
  To give you some insights from someone with a different starting point: For context I'm a 22 year old CS student and part-time SRE working on everything related to kubentes (golang, scripting, yaml, ...). I can assure you that reading the fucking manual isn't a thing my fellow students or I did when we could avoid it. I think that might be because university projects don't tend to be long lasting and finding quick pre build solutions - without understanding them - works just fine. There is no penalty for technical debt. Now almost exclusively read the primary docs or code and I think that might (surprisingly?) be because of copilot. The neovim copilot extension resulted in me not feeling the need to switch to my browser all the time. Not having to do this context switch and looking more at my code got me into reading the lsp provided symbol docs. After some time I noticed that copilot just made me feel like I know what I'm doing and reading the overlay docs provided a way deeper understanding.
  - dkersten 2y ago
    Thanks for the perspective! Do you think this helps or hinders your ability to internalise the information (ie so that you don’t need to look it up, in the browser or from the LSP)? For me, I feel that documentation is a starting point, but the goal is always to not need to look it up, after a little ramp up time. With that said, I do use ChatGPT as a replacement for documentation sometimes, asking it how to do things instead of looking it up, but again the goal is to internalise it rather than to rely on the docs or tools. I won’t shy away from reading primary documentation, though, when necessary.
    - nilsherzig 2y ago

Lots of golang kubernetes work these days. Stackoverflow is used when im stuck and searching around for an answer. Its not attempting to do the work for me. At a code level I almost never copy paste from stackoverflow. I also utilize claud and 4o at the same time while attempting to solve a problem but they are rarely able to help.

kamaal 2y ago
Kubernetes, AWS, Cloudformation and Terraform etc sort of work is still not good with AI. The current AI code rocket ship is VSCcode + Perl/Python/Node+ReactJS + Co-Pilot. This is basically a killer combination. Mostly because large amounts of Open source code is available out there for training models. Im guessing there will be an industry wide standardisation, and Python use will see a further mad rise. On the longer run some AI first programming language and tooling will be available which will have first class integration with the whole workflow. For now, forget about golang. Just use Python for turbo charged productivity.
- acedTrex 2y ago
  > For now, forget about golang I write kubernetes controllers. Golang is here to stay. > Just use Python for turbo charged productivity This is my problem with all the "AI" bros. They seem to consistently push the idea that quickly writing code is the end all of "productivity" its akin to "just shovel more shit faster its great" Speed != productivity
  - kamaal 2y ago
    I have seen several rounds of this over decades. Google will make bad programmers, Perl is a write only language, Node is cancer, Eclipse is slow etc etc. Eventually you realise you just can't win against better things. These are juggernauts, fighting them is pointless. Because it doesn't matter when you use it or not. Most people will, and make great progress. You will either be out of the industry or be forced to use it one way or the other.
everforward 2y ago
K8s is probably particularly bad because their package convention basically requires vanity imports, and I would wager the vanity names people choose are wildly inconsistent. It also doesn’t help that many packages have 3+ “versions” of themselves, so a vanity import named “core” could be v1alpha1, v1beta1 or v1.

elicksaur 2y ago

Do you use stack overflow for every keystroke?

owenpalmer 2y ago
At minimum 6 stack overflow searches per keystroke.

skydhash 2y ago

Not GP, but the kind of search I do mostly are: - Does this language have X (function, methods,...) probably because I know X from another language and X is what I need. If it does not, I will code it. - How do I write X again? Mostly when I'm coming back to a language I haven't touch for a while. Again I know what I want to do, just forgot the minutia about how to write it. - Why is X happening? Where X is some cryptic error from the toolchain. Especially with proprietary stuff. There's also how to do X where X is a particular combination of steps and the documentation is lacking. I heard to forums in that case to know what's happening or get sample code. I only need the manual/references for the first two. And the last one needs only be done once. Accuracy is a key thing for these use cases and I'd prefer snippets and scaffold (deterministic) instead of LLMs for basic code generation.

theo0833 2y ago
I use llms exactly and exclusively for the first two cases - just write comments like: // map this object array to extract data, and use reduce to update the hasher And let llms do the rest. I rarely find my self back to the browser - 80% of the time they spit out a completely acceptable solution, and for the rest 20% at least the function/method is correct. Saved me much time from context switching.
- skydhash 2y ago
  For me the quick refresh is better as I only need to do it once (until I don't use the language/library again) and that can be done without internet (local documentation) or high power consumption (if you were using local models). And with a good editor (or IDEs) all of these can be automated (snippets, bindings to the doc browser,...) and for me, it's a better flow state than waiting for a LLM to produce output. P.S.I type fast. So as soon as I got a solution in my head, I can write it quickly and if I got a good REPL or Edit-Compile-Run setup, I can test just as fast. Writing the specs, then waiting for the LLM's code and then review it to check feel more like being a supervisor than a creator and that's not my kind of enjoyable moment.
  - 2y ago

dkersten 2y ago

I'm just as baffled by the people who use stackoverflow daily. Its increasingly rare that I use it these days, to the point where I deleted my account a few years back and haven't missed it. Don't people read docs anymore? In many ways I feel lucky that I learned at a time when I only had offline docs, which forced me to become good at understanding documentation since its all I had.

nilsherzig 2y ago
To give you some insights from someone with a different starting point: For context I'm a 22 year old CS student and part-time SRE working on everything related to kubentes (golang, scripting, yaml, ...). I can assure you that reading the fucking manual isn't a thing my fellow students or I did when we could avoid it. I think that might be because university projects don't tend to be long lasting and finding quick pre build solutions - without understanding them - works just fine. There is no penalty for technical debt. Now almost exclusively read the primary docs or code and I think that might (surprisingly?) be because of copilot. The neovim copilot extension resulted in me not feeling the need to switch to my browser all the time. Not having to do this context switch and looking more at my code got me into reading the lsp provided symbol docs. After some time I noticed that copilot just made me feel like I know what I'm doing and reading the overlay docs provided a way deeper understanding.
- dkersten 2y ago
  Thanks for the perspective! Do you think this helps or hinders your ability to internalise the information (ie so that you don’t need to look it up, in the browser or from the LSP)? For me, I feel that documentation is a starting point, but the goal is always to not need to look it up, after a little ramp up time. With that said, I do use ChatGPT as a replacement for documentation sometimes, asking it how to do things instead of looking it up, but again the goal is to internalise it rather than to rely on the docs or tools. I won’t shy away from reading primary documentation, though, when necessary.
  - nilsherzig 2y ago