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Too soon :`(! Ah, those were the days! TP v4, v5, v6... i'd graduated to C by the time 7 came out. > That almost nobody has the skills these days to implement

by sgbeal 2y ago

Too soon :`(! Ah, those were the days! TP v4, v5, v6... i'd graduated to C by the time 7 came out. > That almost nobody has the skills these days to implement something like TP is something we could eventually come to regret – or, rather, our grandchildren could. Software development is becoming a semi-skilled industry, and I doubt that the rise of AI will entirely compensate for this. If anything, the rise (read as: shoving-down-our-throats) of AI/machine learning will hurt the collective ability to code, rather than compensate for it in the least. So many modern developers take pride in using their CoPilots and related AI/machine-learning tools to assist in coding, all the while ignoring that such usage actively keeps them from improving their own coding skills, in the same way that copying a classmate's test answers might let the copier pass the test without actually teaching them anything. When that day comes that AI can pump out a complete, working, bug-free application based on natural-language descriptions, we will have lost the ability to code entirely, as any code such a thing generates will never be maintainable by a mere human being. _Sigh_. Well, it'll be fun while it lasts. The Machines can pry my makefiles and C compiler from my cold dead fingers. PS: _GET OFF MY LAWN!_

mikewarot 2y ago
>i'd graduated to C by the time 7 came out. I've never seen C as an improvement. Macros encourage all too clever code that's impossible to parse at first glance. The string handling is horrible. The fact that there are multiple contradictory ways to express pointers. The only thing holding Free Pascal/Lazarus back is the documentation. There's no way to work on a small part of it, Wiki style, so it's always going to be an albatross. The auto-generated descriptions of variables used in library function calls just don't work as proper documentation. On the plus side, it's fast and has all of the linking built in. You can stuff gigabytes of binary in strings and never have to allocate anything. It does object oriented stuff, generics, is strongly typed. It can spit out code for almost any platform, including WASM, Android, etc.
- ASalazarMX 2y ago
  I was about to offer them my condolences for the downgrade :P
happycube 2y ago
heh... IMO AI often works better when you ask it "how do/can I?" instead of "do this for me!"
weinzierl 2y ago
> "Ah, those were the days! TP v4, v5, v6... i'd graduated to C by the time 7 came out." Mee too, and it is painful to realize how much ahead of its time the IDE was. I am talking about the TUI version and yet: - It already supported a dual monitor setup - one monitor for the IDE, one for the app - live debugging was a charm. - The debugger had everything current debuggers have, but it was fully IDE integrated - no messin' with GDB or JDWP. - The context sensitive help was the best, I never encountered a better one. I think a large part of it was that it really was context sensitive and it tried to solve the problem at hand, regardless if it was caused by the IDE or the language.
epolanski 2y ago
> all the while ignoring that such usage actively keeps them from improving their own coding skills That's an opinion not a fact backed by any data. In fact it feels like "you hurt your hacking skills by using an IDE rather than a simple text editor, or higher level language than assembly, or managing your memory manually rather than using GCs". Also, maybe coding skills will become more and more irrelevant for most developers the same way knowing how memory or CPUs work is largely irrelevant for all but a tiny part of the industry. In fact, if AI assistants will keep getting better, the best skills to have will be ability to direct those assistants and overseeing their output while meeting business and product needs.
- sgbeal 2y ago
  > That's an opinion not a fact backed by any data. It's a well-demonstrated fact that, for the overwhelmingly large majority of people (mainly those without eidetic memory), copying someone else's answers, rather than coming up with them by applying one's own problem-solving skills, hurts one's ability to advance their own related knowledge/skills. There's a _reason_ we're taught not to cheat in school.
- jebarker 2y ago
  > the same way knowing how memory or CPUs work is largely irrelevant for all but a tiny part of the industry. This is not true. A large part of the industry just _thinks_ these things aren't relevant to them and that's why we have such terrible software everywhere.
  - epolanski 2y ago
    I don't buy this, at all. In my industry experience software is slow because: - time to market is overwhelmingly more important than performance so the pressure is to have something that works, not something that works smoothly. You can fix performance or bugs later (Notion is an easy example of such evolution). - the industry keeps being largely understaffed so finding resources to allocate to performance is hard - most of the industry is managed by people that are neither good at product nor tech, but think they understand products and tech
kccqzy 2y ago
> the rise (read as: shoving-down-our-throats) of AI/machine learning will hurt the collective ability to code You sound like Socrates lamenting that the invention of writing is hurting people's collective ability to think, since their brains no longer need to hold many things simultaneously.
- sgbeal 2y ago
  > ... writing is hurting people's collective ability to think There's a tremendous difference between writing and having someone else write for you.
  - kccqzy 2y ago
    In its ideal form, an AI can do all the conventional non-innovative writing so you can free up the time to do the truly innovative writing. That said the current crop of AI isn't that and is overhyped.
    - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
      That's the theory, but in practice if you are a capable developer you'll spend a lot of time fixing the AI generated code. And the other practice is that a lot of novice developers will try and use AI to code, then bother others to fix it if it doesn't work. They will rely on AI and not bother to increase their own skills. I may be a luddite about it but I'm also not entirely wrong. That said, I'm sure the same was said about code generators and other features introduced by IDEs, like syntax highlighting.
      - kccqzy 2y ago
        You are missing the point. I was talking about theory, not practice. I said very clearly that the current crop of AIs can't live up to their hype.

by sgbeal 2y ago

mikewarot 2y ago

>i'd graduated to C by the time 7 came out. I've never seen C as an improvement. Macros encourage all too clever code that's impossible to parse at first glance. The string handling is horrible. The fact that there are multiple contradictory ways to express pointers. The only thing holding Free Pascal/Lazarus back is the documentation. There's no way to work on a small part of it, Wiki style, so it's always going to be an albatross. The auto-generated descriptions of variables used in library function calls just don't work as proper documentation. On the plus side, it's fast and has all of the linking built in. You can stuff gigabytes of binary in strings and never have to allocate anything. It does object oriented stuff, generics, is strongly typed. It can spit out code for almost any platform, including WASM, Android, etc.

ASalazarMX 2y ago
I was about to offer them my condolences for the downgrade :P

happycube 2y ago

heh... IMO AI often works better when you ask it "how do/can I?" instead of "do this for me!"

weinzierl 2y ago

> "Ah, those were the days! TP v4, v5, v6... i'd graduated to C by the time 7 came out." Mee too, and it is painful to realize how much ahead of its time the IDE was. I am talking about the TUI version and yet: - It already supported a dual monitor setup - one monitor for the IDE, one for the app - live debugging was a charm. - The debugger had everything current debuggers have, but it was fully IDE integrated - no messin' with GDB or JDWP. - The context sensitive help was the best, I never encountered a better one. I think a large part of it was that it really was context sensitive and it tried to solve the problem at hand, regardless if it was caused by the IDE or the language.

epolanski 2y ago

> all the while ignoring that such usage actively keeps them from improving their own coding skills That's an opinion not a fact backed by any data. In fact it feels like "you hurt your hacking skills by using an IDE rather than a simple text editor, or higher level language than assembly, or managing your memory manually rather than using GCs". Also, maybe coding skills will become more and more irrelevant for most developers the same way knowing how memory or CPUs work is largely irrelevant for all but a tiny part of the industry. In fact, if AI assistants will keep getting better, the best skills to have will be ability to direct those assistants and overseeing their output while meeting business and product needs.

sgbeal 2y ago
> That's an opinion not a fact backed by any data. It's a well-demonstrated fact that, for the overwhelmingly large majority of people (mainly those without eidetic memory), copying someone else's answers, rather than coming up with them by applying one's own problem-solving skills, hurts one's ability to advance their own related knowledge/skills. There's a _reason_ we're taught not to cheat in school.
jebarker 2y ago
> the same way knowing how memory or CPUs work is largely irrelevant for all but a tiny part of the industry. This is not true. A large part of the industry just _thinks_ these things aren't relevant to them and that's why we have such terrible software everywhere.
- epolanski 2y ago
  I don't buy this, at all. In my industry experience software is slow because: - time to market is overwhelmingly more important than performance so the pressure is to have something that works, not something that works smoothly. You can fix performance or bugs later (Notion is an easy example of such evolution). - the industry keeps being largely understaffed so finding resources to allocate to performance is hard - most of the industry is managed by people that are neither good at product nor tech, but think they understand products and tech

kccqzy 2y ago

> the rise (read as: shoving-down-our-throats) of AI/machine learning will hurt the collective ability to code You sound like Socrates lamenting that the invention of writing is hurting people's collective ability to think, since their brains no longer need to hold many things simultaneously.

sgbeal 2y ago
> ... writing is hurting people's collective ability to think There's a tremendous difference between writing and having someone else write for you.
- kccqzy 2y ago
  In its ideal form, an AI can do all the conventional non-innovative writing so you can free up the time to do the truly innovative writing. That said the current crop of AI isn't that and is overhyped.
  - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
    That's the theory, but in practice if you are a capable developer you'll spend a lot of time fixing the AI generated code. And the other practice is that a lot of novice developers will try and use AI to code, then bother others to fix it if it doesn't work. They will rely on AI and not bother to increase their own skills. I may be a luddite about it but I'm also not entirely wrong. That said, I'm sure the same was said about code generators and other features introduced by IDEs, like syntax highlighting.
    - kccqzy 2y ago
      You are missing the point. I was talking about theory, not practice. I said very clearly that the current crop of AIs can't live up to their hype.