3 ms·

There's no evidence of any of that, it's pure speculation. I bet people were saying the same thing about Intellisense, and Google, and documentation-on-hover, a

There's no evidence of any of that, it's pure speculation. I bet people were saying the same thing about Intellisense, and Google, and documentation-on-hover, and live compiler errors, etc. etc.

wanderingstan 2y ago
Forget the sources, but I recall people saying the same about syntax highlighting even.
- abraxas 2y ago
  I'm feeling both nostalgic and elated. The first time a friend gave me a version of Turbo Pascal with syntax highlighting was an epiphany. The same feeling struck about a decade later after trying actually usable auto-complete for the first time in JBuilder. Pure magic. Tools like the replit bot evoke similar emotions. I have no idea why they generate so much negativity from most HN comments. This cohort must be on average younger than myself. I'm pushing 50 and for the first time in decades I fee like we are actually about to witness actual productivity boost in programming craft because let me tell ya, server side js or spa or nosql certainly weren't it.
flanked-evergl 2y ago
They were absolutely. I recall when Stack Overflow was the great evil. Luddites should get over it. We are moving forward. There is no putting the LLM back in the box, and even if there was a way to do that, it would be dumb.
- kelseyfrog 2y ago
  Luddites weren't against technology for the sake of it. They were critical of the social ramifications of technology because they were being put out of jobs and their livelihoods. How should then Luddites simply get over mass unemployment? Until we "solve" the problem of unemployment, this problem will continue to exist.
  - flanked-evergl 2y ago
    LLMs are here, they are staying, we either learn to live with them or accept it's the end of our time. There is no putting LLMs back in the box. Whoever does not use them will become irrelevant. Societal progress is not one way, but technological progress is — and there is a good reason for that; the universe is biased towards processes that are better at increasing entropy, if we aren't that, we will be replaced. It may suck, but facts are facts. Dealing with them is better than pretending they don't exist.
    - kelseyfrog 2y ago
      No one is asking for technology to be un-invented. We're asking for the societal consequences of technology to be addressed. Technology can be disruptive, but "just deal with the disruption," is not a viable response. It breads resentment. It favors populism. It says, "sorry, but your problems are not worth fixing."
      - flanked-evergl 2y ago
        This article is not about that, it's about how a technology supposedly makes people worse at something, when in reality the technology transforms the activity. It's about as sensible as modern input methods make people worse at programming. If humans can no longer be useful at some ancient, irrelevant practice because of a quantum leap in technology ... so what? To quote most historic person that has ever and will ever live; what difference, at this point, does that make?
        marcellus23 2y ago
        > To quote most historic person that has ever and will ever live Hillary Clinton? Is this bait?
        kelseyfrog 2y ago
        Because people being useful = people's livelihoods. When that equation changes en mass, and we respond with "things change, too bad," it is a social failure.
caseyy 2y ago
You don’t need evidence for something to be true. The observations made by this article are self-evident to those working in industries that have adopted copilot. However, in this case there is empirical evidence copilot makes code quality worse: https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2024/01/25/copilot-research.aspx https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2024/01/25/copilot...
- marcellus23 2y ago
  > The observations made by this article are self-evident to those working in industries that have adopted copilot I work in such an industry and it's certainly not "self-evident". Clearly it's also not self-evident to many other people commenting on this post. > However, in this case there is empirical evidence copilot makes code quality worse: https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2024/01/25/copilot https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2024/01/25/copilot... One study does not prove anything, although at least it is _some_ evidence. But other studies linked in that very article show opposite results. To be clear I don't know if LLMs are better or not for developer productivity. I think it's too early to tell. But given that people, in general, are prone to conservatism, combined with the fact that past developer tooling enhancements have not caused the negative outcomes that many people at the time predicted they would cause, leads me to believe LLMs will probably be a positive change.
spencerchubb 2y ago
People have said that types make people worse at programming too lol

There's no evidence of any of that, it's pure speculation. I bet people were saying the same thing about Intellisense, and Google, and documentation-on-hover, and live compiler errors, etc. etc.

wanderingstan 2y ago

Forget the sources, but I recall people saying the same about syntax highlighting even.

abraxas 2y ago
I'm feeling both nostalgic and elated. The first time a friend gave me a version of Turbo Pascal with syntax highlighting was an epiphany. The same feeling struck about a decade later after trying actually usable auto-complete for the first time in JBuilder. Pure magic. Tools like the replit bot evoke similar emotions. I have no idea why they generate so much negativity from most HN comments. This cohort must be on average younger than myself. I'm pushing 50 and for the first time in decades I fee like we are actually about to witness actual productivity boost in programming craft because let me tell ya, server side js or spa or nosql certainly weren't it.

flanked-evergl 2y ago

They were absolutely. I recall when Stack Overflow was the great evil. Luddites should get over it. We are moving forward. There is no putting the LLM back in the box, and even if there was a way to do that, it would be dumb.

kelseyfrog 2y ago
Luddites weren't against technology for the sake of it. They were critical of the social ramifications of technology because they were being put out of jobs and their livelihoods. How should then Luddites simply get over mass unemployment? Until we "solve" the problem of unemployment, this problem will continue to exist.
- flanked-evergl 2y ago
  LLMs are here, they are staying, we either learn to live with them or accept it's the end of our time. There is no putting LLMs back in the box. Whoever does not use them will become irrelevant. Societal progress is not one way, but technological progress is — and there is a good reason for that; the universe is biased towards processes that are better at increasing entropy, if we aren't that, we will be replaced. It may suck, but facts are facts. Dealing with them is better than pretending they don't exist.
  - kelseyfrog 2y ago
    No one is asking for technology to be un-invented. We're asking for the societal consequences of technology to be addressed. Technology can be disruptive, but "just deal with the disruption," is not a viable response. It breads resentment. It favors populism. It says, "sorry, but your problems are not worth fixing."
    - flanked-evergl 2y ago
      This article is not about that, it's about how a technology supposedly makes people worse at something, when in reality the technology transforms the activity. It's about as sensible as modern input methods make people worse at programming. If humans can no longer be useful at some ancient, irrelevant practice because of a quantum leap in technology ... so what? To quote most historic person that has ever and will ever live; what difference, at this point, does that make?
      - marcellus23 2y ago
        > To quote most historic person that has ever and will ever live Hillary Clinton? Is this bait?
      - kelseyfrog 2y ago
        Because people being useful = people's livelihoods. When that equation changes en mass, and we respond with "things change, too bad," it is a social failure.

caseyy 2y ago

You don’t need evidence for something to be true. The observations made by this article are self-evident to those working in industries that have adopted copilot. However, in this case there is empirical evidence copilot makes code quality worse: https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2024/01/25/copilot-research.aspx https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2024/01/25/copilot...

marcellus23 2y ago
> The observations made by this article are self-evident to those working in industries that have adopted copilot I work in such an industry and it's certainly not "self-evident". Clearly it's also not self-evident to many other people commenting on this post. > However, in this case there is empirical evidence copilot makes code quality worse: https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2024/01/25/copilot https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2024/01/25/copilot... One study does not prove anything, although at least it is _some_ evidence. But other studies linked in that very article show opposite results. To be clear I don't know if LLMs are better or not for developer productivity. I think it's too early to tell. But given that people, in general, are prone to conservatism, combined with the fact that past developer tooling enhancements have not caused the negative outcomes that many people at the time predicted they would cause, leads me to believe LLMs will probably be a positive change.

spencerchubb 2y ago

People have said that types make people worse at programming too lol