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> I will personally never use Copilot, or any other AI code generation tool, for the simple reason that I enjoy writing code. I had an XML file format, I neede

> I will personally never use Copilot, or any other AI code generation tool, for the simple reason that I enjoy writing code. I had an XML file format, I needed it converted to JSON. I haven't parsed XML in over a decade, and I didn't want to relearn. I also didn't want to match up XML fields to JSON fields. Both file formats had well defined schemas available, but were also common enough that most major LLMs were trained on them. I just asked Claude to write a program to convert from one file format to another. There is no joy in that task. Doing it myself would have been the very definition of a useless chore.

NoraCodes 2y ago
> I just asked Claude to write a program to convert from one file format to another. Was it correct? How did you know?
- mewpmewp2 2y ago
  It's pretty simple to check yourself to be fair.
- HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago
  Same way that you'd know if you wrote it by hand?
  - happytoexplain 2y ago
    Don't use facetious question marks. If you are genuinely confused, put it into words. Aside from that; Following logic as you develop it vs following logic as you read it are two different skills. Also, with the latter, it's easier to miss details. Further, when you're not experienced on the subject of the code, it's critical to develop an understanding by doing, and not only by reading. Further still, following the logic of genAI code is complicated by the fact that AI can make different mistakes than humans do, and it speaks/documents with much more authority, both of which make it not only more difficult to spot issues, but make it difficult in a frustrating way, reducing energy and satisfaction.
flerchin 2y ago
Shoulda asked claude what library to use
- fifilura 2y ago
  Yeah, parsing XML is no small deal. Did it answer with a regexp or what?
  - mewpmewp2 2y ago
    When I tested right now, for parsing XML it did use libraries or native tools depending on the language, but it converted the nodes provided by that library to JSON as written code.
- mewpmewp2 2y ago
  I'm wondering if there was some remapping of the fields used, otherwise library yes.
loosetypewriter 2y ago
If you are an experienced coder, then you know which tasks are useless chores. It's a different issue for newdevs who will be learning to code with tool assistance.
- emporas 2y ago
  New devs, by the time they will become senior devs, the tools will be 10x better. 10x in 3 years is very conservative, it may as well be 100x, not even considering runaway intelligence. In 2 days, GPT, Claude and Llama 3 helped me solve 4 different problems. 1) I wanted to load in a webpage a json file, parse and read it, using Rust + webassebly. GPT solved it in 10 minutes. 2) Then i wanted to use this code and make it as a Chrome browser extension. GPT solved it as well. 3) Then i wanted to parse recursively directories with Rust source code, run tree-sitter queries, get the points and print matches, not with cli but using the libraries. GPT solved it in an hour. 4) Right now i finished analyzing a git repo, and fetching all branches and commit messages using git2. Llama 3 + Claude Sonet solved it in an hour or two. DHH did an interview yesterday [1] in which he mentions that he will be programming by hand even if everyone else uses A.I. assistance. I think he is pretty smart and he will not be stuck in the era of meaty fingers pressing keyboards to make programs. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEy9JhHk6lg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEy9JhHk6lg
- raxxorraxor 2y ago
  And parsing text is quite foundational. Although today I would need to think hard to find a language, where you don't have a ready to use XML/JSON parser ready at hand. Perhaps there is no reference implementation in Pancake Stack, but your language has to be quite arcane to not have something available.
bigtex 2y ago
TBF there are countless websites that can do this automatically for you, even providing the code to handle the conversion. No AI needed.

NoraCodes 2y ago

> I just asked Claude to write a program to convert from one file format to another. Was it correct? How did you know?

mewpmewp2 2y ago
It's pretty simple to check yourself to be fair.
HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago
Same way that you'd know if you wrote it by hand?
- happytoexplain 2y ago
  Don't use facetious question marks. If you are genuinely confused, put it into words. Aside from that; Following logic as you develop it vs following logic as you read it are two different skills. Also, with the latter, it's easier to miss details. Further, when you're not experienced on the subject of the code, it's critical to develop an understanding by doing, and not only by reading. Further still, following the logic of genAI code is complicated by the fact that AI can make different mistakes than humans do, and it speaks/documents with much more authority, both of which make it not only more difficult to spot issues, but make it difficult in a frustrating way, reducing energy and satisfaction.

flerchin 2y ago

Shoulda asked claude what library to use

fifilura 2y ago
Yeah, parsing XML is no small deal. Did it answer with a regexp or what?
- mewpmewp2 2y ago
  When I tested right now, for parsing XML it did use libraries or native tools depending on the language, but it converted the nodes provided by that library to JSON as written code.
mewpmewp2 2y ago
I'm wondering if there was some remapping of the fields used, otherwise library yes.

loosetypewriter 2y ago

If you are an experienced coder, then you know which tasks are useless chores. It's a different issue for newdevs who will be learning to code with tool assistance.

emporas 2y ago
New devs, by the time they will become senior devs, the tools will be 10x better. 10x in 3 years is very conservative, it may as well be 100x, not even considering runaway intelligence. In 2 days, GPT, Claude and Llama 3 helped me solve 4 different problems. 1) I wanted to load in a webpage a json file, parse and read it, using Rust + webassebly. GPT solved it in 10 minutes. 2) Then i wanted to use this code and make it as a Chrome browser extension. GPT solved it as well. 3) Then i wanted to parse recursively directories with Rust source code, run tree-sitter queries, get the points and print matches, not with cli but using the libraries. GPT solved it in an hour. 4) Right now i finished analyzing a git repo, and fetching all branches and commit messages using git2. Llama 3 + Claude Sonet solved it in an hour or two. DHH did an interview yesterday [1] in which he mentions that he will be programming by hand even if everyone else uses A.I. assistance. I think he is pretty smart and he will not be stuck in the era of meaty fingers pressing keyboards to make programs. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEy9JhHk6lg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEy9JhHk6lg
raxxorraxor 2y ago
And parsing text is quite foundational. Although today I would need to think hard to find a language, where you don't have a ready to use XML/JSON parser ready at hand. Perhaps there is no reference implementation in Pancake Stack, but your language has to be quite arcane to not have something available.

bigtex 2y ago

TBF there are countless websites that can do this automatically for you, even providing the code to handle the conversion. No AI needed.