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Today, I wrote a full YouTube subtitle downloader in Dart. 52 minutes from starting to google anything about it, to full implementation and tests, custom format

Today, I wrote a full YouTube subtitle downloader in Dart. 52 minutes from starting to google anything about it, to full implementation and tests, custom formatting any of the 5 obscure formats it could be in to my exact whims. Full coverage of any validation errors via mock network responses. I then wrote a web AudioWorklet for playing PCM in 3 minutes, which complied to the same interface as my Mac/iOS/Android versions, ex. Setting sample rate, feedback callback, etc. I have no idea what an AudioWorklet is. Two days ago, I stubbed out my implementation of OpenAI's web socket based realtime API, 1400 LOC over 2 days, mostly by hand while grokking and testing the API. In 32 minutes, I had a brand spanking new batch of code, clean, event-based architecture, 86% test coverage. 1.8 KLOC with tests. In all of these cases, most I needed to do was drop in code files and say, nope wrong a couple times to sonnet, and say "why are you violating my service contract and only providing an example solution" to o1. Not llama 3.1 405B specifically, I haven't gone to the trouble of running it, but things turned some sort of significant corner over the last 3 months, between o1 and Sonnet 3.5. Mistakes are rare. Believable 405B is on that scale, IIRC it went punch for punch with the original 3.5 Sonnet. But I find it hard to believe a Google L3, and third of L4s, (read: new hires, or survived 3 years) are that productive and sending code out for review at a 1/5th of that volume, much less on demand. So insane-sounding? Yes. Out there? Probably, I work for myself now. I don't have to have a complex negotiation with my boss on what I can use and how. And I only saw this starting ~2 weeks ago, with full o1 release. Wrong? Shill? Dilletante? No. I'm still digesting it myself. But it's real.

nightski 2y ago
Most software is not one off little utilities/scripts, greenfield small projects, etc... That's where LLMs excel, when you don't have much context and can regurgitate solutions. It's less to do with junior/senior/etc.. and more to do with the types of problems you are tackling.
- spiderfarmer 2y ago
  Most software is simple HTML.
  - mhh__ 2y ago
    This isn't where the leverage is though
    - spiderfarmer 2y ago
      No, but AI will replace a lot of web developers.
- refulgentis 2y ago
  This is a 30KLOC 6 platform flutter app that's, in this user story, doing VOIP audio, running 3 audio models on-device, including in your browser. A near-replica of the Google Assistant audio pipeline, except all on-device. It's a real system, not kindergarten "look at the React Claude Artifacts did, the button makes a POST request!" The 1500 loc websocket / session management code it refactored and tested touches on nearly every part of the system (i.e. persisting messages, placing search requests, placing network requests to run a chat flow) Also, it's worth saying this bit a bit louder: the "just throwing files in" I mention is key. With that, the quality you observed being in reverse is the distinction: with o1 thinking, and whatever Sonnet's magic is, there's a higher payoff from working a larger codebase. For example, here, it knew exactly what to do for the web because it already saw the patterns iOS/Android/macOS shared. The bend I saw in the curve came from being ultra lazy one night and seeing what would happen if it just had all the darn files.
  - achierius 2y ago
    I've definitely noticed the opposite on larger codebases. It's able to do magical things on smaller ones but really starts to fall apart as I scale up.
  - noch 2y ago
    > This is a 30KLOC 6 platform flutter app […] It's a real system, not kindergarten "look at the React Claude Artifacts did, the button makes a POST request!" This is powerful and significant but I think we need to ground ourselves on what a skilled programmer means when he talks about solving problems. That is, honestly ask: What is the level of skill a programmer requires to build what you've described? Mostly, imo, the difficulties in building it are in platform and API details not in any fundamental engineering problem that has to be solved. What makes web and Android programming so annoying is all the abstractions and frameworks and cruft that you end up having to navigate. Once you've navigated it, you haven't really solved anything, you've just dealt with obstacles other programmers have put in your way. The solutions are mostly boilerplate-like and the code I write is glue. I think the definition of "junior engineer" or "simple app" will be defined by what LLMs can produce and so, in a way, unfortunately, the goal posts and skill ceiling will keep shifting. On the other, hand, say we watch a presentation by the Lead Programmer at Naughty Dog, "Parallelizing the Naughty Dog Engine Using Fibers"[^0] and ask the same questions: what level of skill is required to solve the problems he's describing (solutions worth millions of dollars because his product has to sell that much to have good ROI): "I have a million LOC game engine for which I need to make a scheduler with no memory management for multithreaded job synchronization for the PS4." A lot of these guys, if you've talked to them, are often frustrated that LLMs simply can't help them make headway with, or debug, these hard problems where novel hardware-constrained solutions are needed. --- [^0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIVBhKj7gQU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIVBhKj7gQU
- dheera 2y ago
  I think most software outside of the few Silicon Valleys of the world is in fact a bunch of dirty hacks put together. I fully believe recursive application of current SOTA LLMs plus some deployment framework can replace most software engineers who work in the cornfields.
- riwsky 2y ago
  No true Botsman would replace a junior eng!
xbmcuser 2y ago
I agree with you that they are improving not being a programer I can't tell if the code has improved but as user that uses chat gpt or Google gemini to build scripts or trading view indicators. I am seeing some big improvements and many times wording it better detail and restricting it from going of tangent results in working code.
tonetegeatinst 2y ago
YouTube dlp has a subtitle option. To quote the documentation: "--write-sub Write subtitle file --write-auto-sub Write automatically generated subtitle file (YouTube only) --all-subs Download all the available subtitles of the video --list-subs List all available subtitles for the video --sub-format FORMAT Subtitle format, accepts formats preference, for example: "srt" or "ass/srt/best" --sub-lang LANGS Languages of the subtitles to download (optional) separated by commas, use --list-subs for available language tags"
- jiggawatts 2y ago
  Something I noticed is that as the threshold for doing something like "write software to do X" decreases, the tendency for people to go search for an existing product and download it tends to zero. There is a point where in some sense it is less effort to just write the thing yourself. This is the argument against micro-libraries as seen in NPM as well, but my point is that the threshold of complexity for "write it yourself" instead of reaching for a premade thing changes over time. As languages, compilers, tab-complete, refactoring, and AI assistance get better and better, eventually we'll reach a point where the human race as a whole will be spitting out code at an unimaginable rate.
- zkry 2y ago
  This is a key point and one of the reasons why I think LLMs will fall short of expectation. Take the saying "Code is a liability," and the fact that with LLMs, you are able to create so much more code than you normally would: The logical conclusion is that projects will balloon with code pushing LLMs to their limit, and this massive amount is going to contain more bugs and be more costly to maintain. Anecdotally, supposedly most devs are using some form of AI for writing code, and the software I use isn't magically getting better (I'm not seeing an increased rate of features or less buggy software).
az226 2y ago
Show the code
- JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago
  That’s why I’m annoyed: they never show the code.
  - refulgentis 2y ago
    You gotta lower your expectations. :) I didn't see the comment till now, OP made it at 3:30 AM my time. Here you go - https://pastebin.com/8zdMDEnG https://pastebin.com/8zdMDEnG
    - IshKebab 2y ago
      I think they meant the code that the LLM generated.
      - refulgentis 2y ago
        Right: that is it.
        IshKebab 2y ago
        This has clearly been heavily edited by humans.
        refulgentis 2y ago
        I'm happy to provide whatever you ask for. With utmost deference, I'm sure you didn't mean anything by it and were just rushed, but just in case...I'd just ask that you'd engage with charity[^3] and clarity[^2] :) I'd also like to point out[^1] --- meaning, I gave it my original code, in toto. So of course you'll see ex. comments. Not sure what else contributed to your analysis, that's where some clarity could help me, help you. [^1](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42421900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42421900) "I stubbed out my implementation of OpenAI's web socket based realtime API, 1400 LOC over 2 days, mostly by hand while grokking and testing the API. In 32 minutes, I had a brand spanking new batch of code, clean, event-based architecture, 86% test coverage. 1.8 KLOC with tests." [^2](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) "Be kind...Converse curiously; don't cross-examine." [^3](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
lz400 2y ago
I don't understand what you guys are doing. For me sonnet is great when I'm starting with a framework or project but as soon as I start doing complicated things it's just wrong all the time. Subtly wrong, which is much worse because it looks correct, but wrong.
idiocache 2y ago
Can you briefly describe your work flow? Are you exchanging information with Sonnet in your IDE?

nightski 2y ago

Most software is not one off little utilities/scripts, greenfield small projects, etc... That's where LLMs excel, when you don't have much context and can regurgitate solutions. It's less to do with junior/senior/etc.. and more to do with the types of problems you are tackling.

spiderfarmer 2y ago
Most software is simple HTML.
- mhh__ 2y ago
  This isn't where the leverage is though
  - spiderfarmer 2y ago
    No, but AI will replace a lot of web developers.
refulgentis 2y ago
This is a 30KLOC 6 platform flutter app that's, in this user story, doing VOIP audio, running 3 audio models on-device, including in your browser. A near-replica of the Google Assistant audio pipeline, except all on-device. It's a real system, not kindergarten "look at the React Claude Artifacts did, the button makes a POST request!" The 1500 loc websocket / session management code it refactored and tested touches on nearly every part of the system (i.e. persisting messages, placing search requests, placing network requests to run a chat flow) Also, it's worth saying this bit a bit louder: the "just throwing files in" I mention is key. With that, the quality you observed being in reverse is the distinction: with o1 thinking, and whatever Sonnet's magic is, there's a higher payoff from working a larger codebase. For example, here, it knew exactly what to do for the web because it already saw the patterns iOS/Android/macOS shared. The bend I saw in the curve came from being ultra lazy one night and seeing what would happen if it just had all the darn files.
- achierius 2y ago
  I've definitely noticed the opposite on larger codebases. It's able to do magical things on smaller ones but really starts to fall apart as I scale up.
- noch 2y ago
  > This is a 30KLOC 6 platform flutter app […] It's a real system, not kindergarten "look at the React Claude Artifacts did, the button makes a POST request!" This is powerful and significant but I think we need to ground ourselves on what a skilled programmer means when he talks about solving problems. That is, honestly ask: What is the level of skill a programmer requires to build what you've described? Mostly, imo, the difficulties in building it are in platform and API details not in any fundamental engineering problem that has to be solved. What makes web and Android programming so annoying is all the abstractions and frameworks and cruft that you end up having to navigate. Once you've navigated it, you haven't really solved anything, you've just dealt with obstacles other programmers have put in your way. The solutions are mostly boilerplate-like and the code I write is glue. I think the definition of "junior engineer" or "simple app" will be defined by what LLMs can produce and so, in a way, unfortunately, the goal posts and skill ceiling will keep shifting. On the other, hand, say we watch a presentation by the Lead Programmer at Naughty Dog, "Parallelizing the Naughty Dog Engine Using Fibers"[^0] and ask the same questions: what level of skill is required to solve the problems he's describing (solutions worth millions of dollars because his product has to sell that much to have good ROI): "I have a million LOC game engine for which I need to make a scheduler with no memory management for multithreaded job synchronization for the PS4." A lot of these guys, if you've talked to them, are often frustrated that LLMs simply can't help them make headway with, or debug, these hard problems where novel hardware-constrained solutions are needed. --- [^0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIVBhKj7gQU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIVBhKj7gQU
dheera 2y ago
I think most software outside of the few Silicon Valleys of the world is in fact a bunch of dirty hacks put together. I fully believe recursive application of current SOTA LLMs plus some deployment framework can replace most software engineers who work in the cornfields.
riwsky 2y ago
No true Botsman would replace a junior eng!

xbmcuser 2y ago

I agree with you that they are improving not being a programer I can't tell if the code has improved but as user that uses chat gpt or Google gemini to build scripts or trading view indicators. I am seeing some big improvements and many times wording it better detail and restricting it from going of tangent results in working code.

tonetegeatinst 2y ago

YouTube dlp has a subtitle option. To quote the documentation: "--write-sub Write subtitle file --write-auto-sub Write automatically generated subtitle file (YouTube only) --all-subs Download all the available subtitles of the video --list-subs List all available subtitles for the video --sub-format FORMAT Subtitle format, accepts formats preference, for example: "srt" or "ass/srt/best" --sub-lang LANGS Languages of the subtitles to download (optional) separated by commas, use --list-subs for available language tags"

jiggawatts 2y ago
Something I noticed is that as the threshold for doing something like "write software to do X" decreases, the tendency for people to go search for an existing product and download it tends to zero. There is a point where in some sense it is less effort to just write the thing yourself. This is the argument against micro-libraries as seen in NPM as well, but my point is that the threshold of complexity for "write it yourself" instead of reaching for a premade thing changes over time. As languages, compilers, tab-complete, refactoring, and AI assistance get better and better, eventually we'll reach a point where the human race as a whole will be spitting out code at an unimaginable rate.
zkry 2y ago
This is a key point and one of the reasons why I think LLMs will fall short of expectation. Take the saying "Code is a liability," and the fact that with LLMs, you are able to create so much more code than you normally would: The logical conclusion is that projects will balloon with code pushing LLMs to their limit, and this massive amount is going to contain more bugs and be more costly to maintain. Anecdotally, supposedly most devs are using some form of AI for writing code, and the software I use isn't magically getting better (I'm not seeing an increased rate of features or less buggy software).

az226 2y ago

Show the code

JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y ago
That’s why I’m annoyed: they never show the code.
- refulgentis 2y ago
  You gotta lower your expectations. :) I didn't see the comment till now, OP made it at 3:30 AM my time. Here you go - https://pastebin.com/8zdMDEnG https://pastebin.com/8zdMDEnG
  - IshKebab 2y ago
    I think they meant the code that the LLM generated.
    - refulgentis 2y ago
      Right: that is it.
      - IshKebab 2y ago
        This has clearly been heavily edited by humans.
        refulgentis 2y ago
        I'm happy to provide whatever you ask for. With utmost deference, I'm sure you didn't mean anything by it and were just rushed, but just in case...I'd just ask that you'd engage with charity[^3] and clarity[^2] :) I'd also like to point out[^1] --- meaning, I gave it my original code, in toto. So of course you'll see ex. comments. Not sure what else contributed to your analysis, that's where some clarity could help me, help you. [^1](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42421900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42421900) "I stubbed out my implementation of OpenAI's web socket based realtime API, 1400 LOC over 2 days, mostly by hand while grokking and testing the API. In 32 minutes, I had a brand spanking new batch of code, clean, event-based architecture, 86% test coverage. 1.8 KLOC with tests." [^2](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) "Be kind...Converse curiously; don't cross-examine." [^3](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

lz400 2y ago

I don't understand what you guys are doing. For me sonnet is great when I'm starting with a framework or project but as soon as I start doing complicated things it's just wrong all the time. Subtly wrong, which is much worse because it looks correct, but wrong.

idiocache 2y ago

Can you briefly describe your work flow? Are you exchanging information with Sonnet in your IDE?