6 ms·

Don’t worry. There’s literally nothing an llm can write or tell you that you can’t write yourself or find in a manual somewhere.

by dartos 2y ago

ryang2718 2y ago
Although, tbf, some libraries are documented better than others. Also, local llms with an agentic tool can be a lot of fun to quickly prototype things. Quality can be hit or miss. Hopefully the work trickles down to local models long-term.
- guappa 2y ago
  And you think an llm can generate code to use an undocumented library? :D
  - andsoitis 2y ago
    If there are open source projects that use said library, then probably yes.
    - guappa 2y ago
      Unless they are not hosted on github, then no :D
  - 3D30497420 2y ago
    Even documented libraries can be a struggle, especially if they are not particularly popular. I'm doing a project with WiFi/LoRa/MQTT on an ESP32. The WiFi code was fairly decent, but the MQTT and especially LoRa library code was nearly useless.
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    Of course, why wouldn't it? It's a generative model, not a lookup table. Show it the library headers, and it'll give you decent results. Obviously, if the library or code using it weren't part of the training data, and you don't supply either in the context of your request, then it won't generate valid code for it. But that's not LLM's fault.
    - dartos 2y ago
      > not a lookup table You can imagine the classic attention mechanism as a lookup table, actually. Transformers are layers and layers and layers of lookup tables.
  - kvgr 2y ago
    Sonnet 3.5 fails to generate basic JetpackCompose libraries properties properly. Maybe if somebody tried really hard to scrape all the documentation and force feed it, then it could work. But i don't if there are examples of this. Like general LLM, but with complete Android/Kotlin pushed into it to fix the synapses.
TeMPOraL 2y ago
> There’s literally nothing an llm can write or tell you that you can’t write yourself or find in a manual somewhere. That's like saying, there's literally nothing a service business can do for you that you can't do yourself. It's only true in a theoretical sense, if neither time nor resources are a constraint. In such hypothetical universe, you don't need a dentist - you only need to spend 5+ years in medical school + whatever extra it takes to become proficient with tools dentists use + whatever money it takes to buy that equipment. You also don't need accountants, lawyers, hairdressers, or construction companies. You can always learn this stuff and do it yourself better! Truth is, time and attention is finite. Meanwhile, SOTA LLMs are cheap as dirt, they can do pretty much anything that involves text, and do it at the level of a mediocre specialist - i.e. they're literally better than you at anything except the few things you happen to be experienced in. Not perfect, by no means error-free - just better than you. I feel this still hasn't sunk in for most people.
- tarkonaut 2y ago
  > they're literally better than you at anything except the few things you happen to be experienced in Like speaking english and coding?
  - falcor84 2y ago
    I don't know how you compare, but ChatGPT's English grammar and vocabulary are significantly better than mine. And when I prompt it appropriately, it also seems to be a better creative writer than I am, at least for short pieces.
    - dartos 2y ago
      > it also seems to be a better creative writer than I am, at least for short pieces Don’t be so hard on yourself. Chatgpt (and other LLMs) are awful at creative prose.
      - ben_w 2y ago
        > Chatgpt (and other LLMs) are awful at creative prose. As are most humans. Don't get me wrong, what I've seen from even the better LLMs have a certain voice and tropes and sacherine worldview that isn't dark enough where it needs to be for the story to work; but on the other hand, what I see on some fiction writing subreddits… the AI is often a genuine improvement over amateur writers, even in cases where the AI contradicts itself about plot elements. Which is frustrating, because I have the feeling the novel I've been trying to finish writing for the last decade may be usurped by AI before I get my final draft.
JKolios 2y ago
Even if you absolutely have to use an LLM for some reason, there are already perfectly good LLMs for code generation that you can comfortably run on commodity hardware.
- dartos 2y ago
  Yeah the deepseek models are actually pretty solid. I use that with avante.vim for tedious refactors. All local.

Don’t worry. There’s literally nothing an llm can write or tell you that you can’t write yourself or find in a manual somewhere.

by dartos 2y ago

Don’t worry. There’s literally nothing an llm can write or tell you that you can’t write yourself or find in a manual somewhere.

ryang2718 2y ago

Although, tbf, some libraries are documented better than others. Also, local llms with an agentic tool can be a lot of fun to quickly prototype things. Quality can be hit or miss. Hopefully the work trickles down to local models long-term.

guappa 2y ago
And you think an llm can generate code to use an undocumented library? :D
- andsoitis 2y ago
  If there are open source projects that use said library, then probably yes.
  - guappa 2y ago
    Unless they are not hosted on github, then no :D
- 3D30497420 2y ago
  Even documented libraries can be a struggle, especially if they are not particularly popular. I'm doing a project with WiFi/LoRa/MQTT on an ESP32. The WiFi code was fairly decent, but the MQTT and especially LoRa library code was nearly useless.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  Of course, why wouldn't it? It's a generative model, not a lookup table. Show it the library headers, and it'll give you decent results. Obviously, if the library or code using it weren't part of the training data, and you don't supply either in the context of your request, then it won't generate valid code for it. But that's not LLM's fault.
  - dartos 2y ago
    > not a lookup table You can imagine the classic attention mechanism as a lookup table, actually. Transformers are layers and layers and layers of lookup tables.
- kvgr 2y ago
  Sonnet 3.5 fails to generate basic JetpackCompose libraries properties properly. Maybe if somebody tried really hard to scrape all the documentation and force feed it, then it could work. But i don't if there are examples of this. Like general LLM, but with complete Android/Kotlin pushed into it to fix the synapses.

TeMPOraL 2y ago

> There’s literally nothing an llm can write or tell you that you can’t write yourself or find in a manual somewhere. That's like saying, there's literally nothing a service business can do for you that you can't do yourself. It's only true in a theoretical sense, if neither time nor resources are a constraint. In such hypothetical universe, you don't need a dentist - you only need to spend 5+ years in medical school + whatever extra it takes to become proficient with tools dentists use + whatever money it takes to buy that equipment. You also don't need accountants, lawyers, hairdressers, or construction companies. You can always learn this stuff and do it yourself better! Truth is, time and attention is finite. Meanwhile, SOTA LLMs are cheap as dirt, they can do pretty much anything that involves text, and do it at the level of a mediocre specialist - i.e. they're literally better than you at anything except the few things you happen to be experienced in. Not perfect, by no means error-free - just better than you. I feel this still hasn't sunk in for most people.

tarkonaut 2y ago
> they're literally better than you at anything except the few things you happen to be experienced in Like speaking english and coding?
- falcor84 2y ago
  I don't know how you compare, but ChatGPT's English grammar and vocabulary are significantly better than mine. And when I prompt it appropriately, it also seems to be a better creative writer than I am, at least for short pieces.
  - dartos 2y ago
    > it also seems to be a better creative writer than I am, at least for short pieces Don’t be so hard on yourself. Chatgpt (and other LLMs) are awful at creative prose.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      > Chatgpt (and other LLMs) are awful at creative prose. As are most humans. Don't get me wrong, what I've seen from even the better LLMs have a certain voice and tropes and sacherine worldview that isn't dark enough where it needs to be for the story to work; but on the other hand, what I see on some fiction writing subreddits… the AI is often a genuine improvement over amateur writers, even in cases where the AI contradicts itself about plot elements. Which is frustrating, because I have the feeling the novel I've been trying to finish writing for the last decade may be usurped by AI before I get my final draft.

JKolios 2y ago

Even if you absolutely have to use an LLM for some reason, there are already perfectly good LLMs for code generation that you can comfortably run on commodity hardware.

dartos 2y ago
Yeah the deepseek models are actually pretty solid. I use that with avante.vim for tedious refactors. All local.