5 ms·

When I have to be that specific with it, it would be faster for me to just write it directly in my normal IDE with great auto complete

dagw 2y ago
it would be faster for me to just write it directly in my normal IDE Then you are a much better developer than me (which you may very well be). I'd like to think I'm pretty good, and I've many times spent hours trying to think through complex SQL queries or getting all the details right in some tricky equation or algorithm. Writing the same code with an AI often takes 2-20 minutes. If it's faster for me, it might not be faster for everybody, but it is probably faster for many people.
- jprete 2y ago
  The way to get better is to do it a lot. Every time you dig through a problem to solve it, you're not just learning about that problem - you're learning about every problem near it in the problem space, including the meta-problems about how to get information, solve problems, and test solutions. In a sense you're slowly building the LLM in your head, but it's more valuable there because of the much-better idea evaluation, and lack of network/GPU overhead.
- javier2 2y ago
  Ok i dont know. When I first read it, it sounded like you have to spoon feed details until AI gets it right. Or perhaps your ide could be better!
- Ekaros 2y ago
  If you have to spend significant amount of time thinking things through how do you know the output from AI is correct and covers all details?
  - dagw 2y ago
    how do you know the output from AI is correct and covers all details? Same way as any other code. You look at it, ask the 'author' to explain any parts you don't understand, reason through what it's doing and then test it.
    - sarchertech 2y ago
      That’s so much slower than writing it myself though. The only reason to bother doing that with a junior developer is to teach them.
      - dagw 2y ago
        You have to do all those steps no matter if you write it yourself of if an AI helps you generate the code. Just typing the first thing that comes into your head and not bothering to test it will rarely create good code in all but the most trivial cases. I find having an AI write out the algorithm and then walking me through the steps and generating test cases for all the corner case much faster than, looking up the algorithm online, trying to understand it, implementing all the details and then writing a test suite for it by hand. But I guess YMMV.
        sarchertech 2y ago
        Well I was assuming you already understood the domain and the algorithm (or at least a good idea how you’d solve the problem). If you don’t, sure having an LLM cough up something is probably faster than finding and teaching yourself a new algorithm. I definitely wouldn’t trust an LLM to come up with an optimal algorithm if I didn’t already have an idea of how to solve the problem myself though. There’s too much room for subtle bugs and unknown unknowns. Tests aren’t a substitute for thoroughly understanding a solution (and thoroughly understanding a solution involves at least having an idea about the tradeoffs of different solutions, which you won’t have if you had no idea how to solve something yourself). Most functions in line of business software though are going to be something like “loop over each item in this list, transform them from one format to another, then add them all up and save that somewhere.” Actually typing out the code to do that is in no way a bottleneck for me (unless I’m working in an unfamiliar language and don’t understand the syntax well).

dagw 2y ago

it would be faster for me to just write it directly in my normal IDE Then you are a much better developer than me (which you may very well be). I'd like to think I'm pretty good, and I've many times spent hours trying to think through complex SQL queries or getting all the details right in some tricky equation or algorithm. Writing the same code with an AI often takes 2-20 minutes. If it's faster for me, it might not be faster for everybody, but it is probably faster for many people.

jprete 2y ago
The way to get better is to do it a lot. Every time you dig through a problem to solve it, you're not just learning about that problem - you're learning about every problem near it in the problem space, including the meta-problems about how to get information, solve problems, and test solutions. In a sense you're slowly building the LLM in your head, but it's more valuable there because of the much-better idea evaluation, and lack of network/GPU overhead.
javier2 2y ago
Ok i dont know. When I first read it, it sounded like you have to spoon feed details until AI gets it right. Or perhaps your ide could be better!
Ekaros 2y ago
If you have to spend significant amount of time thinking things through how do you know the output from AI is correct and covers all details?
- dagw 2y ago
  how do you know the output from AI is correct and covers all details? Same way as any other code. You look at it, ask the 'author' to explain any parts you don't understand, reason through what it's doing and then test it.
  - sarchertech 2y ago
    That’s so much slower than writing it myself though. The only reason to bother doing that with a junior developer is to teach them.
    - dagw 2y ago
      You have to do all those steps no matter if you write it yourself of if an AI helps you generate the code. Just typing the first thing that comes into your head and not bothering to test it will rarely create good code in all but the most trivial cases. I find having an AI write out the algorithm and then walking me through the steps and generating test cases for all the corner case much faster than, looking up the algorithm online, trying to understand it, implementing all the details and then writing a test suite for it by hand. But I guess YMMV.
      - sarchertech 2y ago
        Well I was assuming you already understood the domain and the algorithm (or at least a good idea how you’d solve the problem). If you don’t, sure having an LLM cough up something is probably faster than finding and teaching yourself a new algorithm. I definitely wouldn’t trust an LLM to come up with an optimal algorithm if I didn’t already have an idea of how to solve the problem myself though. There’s too much room for subtle bugs and unknown unknowns. Tests aren’t a substitute for thoroughly understanding a solution (and thoroughly understanding a solution involves at least having an idea about the tradeoffs of different solutions, which you won’t have if you had no idea how to solve something yourself). Most functions in line of business software though are going to be something like “loop over each item in this list, transform them from one format to another, then add them all up and save that somewhere.” Actually typing out the code to do that is in no way a bottleneck for me (unless I’m working in an unfamiliar language and don’t understand the syntax well).