5 ms·

Don't people actually enjoy writing code and solving problems on their own? I would be so bored if my job consisted of writing prompts all day long.

simonw 2y ago
I use LLMs to support my programming all day, and I'm not "writing prompts all day long". I'm working just like I used to, only faster. LLMs make it quicker for me to: - Decipher obscure error messages - Knock out a quick exploratory prototype of a new idea, both backend and frontend code - Write boiler plate code against commonly used libraries - Debug things: feeding a gnarly bug plus my codebase into Gemini (for long context) or o3-mini can save me a TON of frustration - Research potential options for libraries that might help with a problem - Refactor - they're so good at refactoring now - Write tests. Sometimes I'll have the LLM sketch out a bunch of tests that cover branches I may have not bothered to cover otherwise. I enjoy working like this a whole lot more than I enjoyed working without them, and I enjoyed programming a lot prior to LLMs.
Aeolun 2y ago
I enjoy building things. Writing code, well, I could take or leave that.
n144q 2y ago
Using LLMs to write code for you is solving problems. The argument is almost like saying "using a third party library is not solving a problem on your own". If it gets the job done, it works. I enjoy writing code, but I enjoy seeing getting a feature out even more. In fact, I don't quite enjoy the part of writing basic logic or tweaking CSS which an intern can easily do. I don't think anybody is writing prompts all day long. If you don't actually know how to write code, maybe. But at this point, a professional software engineer still works with a code base with a hands-on approach most of the time, and even heavy LLM users still spend a lot of time hand writing code.

5 ms·

Don't people actually enjoy writing code and solving problems on their own? I would be so bored if my job consisted of writing prompts all day long.

by ggregoire 2y ago

simonw 2y ago
I use LLMs to support my programming all day, and I'm not "writing prompts all day long". I'm working just like I used to, only faster. LLMs make it quicker for me to: - Decipher obscure error messages - Knock out a quick exploratory prototype of a new idea, both backend and frontend code - Write boiler plate code against commonly used libraries - Debug things: feeding a gnarly bug plus my codebase into Gemini (for long context) or o3-mini can save me a TON of frustration - Research potential options for libraries that might help with a problem - Refactor - they're so good at refactoring now - Write tests. Sometimes I'll have the LLM sketch out a bunch of tests that cover branches I may have not bothered to cover otherwise. I enjoy working like this a whole lot more than I enjoyed working without them, and I enjoyed programming a lot prior to LLMs.
Aeolun 2y ago
I enjoy building things. Writing code, well, I could take or leave that.
n144q 2y ago
Using LLMs to write code for you is solving problems. The argument is almost like saying "using a third party library is not solving a problem on your own". If it gets the job done, it works. I enjoy writing code, but I enjoy seeing getting a feature out even more. In fact, I don't quite enjoy the part of writing basic logic or tweaking CSS which an intern can easily do. I don't think anybody is writing prompts all day long. If you don't actually know how to write code, maybe. But at this point, a professional software engineer still works with a code base with a hands-on approach most of the time, and even heavy LLM users still spend a lot of time hand writing code.