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Difference here being that you actually learned the information about Ruby on Rails, whereas the modern programmer doesn't learn anything. They are but a clipbo

Difference here being that you actually learned the information about Ruby on Rails, whereas the modern programmer doesn't learn anything. They are but a clipboard-like vessel that passes information from an LLM onto a text editor, rarely ever actually reading and understanding the code. And if something doesn't work, they don't debug the code, they debug the LLM for not getting it right. The actual knowledge here never gets stored in the brain, making any future learning or evolving impossible. I've had to work with developers that are over dependent on LLM's, one didn't even know how to undo code, they had to ask an LLM to undo. Almost as if the person is a zombie or something. It's scary to witness. And as soon as you ask them to explain their rationale for the solution they came up with - dead silence. They can't, because they never actually _thought_.

Kerrick 2y ago
Difference here being that you actually learned the information about computers, whereas the modern programmer doesn't learn anything. They are but a typist-like vessel that passes information from an architect onto a text editor, rarely ever actually reading and understanding the compiled instructions. And if something doesn't work, they don't debug the machine code, they complain about the compiler for not getting it right. The actual knowledge here never gets stored in the brain, making any future learning or evolving impossible. I've had to work with developers that are over dependent on high-level languages. One didn't even know how to trace execution in machine code; they had to ask a debugger. Almost as if the person is a zombie or something. It's scary to witness. And as soon as you explain them to explain their memory segmentation strategy - dead silence. They can't, because they never actually _thought_.
- floatrock 2y ago
  Abstractions on top of abstractions on top of turtles... It'll be interesting to see what kinds of new tools come out of this AI boom. I think we're still figuring out what the new abstraction tier is going to be, but I don't think the tools to really work at that tier have been written yet.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- zahlman 2y ago
  No, it really isn't at all comparable like that (and other discussion in the thread makes it clear why). Users of high-level languages clearly still do write code in those languages, that comes out of their own thought rather than e.g. the GoF patterns book. They don't just complain about compilers; they actually do debug the high-level code, based on the compiler's error messages (or, more commonly, runtime results). When people get their code from LLMs, however, you can see very often that they have no idea how to proceed when the code is wrong. Debugging is a skill anyone can learn, which applies broadly. But some people just don't. People who want correct code to be written for them are fundamentally asking something different than people who want writing correct code to be easier.
Terr_ 2y ago
> I've had to work with developers that are over dependent on LLM's, one didn't even know how to undo code, they had to ask an LLM to undo. Some also get into a loop where they ask the LLM to rewrite what they have, and the result ends up changing in a subtle undetected way or loses comments.

Kerrick 2y ago

Difference here being that you actually learned the information about computers, whereas the modern programmer doesn't learn anything. They are but a typist-like vessel that passes information from an architect onto a text editor, rarely ever actually reading and understanding the compiled instructions. And if something doesn't work, they don't debug the machine code, they complain about the compiler for not getting it right. The actual knowledge here never gets stored in the brain, making any future learning or evolving impossible. I've had to work with developers that are over dependent on high-level languages. One didn't even know how to trace execution in machine code; they had to ask a debugger. Almost as if the person is a zombie or something. It's scary to witness. And as soon as you explain them to explain their memory segmentation strategy - dead silence. They can't, because they never actually _thought_.

floatrock 2y ago
Abstractions on top of abstractions on top of turtles... It'll be interesting to see what kinds of new tools come out of this AI boom. I think we're still figuring out what the new abstraction tier is going to be, but I don't think the tools to really work at that tier have been written yet.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
zahlman 2y ago
No, it really isn't at all comparable like that (and other discussion in the thread makes it clear why). Users of high-level languages clearly still do write code in those languages, that comes out of their own thought rather than e.g. the GoF patterns book. They don't just complain about compilers; they actually do debug the high-level code, based on the compiler's error messages (or, more commonly, runtime results). When people get their code from LLMs, however, you can see very often that they have no idea how to proceed when the code is wrong. Debugging is a skill anyone can learn, which applies broadly. But some people just don't. People who want correct code to be written for them are fundamentally asking something different than people who want writing correct code to be easier.

Terr_ 2y ago

> I've had to work with developers that are over dependent on LLM's, one didn't even know how to undo code, they had to ask an LLM to undo. Some also get into a loop where they ask the LLM to rewrite what they have, and the result ends up changing in a subtle undetected way or loses comments.