3 ms·

I certainly disagree that it's enabling enormous productivity gains in software. It's a productivity loss to have a tool whose output you have to check yourself

by bigstrat2003 2y ago

I certainly disagree that it's enabling enormous productivity gains in software. It's a productivity loss to have a tool whose output you have to check yourself every time (because you can't trust it to work reliably).

coderenegade 2y ago
When I was studying, I implemented a flight dynamics simulation from scratch, partly as a learning exercise, and partly so that I could have greater control over the experiments I wanted to run. The trickiest part of this was the rotations between the local and inertial frames, which took the better part of a week for me to figure out (especially the time derivative of the quaternion). On a lark, I asked Deep Seek to implement the relevant functions yesterday, and it spat them out. Not only were they correct, they came with a very good low level description of what the code was doing, and why -- i.e. all of the stuff my head was against the desk for while I was figuring it out. If I wanted to implement, say, an EKF tomorrow, I have zero doubts that I could do it on my own if I had to, but I'm also 99% sure Deep Seek could just spit it out and I'd only have to check it and test it. It's not a substitute for understanding, and knowing the right questions to ask, but it is tremendously powerful. For the stuff I'm usually doing, which is typically mathematically demanding, and for which implementation can often be harder than checking an existing implementation is correct, it's a tremendous productivity gain.
- the_real_cher 2y ago
  > asked Deep Seek to implement the relevant functions yesterday Its great at implementing functions. But NOT great at implementing non-toy programs according to a complex spec. it's definitely a productivity enhancer but I think it's the equivalent of a power tool to a carpenter. it's a good productivity enhancer but doesnt replace their job

coderenegade 2y ago

When I was studying, I implemented a flight dynamics simulation from scratch, partly as a learning exercise, and partly so that I could have greater control over the experiments I wanted to run. The trickiest part of this was the rotations between the local and inertial frames, which took the better part of a week for me to figure out (especially the time derivative of the quaternion). On a lark, I asked Deep Seek to implement the relevant functions yesterday, and it spat them out. Not only were they correct, they came with a very good low level description of what the code was doing, and why -- i.e. all of the stuff my head was against the desk for while I was figuring it out. If I wanted to implement, say, an EKF tomorrow, I have zero doubts that I could do it on my own if I had to, but I'm also 99% sure Deep Seek could just spit it out and I'd only have to check it and test it. It's not a substitute for understanding, and knowing the right questions to ask, but it is tremendously powerful. For the stuff I'm usually doing, which is typically mathematically demanding, and for which implementation can often be harder than checking an existing implementation is correct, it's a tremendous productivity gain.

the_real_cher 2y ago
> asked Deep Seek to implement the relevant functions yesterday Its great at implementing functions. But NOT great at implementing non-toy programs according to a complex spec. it's definitely a productivity enhancer but I think it's the equivalent of a power tool to a carpenter. it's a good productivity enhancer but doesnt replace their job