4 ms·

I think it's weakening junior engineers' reasoning and coding abilities as they become reliant on it without having lived for long, or at all, in the before tim

I think it's weakening junior engineers' reasoning and coding abilities as they become reliant on it without having lived for long, or at all, in the before times. As someone old enough to have built websites in Notepad.exe it's totally reasonable that I ask my teams to turn off syntax highlighting, brace matching, and refactoring tools in VSCode. I didn't have them when I started, so they shouldn't use them today. Modern IDE features are just making them lazy. /s

walthamstow 2y ago
Is this supposed to be funny?
- brookst 2y ago
  Funny / sad. GP is just highlighting the all too common attitude of people who grew up using new tech (graphing calculators, Wikipedia, etc) who reach a certain age and suddenly new tech is ruining the youth of today. It’s just human nature, you can decide if it’s funny or sad or whatever
  - walthamstow 2y ago
    Neither of you have comprehended the part of my post where I talk about myself and my own skills. Hiding behind the sarcasm tag to take the piss out of people younger than you, I don't think that's very funny. The magnetised needle and a steady hand gag from xkcd, now that is actually funny.
- onion2k 2y ago
  Yes.
moron4hire 2y ago
Not all change is progress. Change comes with pros and cons. The pros need to outweigh the cons (and probably significantly so) for change to be considered progress. Syntax highlighting has the pro of making code faster to visually parse for most people at the expense of some CPU cycles and a 10 second setting change for people for whom color variations are problematic. It doesn't take anything away. It's purely additive. AI code generation tools provide a dubious boost to short term productivity at the expense of extra work in the medium term and skill atrophy in the long term. My junior developers think I don't know they are using AI coding tools. I discovered it about 2 months into them doing it, and I've been tracking their productivity both before and after. In one case, one might be committing to the repository slightly more frequently. But in all cases, they still aren't completing assignments on time. Or at all. Even basic things have to be rewritten because they aren't suitable for purpose. And in our pair programming sessions, I see them frozen up now, where they weren't before they started using the tools. I can even see them habitually attempt to use the AI, but then remember I'm sitting with them, and halt. I tried to use AI code generation once to fill in some ASP.NET Core boilerplate for setting up authentication. Should be basic stuff. Should be 3 or 4 lines of code. I've done it before, but I forgot the exact lines and had been told AI was good for this kind of lazy recall of common tasks. It gave me a stub that had a comment inside, "implement authentication here". Tried to coax the AI into doing what I wanted and easily spent 10x more time than it would have taken to look up the documentation. And it still wasn't done. I haven't touched AI code gen since. So IDK. I'm very skeptical of the claims that AI is writing significant amounts of working code for people, or that it at all rivals even a moderately smart junior developer (say nothing of actually experienced senior). I think what's really happening is that people are spending a lot of time spinning the roulette wheel, always betting on 00, and then crowing they're a genius when it finally lands.
- kamaal 2y ago
  >>In one case, one might be committing to the repository slightly more frequently. But in all cases, they still aren't completing assignments on time. Most people are using it to finish work soon, rather than use it to do more work. As a senior engineer your job must not be to stop the use of LLMs, but create opportunities to build newer and bigger products. >>I can even see them habitually attempt to use the AI, but then remember I'm sitting with them, and halt. I understand you and I grew up in a different era. But life getting easier for the young isnt exactly something we must resent. Things are only getting easier with time and have been like this for a few centuries. None of this is wrong. >>Tried to coax the AI into doing what I wanted and easily spent 10x more time than it would have taken to look up the documentation. Honestly this largely reads like how my dad would describe technology from the 2000s. It was always that he was better off without it. Whether that was true or false is up for debate, but the world was moving on.
  - moron4hire 2y ago
    > life getting easier for the young isnt exactly something we must resent. I don't see how AI is making life easier for my developers. You seem to have missed the point that I have seen no external sign of them being more productive. I don't care if they feel more productive. The end result is they aren't. But it does seem to be making life harder for them because they can't seem to think for themselves anymore. > a senior engineer your job must not be to stop the use of LLMs, but create opportunities to build newer and bigger products Well then, we're in agreement. I should reveal to my juniors that I know they are using AI and that they should stop immediately.
  - ModernMech 2y ago
    > I understand you and I grew up in a different era. But life getting easier for the young isnt exactly something we must resent. Of course not. But, eventually these young people are going to take over the systems that were built and understood by their ancestors. History shows what damage can be caused to a system when people who don't fully understand and appreciate how it was built take it over. We have to prepare them with the necessary knowledge to take over the future, which includes all the warts and shit piles. I mean, we've spent a lot of our careers trying to dig ourselves out of these shit piles because they suck so bad, but we never got rid of them, we just hid them behind some polish. But it's all still there, and vibe coders aren't going to be equipped to deal with it. Maybe the hope is that AI will reach god-like status and jut fix all of this for us magically one day, but that sounds like fixing social policy by waiting for the rapture, so we have to do something else to assure the future.
timothygold 2y ago
I think your mistaking programmer productivity with A.I that generates all the code for you allowing you to switch off your brain completely. prompt engineering code is not the same skill as programming and being good at it does not mean you actually understand how code or software works.
- voidfunc 2y ago
  Why do you need to understand how the code or software works if the thing the AI generates satisfies the requirements? That's where we are headed.
  - satvikpendem 2y ago
    Because it eventually fails and to fix it, one must understand the code, something that is lacking when "vibe coding."
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - bluefirebrand 2y ago
    No one with this mentality has any business working with code ever Even the writers of Star Trek, a fictional fantasy show with near-magic super AI, understood that the Engineers would eventually have to fix something the AI couldn't, without the AI helping them
  - mwgalloway 2y ago
    Because if you’re working on anything of note, you will need to sustain, scale, and operate that software while hopefully designing for it at a high level. LLMs are not suited for those problems, at least not anytime soon
  - matwood 2y ago
    How do you know it satisfies the requirements?
hakunin 2y ago
Yes. It is reasonable to ask them to turn off these things temporarily as an exercise, if you think it will help junior engineers write better code. All teaching works this way. Would it be totally reasonable to have junior pilots only practice with autopilot?
hansvm 2y ago
I interview people every day who don't recognize glaring flaws despite the syntax highlighting and other linting in their favorite environment telling them something is definitely very wrong. Much like with LLMs, I'm firmly in the camp of (1) master working without it, (2) master working with it, (3) integrate it into your workflow in the way that suites you best. If your team can't recognize bullshit without syntax highlighting, they're going to struggle even when it's turned on. Once they've mastered the underlying principles, syntax highlighting will make them much more effective.

walthamstow 2y ago

Is this supposed to be funny?

brookst 2y ago
Funny / sad. GP is just highlighting the all too common attitude of people who grew up using new tech (graphing calculators, Wikipedia, etc) who reach a certain age and suddenly new tech is ruining the youth of today. It’s just human nature, you can decide if it’s funny or sad or whatever
- walthamstow 2y ago
  Neither of you have comprehended the part of my post where I talk about myself and my own skills. Hiding behind the sarcasm tag to take the piss out of people younger than you, I don't think that's very funny. The magnetised needle and a steady hand gag from xkcd, now that is actually funny.
onion2k 2y ago
Yes.

moron4hire 2y ago

Not all change is progress. Change comes with pros and cons. The pros need to outweigh the cons (and probably significantly so) for change to be considered progress. Syntax highlighting has the pro of making code faster to visually parse for most people at the expense of some CPU cycles and a 10 second setting change for people for whom color variations are problematic. It doesn't take anything away. It's purely additive. AI code generation tools provide a dubious boost to short term productivity at the expense of extra work in the medium term and skill atrophy in the long term. My junior developers think I don't know they are using AI coding tools. I discovered it about 2 months into them doing it, and I've been tracking their productivity both before and after. In one case, one might be committing to the repository slightly more frequently. But in all cases, they still aren't completing assignments on time. Or at all. Even basic things have to be rewritten because they aren't suitable for purpose. And in our pair programming sessions, I see them frozen up now, where they weren't before they started using the tools. I can even see them habitually attempt to use the AI, but then remember I'm sitting with them, and halt. I tried to use AI code generation once to fill in some ASP.NET Core boilerplate for setting up authentication. Should be basic stuff. Should be 3 or 4 lines of code. I've done it before, but I forgot the exact lines and had been told AI was good for this kind of lazy recall of common tasks. It gave me a stub that had a comment inside, "implement authentication here". Tried to coax the AI into doing what I wanted and easily spent 10x more time than it would have taken to look up the documentation. And it still wasn't done. I haven't touched AI code gen since. So IDK. I'm very skeptical of the claims that AI is writing significant amounts of working code for people, or that it at all rivals even a moderately smart junior developer (say nothing of actually experienced senior). I think what's really happening is that people are spending a lot of time spinning the roulette wheel, always betting on 00, and then crowing they're a genius when it finally lands.

kamaal 2y ago
>>In one case, one might be committing to the repository slightly more frequently. But in all cases, they still aren't completing assignments on time. Most people are using it to finish work soon, rather than use it to do more work. As a senior engineer your job must not be to stop the use of LLMs, but create opportunities to build newer and bigger products. >>I can even see them habitually attempt to use the AI, but then remember I'm sitting with them, and halt. I understand you and I grew up in a different era. But life getting easier for the young isnt exactly something we must resent. Things are only getting easier with time and have been like this for a few centuries. None of this is wrong. >>Tried to coax the AI into doing what I wanted and easily spent 10x more time than it would have taken to look up the documentation. Honestly this largely reads like how my dad would describe technology from the 2000s. It was always that he was better off without it. Whether that was true or false is up for debate, but the world was moving on.
- moron4hire 2y ago
  > life getting easier for the young isnt exactly something we must resent. I don't see how AI is making life easier for my developers. You seem to have missed the point that I have seen no external sign of them being more productive. I don't care if they feel more productive. The end result is they aren't. But it does seem to be making life harder for them because they can't seem to think for themselves anymore. > a senior engineer your job must not be to stop the use of LLMs, but create opportunities to build newer and bigger products Well then, we're in agreement. I should reveal to my juniors that I know they are using AI and that they should stop immediately.
- ModernMech 2y ago
  > I understand you and I grew up in a different era. But life getting easier for the young isnt exactly something we must resent. Of course not. But, eventually these young people are going to take over the systems that were built and understood by their ancestors. History shows what damage can be caused to a system when people who don't fully understand and appreciate how it was built take it over. We have to prepare them with the necessary knowledge to take over the future, which includes all the warts and shit piles. I mean, we've spent a lot of our careers trying to dig ourselves out of these shit piles because they suck so bad, but we never got rid of them, we just hid them behind some polish. But it's all still there, and vibe coders aren't going to be equipped to deal with it. Maybe the hope is that AI will reach god-like status and jut fix all of this for us magically one day, but that sounds like fixing social policy by waiting for the rapture, so we have to do something else to assure the future.

timothygold 2y ago

I think your mistaking programmer productivity with A.I that generates all the code for you allowing you to switch off your brain completely. prompt engineering code is not the same skill as programming and being good at it does not mean you actually understand how code or software works.

voidfunc 2y ago
Why do you need to understand how the code or software works if the thing the AI generates satisfies the requirements? That's where we are headed.
- satvikpendem 2y ago
  Because it eventually fails and to fix it, one must understand the code, something that is lacking when "vibe coding."
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- bluefirebrand 2y ago
  No one with this mentality has any business working with code ever Even the writers of Star Trek, a fictional fantasy show with near-magic super AI, understood that the Engineers would eventually have to fix something the AI couldn't, without the AI helping them
- mwgalloway 2y ago
  Because if you’re working on anything of note, you will need to sustain, scale, and operate that software while hopefully designing for it at a high level. LLMs are not suited for those problems, at least not anytime soon
- matwood 2y ago
  How do you know it satisfies the requirements?

hakunin 2y ago

Yes. It is reasonable to ask them to turn off these things temporarily as an exercise, if you think it will help junior engineers write better code. All teaching works this way. Would it be totally reasonable to have junior pilots only practice with autopilot?

hansvm 2y ago

I interview people every day who don't recognize glaring flaws despite the syntax highlighting and other linting in their favorite environment telling them something is definitely very wrong. Much like with LLMs, I'm firmly in the camp of (1) master working without it, (2) master working with it, (3) integrate it into your workflow in the way that suites you best. If your team can't recognize bullshit without syntax highlighting, they're going to struggle even when it's turned on. Once they've mastered the underlying principles, syntax highlighting will make them much more effective.