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> Your blend of comment was also directed at the likes of Google and StackOverflow. No, it wasn't. What such comments were directed at, and with good reason,

> Your blend of comment was also directed at the likes of Google and StackOverflow. No, it wasn't. What such comments were directed at, and with good reason, where 'SO-"Coders"', aka. people when faced with any problem, just googled a vague description of it, copypasted the code from the highest scoring SO answer into their project, and called it a day. SO is a valueable resource. AI Systems are a valueable resource. I use both every day, same as I almost always have one screen dedicated to some documentation page. The problem is not using the tools available. The problem is relying 100% on these tools, with no skill or care of ones own.

johnisgood 2y ago
I agree. Claude is very useful to me because I know what I am doing and I know what I want it to do. Additionally, I keep telling my friend who is studying data science to use LLMs to his advantage. He could learn a lot and be productive.
jstummbillig 2y ago
But skill will be needed. It's everything that is still necessary between nothing and (good) software existing. It will just rapidly be something that we are not used to, and the rate of change will be challenging, specially for those with specialized, hard earned skills and knowledge that become irrelevant.
strken 2y ago
Yes, they were, for reasons that have turned out to be half-right and half-wrong. At least by some people. Ctrl-c ctrl-v programming was widely derided, but people were also worried about a general inability to RTFM. I had the good fortune to work with a man who convinced me to go read the spec of some of the programming languages I used. I'm told this was reasonably common in the days of yore, but I've only rarely worked on a team with someone else who does it. Reading a spec or manual helps me understand the language and aids with navigating the text later when I use it as documentation. That said, if all the other programmers can do their jobs anyway, is it really so awful for them to learn from StackOverflow and Google? Probably not. I imagine the same is true of LLMs.
- jon-wood 2y ago
  I also try to read the specification or manual for tools I use, and find the biggest benefit is simply knowing what that tool is capable of, and what the recommended approach to a given problem is when using that tool. Even just skimming the modules available in a language's standard library can get you a long way.
  - Tainnor 2y ago
    I was once able to significantly reduce the effort for some feature just by reading the elasticsearch docs and finding that there was a feature (aliases) that did more or less exactly what we needed (it still needed some custom code, but much less than initially thought). Nobody else had bothered to look at the docs in detail.
motorest 2y ago
> SO is a valueable resource. Chatbots like Copilot, Cursor, Mistral, etc serve the same purpose that StackOverflow does. They do a far better job at it, too. > The problem is not using the tools available. The problem is relying 100% on these tools, with no skill or care of ones own. Nonsense. The same blend of criticism was at one point directed at IDEs and autocompletion. The common thread is ladder-pullers complaining how the new generation doesn't use the ladders they've used. I repeat: we old timers need to do better.

johnisgood 2y ago

I agree. Claude is very useful to me because I know what I am doing and I know what I want it to do. Additionally, I keep telling my friend who is studying data science to use LLMs to his advantage. He could learn a lot and be productive.

jstummbillig 2y ago

But skill will be needed. It's everything that is still necessary between nothing and (good) software existing. It will just rapidly be something that we are not used to, and the rate of change will be challenging, specially for those with specialized, hard earned skills and knowledge that become irrelevant.

strken 2y ago

Yes, they were, for reasons that have turned out to be half-right and half-wrong. At least by some people. Ctrl-c ctrl-v programming was widely derided, but people were also worried about a general inability to RTFM. I had the good fortune to work with a man who convinced me to go read the spec of some of the programming languages I used. I'm told this was reasonably common in the days of yore, but I've only rarely worked on a team with someone else who does it. Reading a spec or manual helps me understand the language and aids with navigating the text later when I use it as documentation. That said, if all the other programmers can do their jobs anyway, is it really so awful for them to learn from StackOverflow and Google? Probably not. I imagine the same is true of LLMs.

jon-wood 2y ago
I also try to read the specification or manual for tools I use, and find the biggest benefit is simply knowing what that tool is capable of, and what the recommended approach to a given problem is when using that tool. Even just skimming the modules available in a language's standard library can get you a long way.
- Tainnor 2y ago
  I was once able to significantly reduce the effort for some feature just by reading the elasticsearch docs and finding that there was a feature (aliases) that did more or less exactly what we needed (it still needed some custom code, but much less than initially thought). Nobody else had bothered to look at the docs in detail.

motorest 2y ago

> SO is a valueable resource. Chatbots like Copilot, Cursor, Mistral, etc serve the same purpose that StackOverflow does. They do a far better job at it, too. > The problem is not using the tools available. The problem is relying 100% on these tools, with no skill or care of ones own. Nonsense. The same blend of criticism was at one point directed at IDEs and autocompletion. The common thread is ladder-pullers complaining how the new generation doesn't use the ladders they've used. I repeat: we old timers need to do better.