5 ms·

That scene is changing so quickly that you will want to try again right now if you can. While LLM code generation is very much still a mixed bag, it has been a

That scene is changing so quickly that you will want to try again right now if you can. While LLM code generation is very much still a mixed bag, it has been a significant accelerator in my own productivity, and for the most part all I am using is o1 (via the openAI website), deepseek, and jetbrains' AI service (Copilot clone). I'm eager to play with some of the other tooling available to VS Code users (such as cline) I don't know why everyone is so eager to "get to the fun stuff". Dev is supposed to be boring. If you don't like it maybe you should be doing something else.

hansmayer 2y ago
I mean I literally "tried it again" this morning, as a paying Copilot customer of 12 months, to the result I already described. And I do not want to "try it" - based on fluffy promises we've been hearing, it should "just work". Are you old enough to remember that phrase? It was a motto introduced by an engineering legend whose devices you're likely using every day. The reason why "everyone", including myself with 20+ years of experience is looking to do not "fun stuff" (please don't shove words into my mouth), but cool stuff (=hard problems) is that it produces an intrinsic sense of satisfaction, which in turn creates motivation to do more and eventually even produces wider gain for the society. Some of us went into engineering because of passion you know. We're not all former copy-writers retrained to be "frontend developers" for a higher salary, who are eager to push around CSS boxes. That's important work too, but I've definitely solved harder problems in my career. If it's boring for you and you think it's how it should be, then you are definitely doing it for the wrong reasons (I am assuming escaping a less profitable career).
- bobxmax 2y ago
  None of this stuff even existed 3 years ago and you're asking like we're talking about self-driving cars. What hubris. My god.
  - hansmayer 2y ago
    There is no hubris. The LLM technology has actually been existing for at least two decades, it's not some sudden breakthrough we suddenly discovered. And given the many billions of dollars it has sucked in, it's definitely a pile of crap. I have been a paying customer of Github Copilot for at least a year. Since the google search has been completely messed up, sometimes it can be useful to look up some cryptic error message. It can also sometimes help recall syntax of something. But it's not the magic machine they've been touting, it's definitely not the AGI, and my god, it's very prone to errors and to anyone who admires this tech, please for the love of god double- and tripple-check the crap that they generate, before you commit it to production. And by now it definitely feels like the 'self-driving' cars 'revolution'. They have been 'just around the corner', for like what, 15 years now?
    - miguelacevedo 2y ago
      I’m sorry but you will be the first to go in this new age. LLMs today are absolutely mind blowing, along with this image stuff. Either learn to adapt or remain a boomer.
      - hansmayer 2y ago
        Go where mate, to Sam Altman's retirement home for UBI recipients ? I studied neural networks while you were still a "concept of a plan" in the mind of your parents and unlike you, I know how they work. As one of the early and paying adopters of the technology, it would have been great if they worked as advertised. But they don't, and the only people "to go" will be idiots who think that a technology that 1) anyone can use 2) produces un-reliable outputs.. 3)..while sounding authoritative makes them an expert. Guess what, if both you and your buddy and your entire school can spin up a website with a few prompts, how much is your "skill" worth on the market? Ever heard of demand and offering? To me looks eerily similar to how the smartphones and social networks made everyone "technologists" ;)
    - bobxmax 2y ago
      No, LLMs have not exited for two decades. What a stupid comment. Millions of people are spending thousands of dollars because they're recieving tens of thousands of dollars of value from it. Of course it's impossible to explain that to thickheaded dinosaurs on HN who think they're better than everyone and god's gift to IQ.
  - Jensson 2y ago
    > None of this stuff even existed 3 years ago Copilot has existed since 2021. "What hubris. My god." listen to yourself...
    - bobxmax 2y ago
      Wow 4 years ago you sure showed me buddy
- pdntspa 2y ago
  Steve Jobs may be a legend at business, but an engineer he is not. To say nothing of the fact that whole reason "it just works" is because of said engineering. If you would like to be the innovator that finally solves that, then great! Otherwise you're just bloviating, and by god do we already have enough of that in this field. I'm approaching 20 years of professional SWE experience myself. The boring shit is my bread and butter and its what pays the bills and then some. The business community trying to eliminate that should be seen as a very serious threat to all our futures. AI is an extraordinary tool, if you can't make it work for you, you either suck at prompting, or are using the wrong tools, or are working in the wrong space. I've stated what I use, why not give those things a try?
  - hansmayer 2y ago
    The point is not the individual tools, which at this point are just wrappers around the major LLMs. The point is the snake oil salesmen of major LLM companies have been telling us for several years now that it is "just about to happen". A new technology revolution. A new post-scarcity world if you will. A tremendous increase in technological output, unleashed creativity etc. Altman routinely blabs about achieving AGI. Meanwhile hallucination of the models is a known feature, unfortunately it's not a bug we can fix. The hallucinations will never go away, because the LLM models are advanced text generators (quoting Charles Petzold) producing text based on essentially probability that one token should follow the next one. That means mate, you can be a superstar at the "advanced" skill of "prompting" (i.e. typing in conversational english language sentences), the crappy tool will still produce output that does not make sense, for example type out code with non-existing framework methods etc. Why? Because with every prompt, you retrain and re-tune the model a little bit. They don't even hold the authority of a dusty old encyclopedia. You use several tools simultaneously, why? Because you cannot really rely on any of them. So you try to get a mean minimum out of several. But a mean minimum of a sum of crap, will still end up crap. If any of the the 3-4 major LLM engines had any competitive advantages, they would have literally obliterated the competition by now. Why is that not happening? Where is the LLM equivalent of nascent Google obliterating Altavista and Excite or an equivalent of Windows 95 taking the PC, React taking over the web frontend etc? And by the way, you know that there was another famous guy at Apple, right?
- cma 2y ago
  Copilot doesn't use the full context length. Write scripts to dump relevant code into claude with it's 200K or the new Gemini with even more. It does much better with as much relevant stuff as you can get into context.
  - hansmayer 2y ago
    But I don't want to write additional scripts or do whatever additional work to make the 'wonder tool' work. I don't mind an occassional rewording of the prompt. But it is supposed to work more or less out of the box, at least this is how all of the LLMs are being advertised, all the time (even the lead article for this discussion).
    - cma 2y ago
      LLMs are also primarily promoted through the web chat interface, not always magic wonder tools. With any project that will fit in claude/gemini's large context you use those interfaces and dump everything in with something like this: (tree Source/; echo; for file in $(find Source/ -type f ) ; do echo ======== $file: ; cat $file; done ) > /mnt/c/Users/you/Desktop/claude_out.txt #claudesource Then drag that into the chat. You can also do stuff like pass in just the headers and a few relevant files (tree Source/; echo; for file in $(find Source/ -type f -name '\*.h' ; echo Source/path/to/{file1,file2,file3}.cpp ) ; do echo ======== $file: ; cat $file; done ) > /mnt/c/Users/you/Desktop/claude_out.txt #claudeheaderselective You can then just hit ctrl+r and type claude to refind it in shell history. Maybe that's too close to "writing scripts" for you but if you are searching a large codebase effectively without AI you are constantly writing stuff like that and now it reads it for you. Put the command itself into claude too and tell claude itself to write a similar one for all the implementation files it finds it needs while looking those relevant files and headers. If you want a wonder tool that will navigate and handle the context window and get in the right files into context for huge projects, try claude code or other agents, but they are still undergoing rapid improvements. Cursor has started adding some in too but as subscription calling into an expensive API they cost cut a lot on trying to minimize context. They also let you now just point it at a github project and pull in what it needs, or tools build around the api model context protocol etc. to let it browse and pull it in.
- joquarky 2y ago
  > is that it produces an intrinsic sense of satisfaction, which in turn creates motivation to do more and eventually even produces wider gain for the society. Which society? Because lately it looks like the tech leaders are on a rampage to destroy the society I live in.
  - hansmayer 2y ago
    Big-Tech, yes. But not everyone is big tech.

hansmayer 2y ago

I mean I literally "tried it again" this morning, as a paying Copilot customer of 12 months, to the result I already described. And I do not want to "try it" - based on fluffy promises we've been hearing, it should "just work". Are you old enough to remember that phrase? It was a motto introduced by an engineering legend whose devices you're likely using every day. The reason why "everyone", including myself with 20+ years of experience is looking to do not "fun stuff" (please don't shove words into my mouth), but cool stuff (=hard problems) is that it produces an intrinsic sense of satisfaction, which in turn creates motivation to do more and eventually even produces wider gain for the society. Some of us went into engineering because of passion you know. We're not all former copy-writers retrained to be "frontend developers" for a higher salary, who are eager to push around CSS boxes. That's important work too, but I've definitely solved harder problems in my career. If it's boring for you and you think it's how it should be, then you are definitely doing it for the wrong reasons (I am assuming escaping a less profitable career).

bobxmax 2y ago
None of this stuff even existed 3 years ago and you're asking like we're talking about self-driving cars. What hubris. My god.
- hansmayer 2y ago
  There is no hubris. The LLM technology has actually been existing for at least two decades, it's not some sudden breakthrough we suddenly discovered. And given the many billions of dollars it has sucked in, it's definitely a pile of crap. I have been a paying customer of Github Copilot for at least a year. Since the google search has been completely messed up, sometimes it can be useful to look up some cryptic error message. It can also sometimes help recall syntax of something. But it's not the magic machine they've been touting, it's definitely not the AGI, and my god, it's very prone to errors and to anyone who admires this tech, please for the love of god double- and tripple-check the crap that they generate, before you commit it to production. And by now it definitely feels like the 'self-driving' cars 'revolution'. They have been 'just around the corner', for like what, 15 years now?
  - miguelacevedo 2y ago
    I’m sorry but you will be the first to go in this new age. LLMs today are absolutely mind blowing, along with this image stuff. Either learn to adapt or remain a boomer.
    - hansmayer 2y ago
      Go where mate, to Sam Altman's retirement home for UBI recipients ? I studied neural networks while you were still a "concept of a plan" in the mind of your parents and unlike you, I know how they work. As one of the early and paying adopters of the technology, it would have been great if they worked as advertised. But they don't, and the only people "to go" will be idiots who think that a technology that 1) anyone can use 2) produces un-reliable outputs.. 3)..while sounding authoritative makes them an expert. Guess what, if both you and your buddy and your entire school can spin up a website with a few prompts, how much is your "skill" worth on the market? Ever heard of demand and offering? To me looks eerily similar to how the smartphones and social networks made everyone "technologists" ;)
  - bobxmax 2y ago
    No, LLMs have not exited for two decades. What a stupid comment. Millions of people are spending thousands of dollars because they're recieving tens of thousands of dollars of value from it. Of course it's impossible to explain that to thickheaded dinosaurs on HN who think they're better than everyone and god's gift to IQ.
- Jensson 2y ago
  > None of this stuff even existed 3 years ago Copilot has existed since 2021. "What hubris. My god." listen to yourself...
  - bobxmax 2y ago
    Wow 4 years ago you sure showed me buddy
pdntspa 2y ago
Steve Jobs may be a legend at business, but an engineer he is not. To say nothing of the fact that whole reason "it just works" is because of said engineering. If you would like to be the innovator that finally solves that, then great! Otherwise you're just bloviating, and by god do we already have enough of that in this field. I'm approaching 20 years of professional SWE experience myself. The boring shit is my bread and butter and its what pays the bills and then some. The business community trying to eliminate that should be seen as a very serious threat to all our futures. AI is an extraordinary tool, if you can't make it work for you, you either suck at prompting, or are using the wrong tools, or are working in the wrong space. I've stated what I use, why not give those things a try?
- hansmayer 2y ago
  The point is not the individual tools, which at this point are just wrappers around the major LLMs. The point is the snake oil salesmen of major LLM companies have been telling us for several years now that it is "just about to happen". A new technology revolution. A new post-scarcity world if you will. A tremendous increase in technological output, unleashed creativity etc. Altman routinely blabs about achieving AGI. Meanwhile hallucination of the models is a known feature, unfortunately it's not a bug we can fix. The hallucinations will never go away, because the LLM models are advanced text generators (quoting Charles Petzold) producing text based on essentially probability that one token should follow the next one. That means mate, you can be a superstar at the "advanced" skill of "prompting" (i.e. typing in conversational english language sentences), the crappy tool will still produce output that does not make sense, for example type out code with non-existing framework methods etc. Why? Because with every prompt, you retrain and re-tune the model a little bit. They don't even hold the authority of a dusty old encyclopedia. You use several tools simultaneously, why? Because you cannot really rely on any of them. So you try to get a mean minimum out of several. But a mean minimum of a sum of crap, will still end up crap. If any of the the 3-4 major LLM engines had any competitive advantages, they would have literally obliterated the competition by now. Why is that not happening? Where is the LLM equivalent of nascent Google obliterating Altavista and Excite or an equivalent of Windows 95 taking the PC, React taking over the web frontend etc? And by the way, you know that there was another famous guy at Apple, right?
cma 2y ago
Copilot doesn't use the full context length. Write scripts to dump relevant code into claude with it's 200K or the new Gemini with even more. It does much better with as much relevant stuff as you can get into context.
- hansmayer 2y ago
  But I don't want to write additional scripts or do whatever additional work to make the 'wonder tool' work. I don't mind an occassional rewording of the prompt. But it is supposed to work more or less out of the box, at least this is how all of the LLMs are being advertised, all the time (even the lead article for this discussion).
  - cma 2y ago
    LLMs are also primarily promoted through the web chat interface, not always magic wonder tools. With any project that will fit in claude/gemini's large context you use those interfaces and dump everything in with something like this: (tree Source/; echo; for file in $(find Source/ -type f ) ; do echo ======== $file: ; cat $file; done ) > /mnt/c/Users/you/Desktop/claude_out.txt #claudesource Then drag that into the chat. You can also do stuff like pass in just the headers and a few relevant files (tree Source/; echo; for file in $(find Source/ -type f -name '\*.h' ; echo Source/path/to/{file1,file2,file3}.cpp ) ; do echo ======== $file: ; cat $file; done ) > /mnt/c/Users/you/Desktop/claude_out.txt #claudeheaderselective You can then just hit ctrl+r and type claude to refind it in shell history. Maybe that's too close to "writing scripts" for you but if you are searching a large codebase effectively without AI you are constantly writing stuff like that and now it reads it for you. Put the command itself into claude too and tell claude itself to write a similar one for all the implementation files it finds it needs while looking those relevant files and headers. If you want a wonder tool that will navigate and handle the context window and get in the right files into context for huge projects, try claude code or other agents, but they are still undergoing rapid improvements. Cursor has started adding some in too but as subscription calling into an expensive API they cost cut a lot on trying to minimize context. They also let you now just point it at a github project and pull in what it needs, or tools build around the api model context protocol etc. to let it browse and pull it in.
joquarky 2y ago
> is that it produces an intrinsic sense of satisfaction, which in turn creates motivation to do more and eventually even produces wider gain for the society. Which society? Because lately it looks like the tech leaders are on a rampage to destroy the society I live in.
- hansmayer 2y ago
  Big-Tech, yes. But not everyone is big tech.