5 ms·

"Novice mode" has always been true for the newcomer. When I was new, I really was at the mercy of: 1) Authority (whatever a prominent evangelist developer was

by ivape 1y ago

"Novice mode" has always been true for the newcomer. When I was new, I really was at the mercy of: 1) Authority (whatever a prominent evangelist developer was peddling) 2) The book I was following as a guide 3) The tutorial I was following as a guide 4) The consensus of the crowd at the time 5) Whatever worked (SO, brute force, whatever library, whatever magic) It took a long ass time before I got to throw all five of those things out (throw the map away). At the moment, #5 on that list is AI (whatever works). It's a Rite of Passage, and because so much of being a developer involves autodidacticism, this is a valley you must go through. Even so, it's pretty cool when you make it out of that valley (you can do whatever you want without any anxiety about is this the right path?). You are never fearful or lost in the valley(s) for the most part afterward.

boredtofears 1y ago
If you use AI agents for all your work as a novice do you ever make it out of the valley?
- ivape 1y ago
  Yeah. Most people have not deployed enough critical code that was mostly written with AI. It's when that stuff breaks, and they have to debug it with AI, that's when they'll have to contend with the blood, sweat, and tears. That's when the person will swear that they'll never use AI again. The thing is, we can never not use AI ever again. So, this is the trial by fire where many will figure out the depth of the valley and emerge from it with all the lessons. I can only speculate, but I suspect the lessons will be something along the lines of "some things should use less AI than others". I think it's a cool journey, best of luck to the AI-first crowd, you will learn lessons the rest of us are not brave enough to embark on. I already have a basket of lessons, so I travel differently through the valley (hint: My ship still has a helm).
  - juliushuijnk 1y ago
    > that's when they'll have to contend with the blood, sweat, and tears. Or, most software will become immutable. You'll just replace it. You'll throw away the mess, and let a newer LLM build a better version in a couple of days. You ask the LLM to write down the specs for the newer version based on the old code. If that is true, then the crowd that is not brave enough to do AI-first will just be left behind.
    - ivape 1y ago
      If that is true, then the crowd that is not brave enough to do AI-first will just be left behind. Not even, devoured might be more apt. If I'm manually moving through this valley and a flood is coming through, those who are sticking automatic propellers and navigation systems on their ship are going to be the ones that can surf the flood and come out of the valley. We don't know, this is literally the adventure. I'm personally on the side of a hybrid approach. It's fun as hell, best of luck to everyone. It's in poor taste to bring up this example, but I'll mention it as softly as I can. There were some people that went down looking for the Titanic recently. It could have worked, you know what I mean? These are risks we all take. Quoting the Admiral from Starcraft Broodwars cinematic (I'm a learned person): "... You must go into this with both eyes open"
      - dbalatero 1y ago
        > It's in poor taste to bring up this example, but I'll mention it as softly as I can. There were some people that went down looking for the Titanic recently. It could have worked, you know what I mean? Not sure if you drew the right conclusion from that one.
    - aerhardt 1y ago
      The scenario you paint sounds very implausible for non-trivial applications, but even if it ends up becoming the development paradigm, I doubt anyone will be "left behind" as such. People will have time to re-skill. The question is whether some will ever want to or would prefer to take up woodworking.
      - 1y ago
  - andrekandre 1y ago
    > that's when they'll have to contend with the blood, sweat, and tears. That's when the person will swear that they'll never use AI again. sounds like me after my first hangover...
  - conartist6 1y ago
    What leads you to believe non-AI coding is over? I'm not using AI and I'm still an incredibly high velocity engineer because I own my codebase. I've written each line ten times over, like a player who has become highly skilled at one particular game.

by ivape 1y ago

boredtofears 1y ago

If you use AI agents for all your work as a novice do you ever make it out of the valley?

ivape 1y ago
Yeah. Most people have not deployed enough critical code that was mostly written with AI. It's when that stuff breaks, and they have to debug it with AI, that's when they'll have to contend with the blood, sweat, and tears. That's when the person will swear that they'll never use AI again. The thing is, we can never not use AI ever again. So, this is the trial by fire where many will figure out the depth of the valley and emerge from it with all the lessons. I can only speculate, but I suspect the lessons will be something along the lines of "some things should use less AI than others". I think it's a cool journey, best of luck to the AI-first crowd, you will learn lessons the rest of us are not brave enough to embark on. I already have a basket of lessons, so I travel differently through the valley (hint: My ship still has a helm).
- juliushuijnk 1y ago
  > that's when they'll have to contend with the blood, sweat, and tears. Or, most software will become immutable. You'll just replace it. You'll throw away the mess, and let a newer LLM build a better version in a couple of days. You ask the LLM to write down the specs for the newer version based on the old code. If that is true, then the crowd that is not brave enough to do AI-first will just be left behind.
  - ivape 1y ago
    If that is true, then the crowd that is not brave enough to do AI-first will just be left behind. Not even, devoured might be more apt. If I'm manually moving through this valley and a flood is coming through, those who are sticking automatic propellers and navigation systems on their ship are going to be the ones that can surf the flood and come out of the valley. We don't know, this is literally the adventure. I'm personally on the side of a hybrid approach. It's fun as hell, best of luck to everyone. It's in poor taste to bring up this example, but I'll mention it as softly as I can. There were some people that went down looking for the Titanic recently. It could have worked, you know what I mean? These are risks we all take. Quoting the Admiral from Starcraft Broodwars cinematic (I'm a learned person): "... You must go into this with both eyes open"
    - dbalatero 1y ago
      > It's in poor taste to bring up this example, but I'll mention it as softly as I can. There were some people that went down looking for the Titanic recently. It could have worked, you know what I mean? Not sure if you drew the right conclusion from that one.
  - aerhardt 1y ago
    The scenario you paint sounds very implausible for non-trivial applications, but even if it ends up becoming the development paradigm, I doubt anyone will be "left behind" as such. People will have time to re-skill. The question is whether some will ever want to or would prefer to take up woodworking.
    - 1y ago
- andrekandre 1y ago
  > that's when they'll have to contend with the blood, sweat, and tears. That's when the person will swear that they'll never use AI again. sounds like me after my first hangover...
- conartist6 1y ago
  What leads you to believe non-AI coding is over? I'm not using AI and I'm still an incredibly high velocity engineer because I own my codebase. I've written each line ten times over, like a player who has become highly skilled at one particular game.