5 ms·

First, how much of coding is really never done before? And secondly, what you say are false (at least if taken literally). I can create a new programming langu

by Epa095 1y ago

First, how much of coding is really never done before? And secondly, what you say are false (at least if taken literally). I can create a new programming language, give the definition of it in the prompt, ask it to code something in my language, and expect something out. It might even work.

apwell23 1y ago
> how much of coding is really never done before? A lot because we use libraries for 'done frequently before' code. i don't generate a database driver for my webapp with llm.
- Epa095 1y ago
  We use libraries for SOME of the 'done frequently' code. But how much of enterprise programming is 'get some data from a database, show it on a Web page (or gui), store some data in the database', with variants? It makes sense that we have libraries for abstraction away some common things. But it also makes sense that we can't abstract away everything we do multiple times, because at some point it just becomes so abstract that it's easier to write it yourself than to try to configure some library. Does not mean that it's not a variant of something done before.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - apwell23 1y ago
    > it's easier to write it yourself than to try to configure some library yeah unfortunately LLM will make this worse. Why abstract when you can generate. I am already seeing this a lot at work :(
  - sunrunner 1y ago
    > we can't abstract away everything we do multiple times I think there's a fundamental truth about any code that's written which is that it exists on some level of specificity, or to put it in other words, a set of decisions have been made about _how_ something should work (in the space of what _could_ work) while some decisions have been left open to the user. Every library that is used is essentially this. Database driver? Underlying I/O decisions are probably abstracted away already (think Netty vs Mina), and decisions on how to manage connections, protocol handling, bind variables, etc. are made by the library, while questions remain for things like which specific tables and columns should be referenced. This makes the library reusable for this task as long as you're fine with the underlying decisions. Once you get to the question of _which specific data is shown on a page_ the decisions are closer to the human side of how we've arbitrarily chosen to organise things in this specific thousandth-iteration of an e-commerce application. The devil is in the details (even if you know the insides of the devil aren't really any different).
    - skydhash 1y ago
      > Once you get to the question of _which specific data is shown on a page_ the decisions are closer to the human side of how we've arbitrarily chosen to organise things in this specific thousandth-iteration of an e-commerce application. That's why communication is so important, because the requirements are the primary decision factors. A secondary factors is prior technical decisions.
  - lupire 1y ago
    Cue Haskell gang "Design patterns are workarounds for weaknesses in your language".
vidarh 1y ago
> I can create a new programming language, give the definition of it in the prompt, ask it to code something in my language, and expect something out. It might even work. I literally just pointed out the same time without having seen your comment. Second this. I've done this several times, and it can handle it well. Already GPT3.5 could easily reason about hypothetical languages given a grammar or a loose description. I find it absolutely bizarre that people still hold on to this notion that these languages can't do anything new, because it feels implausible that they have tried given how well it works.
- lupire 1y ago
  Second, how much of commenting is really never done before?
  - apwell23 1y ago
    good question. why isn't the gp using llm to generate comments then.
    - vidarh 1y ago
      For some types of comment, it really would be tempting to automate the answers, because especially the "stochastic parrot" type comments are getting really tedious and inane, and ironically comes across as people parroting the same thing over and over instead of thinking. But the other answer is that often the value in responding is to sharpen the mind and be forced to think through and formulate a response even if you've responded to some variation of the comment you reply to many times over. A lot of comments that don't give me any value to read are comments I still get value out of through the process of replying to for that reason.
- skydhash 1y ago
  If you give it the rules to generate something, why can't it generate it? That's what something like Mockaroo[0] does. It's just more formal. That's pretty much what LLM training does, extracting patterns from a huge corpus of text. Then it goes one to generate according to the patterns. It can not generate a new pattern that is not a combination of the previous one. [0]: https://mockaroo.com/ https://mockaroo.com/
bawolff 1y ago
> First, how much of coding is really never done before? Lots of programming doesn't have one specific right answer, but a bunch of possible right answers with different trade-offs. The programmers job isn't just to get working code neccesarily. I dont think we are at the point where llm's can see the forest for the trees, so to speak.

by Epa095 1y ago

apwell23 1y ago

> how much of coding is really never done before? A lot because we use libraries for 'done frequently before' code. i don't generate a database driver for my webapp with llm.

Epa095 1y ago
We use libraries for SOME of the 'done frequently' code. But how much of enterprise programming is 'get some data from a database, show it on a Web page (or gui), store some data in the database', with variants? It makes sense that we have libraries for abstraction away some common things. But it also makes sense that we can't abstract away everything we do multiple times, because at some point it just becomes so abstract that it's easier to write it yourself than to try to configure some library. Does not mean that it's not a variant of something done before.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- apwell23 1y ago
  > it's easier to write it yourself than to try to configure some library yeah unfortunately LLM will make this worse. Why abstract when you can generate. I am already seeing this a lot at work :(
- sunrunner 1y ago
  > we can't abstract away everything we do multiple times I think there's a fundamental truth about any code that's written which is that it exists on some level of specificity, or to put it in other words, a set of decisions have been made about _how_ something should work (in the space of what _could_ work) while some decisions have been left open to the user. Every library that is used is essentially this. Database driver? Underlying I/O decisions are probably abstracted away already (think Netty vs Mina), and decisions on how to manage connections, protocol handling, bind variables, etc. are made by the library, while questions remain for things like which specific tables and columns should be referenced. This makes the library reusable for this task as long as you're fine with the underlying decisions. Once you get to the question of _which specific data is shown on a page_ the decisions are closer to the human side of how we've arbitrarily chosen to organise things in this specific thousandth-iteration of an e-commerce application. The devil is in the details (even if you know the insides of the devil aren't really any different).
  - skydhash 1y ago
    > Once you get to the question of _which specific data is shown on a page_ the decisions are closer to the human side of how we've arbitrarily chosen to organise things in this specific thousandth-iteration of an e-commerce application. That's why communication is so important, because the requirements are the primary decision factors. A secondary factors is prior technical decisions.
- lupire 1y ago
  Cue Haskell gang "Design patterns are workarounds for weaknesses in your language".

vidarh 1y ago

> I can create a new programming language, give the definition of it in the prompt, ask it to code something in my language, and expect something out. It might even work. I literally just pointed out the same time without having seen your comment. Second this. I've done this several times, and it can handle it well. Already GPT3.5 could easily reason about hypothetical languages given a grammar or a loose description. I find it absolutely bizarre that people still hold on to this notion that these languages can't do anything new, because it feels implausible that they have tried given how well it works.

lupire 1y ago
Second, how much of commenting is really never done before?
- apwell23 1y ago
  good question. why isn't the gp using llm to generate comments then.
  - vidarh 1y ago
    For some types of comment, it really would be tempting to automate the answers, because especially the "stochastic parrot" type comments are getting really tedious and inane, and ironically comes across as people parroting the same thing over and over instead of thinking. But the other answer is that often the value in responding is to sharpen the mind and be forced to think through and formulate a response even if you've responded to some variation of the comment you reply to many times over. A lot of comments that don't give me any value to read are comments I still get value out of through the process of replying to for that reason.
skydhash 1y ago
If you give it the rules to generate something, why can't it generate it? That's what something like Mockaroo[0] does. It's just more formal. That's pretty much what LLM training does, extracting patterns from a huge corpus of text. Then it goes one to generate according to the patterns. It can not generate a new pattern that is not a combination of the previous one. [0]: https://mockaroo.com/ https://mockaroo.com/

bawolff 1y ago

> First, how much of coding is really never done before? Lots of programming doesn't have one specific right answer, but a bunch of possible right answers with different trade-offs. The programmers job isn't just to get working code neccesarily. I dont think we are at the point where llm's can see the forest for the trees, so to speak.