2 ms·
The carpentry analogy seems quite good >Quitting programming as a career right now because of LLMs would be like quitting carpentry as a career thanks to the i
by tim333 1y ago
The carpentry analogy seems quite good
>Quitting programming as a career right now because of LLMs would be like quitting carpentry as a career thanks to the invention of the table saw
I presume carpenters can make a given item much quicker than they could in centuries past but there are still presumably a lot still employed, just doing slightly different things, like maybe sorting fancy custom staircases for new housing rather than churning out chests of draws.
- testing321123 1y ago[dead]
- fleebee 1y agoThe analogy is pretty generous towards LLMs. I like Eevee's response to it in her blog post[1]: >What I do know is that a table saw quickly cuts straight lines. That is the thing it does. It doesn’t do Whatever. It doesn’t sometimes cut wavy lines and sometimes glue pieces together instead. It doesn’t roll some dice and guess what shape of cut you are statistically likely to want based on an extensive database of previous cuts. It cuts a straight f*cking line. >If I were a carpenter, and my colleagues got really into this new thing where you just chuck 2×4s at a spinning whirling mass of blades until a chair comes out the other side… you know, I just might want to switch careers. [1]: https://eev.ee/blog/2025/07/03/the-rise-of-whatever/ https://eev.ee/blog/2025/07/03/the-rise-of-whatever/
- remich 1y agoIf the original framing was too generous, the response is at least as ungenerous. Table saws aren't deterministic tools either, and anyone who has used one for more than a minute can tell you that getting it to consistently cut the straight line you want takes skill.