5 ms·

Coding can only be done by replicators born out of carbon, I imagine?

by exe34 1y ago

shortrounddev2 1y ago
No, coding can be done by machines. But if you're telling a machine what to program, you're not coding. The machine is. Youre no longer a programmer, you're just a user.
- awesome_dude 1y ago
  Ummm, my entire career I have been telling machines what to program, the machines are taking my garbage C/Go/Python/Perl/whatever prompts and translating it to ASM/Machine code that oher machines will use to do... stuff
  - shortrounddev2 1y ago
    They're substantively different. Using a compiler requires you to have an internalized model of a state machine and, importantly, a formal language. C, assembler, java, etc. are all essentially different from using the softness of the English language to coerce results out of a black box
    - awesome_dude 1y ago
      No, not at all. In both all you need is the ability to communicate to the machine in a way that the machine can convert your ideas into actions. The restricted language of a compiler is a handicap, not evidence of a skill - we've been saying forever that "Natural Language" compilers would be a game changer, and that's all that an AI really is Edit: It appears that this discussion is going to end up with a definition of "coding" Is it coding if you tell the computer to perform some action, or is it coding if you tell it how to do that in some highly optimised way (for varying definitions of optimised, eg. Memory efficient, CPU efficient, Dev time efficient... etc)
      - shortrounddev2 1y ago
        It is not coding if you use natural human language
        awesome_dude 1y ago
        How so? BASIC was supposed to be astep toward using a natural human language, and a number of Microsoft products were too. As I said before, we've been wanting to use a Natural Human Language for programming for a long time. Edit: adding a wikipedia reference because apparently I am the only person on the planet that has been looking for a way to use a Natural Human Language for programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_language_programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_language_programming Second Edit: Adding the following paragraph from the wikipedia page for emphasis Researchers have started to experiment with natural language programming environments that use plain language prompts and then use AI (specifically large language models) to turn natural language into formal code. For example Spatial Pixel created a natural language programming environment to turn natural language into P5.js code through OpenAI's API. In 2021 OpenAI developed a natural language programming environment for their programming large language model called Codex.
        shortrounddev2 1y ago
        Maybe you have. I would like no such thing.
        awesome_dude 1y ago
        Oh, and.. who are you?
        exe34 1y ago
        I think after all the goalpost moving, we have to ask - why the bitflip does it matter what we call it? Some people are getting a lot of work done using LLMs. Some of us are using it on occasion to handle thing we don't understand deeply but can trivially verify. Some of us are using it out of laziness because it helps with boilerplate. Everyone who is using it outside of occasional tests is doing it because they find it useful to write code. If it's not coding, then I personally couldn't care less. Only a True Scotsman should case.
- aryonoco 1y ago
  Unless you’re writing pure assembly, aren’t we all using machines to generate code?
  - shortrounddev2 1y ago
    I suppose a more rigorous definition would be useful. We can probably make it more narrow as time goes on To me, the essence of coding is about using formal languages and definable state machines (i.e, your toolchain) to manipulate the state of a machine in a predictable way. C, C++, even with their litany of undefined behavior, are still formal languages, and their compilers can still be predicted and understood (no matter how difficult that is). If the compiler does something unexpected, its because you, the programmer, lacked the knowledge of either the language or the compiler's state. Vibe coding uses natural languages, and interacts with programs whose state is not only unknown, but unknowable. The machine, for the same input, may produce wildly different output. If the machine produces unexpected code, its not because of a lack of knowledge on the part of it programmer - its because the machine is inherently unpredictable and requires more prodding in soft, fuzzy, natural language. Telling something what outcomes you want, even if described in technical terms only a programmer would understand, is not coding. It's essentially just being a project manager. Now you may ask - who cares about this no true Scotsman fallacy? If its coding or not coding, we are still producing a program which serves the product needs of the customer. Personally, I did not learn to code because I give a shit about the product needs of the customer, or the financial wellbeing of the business. I enjoy coding for its own sake - because it is fun to use systems of well defined rules to solve problems. Learning and using C++ is fun, for me; it seems every day i learn something new about the language and how the compiler behaves and I've been using C++ for several years (and I started learning it when I was 12!) Describing the outcome or goal of a project in natural human language sounds like a nightmare, to be honest. I became a software engineer so I could minimize the amount of natural language required to succeed in life. Natural language has gotten me (and, I suspect, people like me) in trouble over and over again throughout adolescence, but I've never written a piece of code that was misunderstood or ambiguous enough for people to become threatened by or outraged by it. I think the disconnect is that some people care about products, and some people care about code.

Coding can only be done by replicators born out of carbon, I imagine?

by exe34 1y ago

Coding can only be done by replicators born out of carbon, I imagine?

No, coding can be done by machines. But if you're telling a machine what to program, you're not coding. The machine is. Youre no longer a programmer, you're just a user.

awesome_dude 1y ago
Ummm, my entire career I have been telling machines what to program, the machines are taking my garbage C/Go/Python/Perl/whatever prompts and translating it to ASM/Machine code that oher machines will use to do... stuff
- shortrounddev2 1y ago
  They're substantively different. Using a compiler requires you to have an internalized model of a state machine and, importantly, a formal language. C, assembler, java, etc. are all essentially different from using the softness of the English language to coerce results out of a black box
  - awesome_dude 1y ago
    No, not at all. In both all you need is the ability to communicate to the machine in a way that the machine can convert your ideas into actions. The restricted language of a compiler is a handicap, not evidence of a skill - we've been saying forever that "Natural Language" compilers would be a game changer, and that's all that an AI really is Edit: It appears that this discussion is going to end up with a definition of "coding" Is it coding if you tell the computer to perform some action, or is it coding if you tell it how to do that in some highly optimised way (for varying definitions of optimised, eg. Memory efficient, CPU efficient, Dev time efficient... etc)
    - shortrounddev2 1y ago
      It is not coding if you use natural human language
      - awesome_dude 1y ago
        How so? BASIC was supposed to be astep toward using a natural human language, and a number of Microsoft products were too. As I said before, we've been wanting to use a Natural Human Language for programming for a long time. Edit: adding a wikipedia reference because apparently I am the only person on the planet that has been looking for a way to use a Natural Human Language for programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_language_programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_language_programming Second Edit: Adding the following paragraph from the wikipedia page for emphasis Researchers have started to experiment with natural language programming environments that use plain language prompts and then use AI (specifically large language models) to turn natural language into formal code. For example Spatial Pixel created a natural language programming environment to turn natural language into P5.js code through OpenAI's API. In 2021 OpenAI developed a natural language programming environment for their programming large language model called Codex.
        shortrounddev2 1y ago
        Maybe you have. I would like no such thing.
        awesome_dude 1y ago
        Oh, and.. who are you?
      - exe34 1y ago
        I think after all the goalpost moving, we have to ask - why the bitflip does it matter what we call it? Some people are getting a lot of work done using LLMs. Some of us are using it on occasion to handle thing we don't understand deeply but can trivially verify. Some of us are using it out of laziness because it helps with boilerplate. Everyone who is using it outside of occasional tests is doing it because they find it useful to write code. If it's not coding, then I personally couldn't care less. Only a True Scotsman should case.
aryonoco 1y ago
Unless you’re writing pure assembly, aren’t we all using machines to generate code?
- shortrounddev2 1y ago
  I suppose a more rigorous definition would be useful. We can probably make it more narrow as time goes on To me, the essence of coding is about using formal languages and definable state machines (i.e, your toolchain) to manipulate the state of a machine in a predictable way. C, C++, even with their litany of undefined behavior, are still formal languages, and their compilers can still be predicted and understood (no matter how difficult that is). If the compiler does something unexpected, its because you, the programmer, lacked the knowledge of either the language or the compiler's state. Vibe coding uses natural languages, and interacts with programs whose state is not only unknown, but unknowable. The machine, for the same input, may produce wildly different output. If the machine produces unexpected code, its not because of a lack of knowledge on the part of it programmer - its because the machine is inherently unpredictable and requires more prodding in soft, fuzzy, natural language. Telling something what outcomes you want, even if described in technical terms only a programmer would understand, is not coding. It's essentially just being a project manager. Now you may ask - who cares about this no true Scotsman fallacy? If its coding or not coding, we are still producing a program which serves the product needs of the customer. Personally, I did not learn to code because I give a shit about the product needs of the customer, or the financial wellbeing of the business. I enjoy coding for its own sake - because it is fun to use systems of well defined rules to solve problems. Learning and using C++ is fun, for me; it seems every day i learn something new about the language and how the compiler behaves and I've been using C++ for several years (and I started learning it when I was 12!) Describing the outcome or goal of a project in natural human language sounds like a nightmare, to be honest. I became a software engineer so I could minimize the amount of natural language required to succeed in life. Natural language has gotten me (and, I suspect, people like me) in trouble over and over again throughout adolescence, but I've never written a piece of code that was misunderstood or ambiguous enough for people to become threatened by or outraged by it. I think the disconnect is that some people care about products, and some people care about code.