5 ms·
The Learning Loop and LLMs
- crabmusket 11mo ago"Programming as theory building" still undefeated. Also, fun to see the literal section separator glyphs from "A Pattern Language" turn up.
- Animats 11mo agoFront end design should have been all drag and drop years ago. LLMs should be doing it now. If it were not for the fact that HTML is a terrible way to encode a 2D layout, it would have been.
- IshKebab 11mo agoI mostly agree. I think it isn't drag and drop because it's surprisingly hard to make a GUI builder interface that doesn't suck balls. Some manage it though, like QtCreator. I guess there is stuff like SquareSpace. No idea how good it is though. And FrontPage back in the day but that sucked.
- genghisjahn 11mo agoVB6. yeah it was battleship gray, but you could amazing things.
- shadowgovt 11mo agoVB6 UIs are the color of getting work done. ;)
- LtWorf 11mo agoAmazing, unless you wanted to resize the window that is.
- blibble 11mo agodelphi had that sorted
- genghisjahn 11mo agoDude,you could easily resize. There was the MDI form as well. You could snap controls to a fixed width to the edge of the window. VB6 is hanging out in the cooldown tent while the rest of front end tech stack still has laps to go.
- LtWorf 11mo agoI know you could resize, but it didn't have layouts like Qt has, so the content of the window would not resize :D
- shadowgovt 11mo agoMy favorite in that regard was Interface Builder, though I must admit it's been so long since I wrote MacOSX software that I haven't had use for it in ages. The ability to drop components in and then move the window around and have them respond as they will in the live program was peak WYSIWYG UI editing. I have not experienced better and I doubt I will.
- recursive 11mo agoHTML is a good enough way of representing a superset of different layout types. It seems display: grid does most of the 2d constraint things that people always used to talk about. I don't know the state of the art for drag-drop grid layout builders, but it seems possible that one could be built.
- nawgz 11mo agoI often hear this, and to an extent I don't disagree. There is an absurd amount of complexity that goes behind CSS/JS/HTML to make it function how it does. Browsers are true monstrosities. But what alternatives are really left behind here that you view as superior? To me, it is obvious the entire world sees a very high value in how much power can be delivered in a tiny payload via networked JS powering an HTML/CSS app. Are there really other things that can be viewed as equally powerful to HTML which are also able to pack such an information dense punch?
- Animats 11mo ago> tiny payload Er, no. Go watch some major site load.
- nawgz 11mo agoWhy the bad faith answer? Even a bloated, ad-ridden modern web bundle is tiny compared to native apps. And I'd be happy to hear about an interesting app delivery platform which makes 1s of MBs look absurdly large. I think you and I both know a 200kB gzipped web app can be a very powerful tool, so I don't understand what angle you're approaching this from.
- mkoubaa 11mo agoThe problem with drag drop frontend is the code generators that support that end up tightly coupling the document with the code, which doesn't lead to good testability and scalability. I'm optimistic that LLMs could accomplish a visual design paradigm while still designing the code in good taste, but so far I'm not holding my breath.
- Gigachad 11mo agoIt was drag and drop before we decided websites should work on different screen sizes. And that it should adapt to every size more elegantly than a word document randomly changing layout when things move.
- xnx 11mo agoDefinitely a challenge, but many Windows 95 era apps also handled resizeable windows and screens that could be 16x resolution difference.
- RobRivera 11mo agoI thoroughly love the meta programming features of cpp to generate code for me.
- YouAreWRONGtoo 11mo ago[dead]
- dboreham 11mo agoSpoiler: the author used LLMs to automate much of his development work.
- yahoozoo 11mo agoAnd write this article.
- fsndz 11mo agowe can't automate it anyway and vibe coding is overrated: https://medium.com/thoughts-on-machine-learning/vibe-coding-is-overrated-2aa0ed81e9cb https://medium.com/thoughts-on-machine-learning/vibe-coding-...
- shadowgovt 11mo agoHm... I think I get what Mr. Joshi is saying, but the headline clashes with the notion that the essence of what we do is automation, and that includes automating the automation. This at first blush smells like "Don't write code that writes code," which... Some of the most useful tools I've ever written are macros to automate patterns in code, and I know that's not what he means. Perhaps a better way to say it is "Automating writing software doesn't remove the need to understand it?"
- Jtsummers 11mo ago> I think I get what Mr. Fowler is saying Martin Fowler isn't the author, though. The author is Unmesh Joshi.
- shadowgovt 11mo agoThank you! Corrected.
- onion2k 11mo agoLearning what though? When I wrote software I learn the domain, the problem space, the architecture, the requirements, etc, as well as how to turn those things into code. I don't actually care about the code though - as soon as something changes I'll throw the code out or change it. It's an artefact of the process of solving a problem, which isn't the important bit. The abstract solution is what I care about. LLMs only really help to automate the production of the least important bit. That's fine.
- dionian 11mo agoI use llm to generate a lot of code but a large part of what i use it for is orchestration, testing, validation. that's not always 'learning', and by the way, i learn by watching the llm decide and execute, as it draws from knowledge pools faster than me.
- LtWorf 11mo agoYou're not learning
- raw_anon_1111 11mo agoIs he getting paid? At the the of the day that’s the only reason I write code or do anything else once I get out of bed, walk over to the next room and log onto my computer. Before the pearl clutching starts about Mr lack of coding ability. I started coding in 1986 in assembly on an Apple //e and spent the first dozen years of my career doing C and C++ bit twiddling
- LtWorf 11mo agoHis claim is that he is learning, not if he's making money or not.
- Calavar 11mo ago> Learning what though? When I wrote software I learn the domain, the problem space, the architecture, the requirements, etc You don't learn these things by writing code? This is genuinely interesting to me because it seems that different groups of people have dramatically different ways of approaching software development For me, the act of writing code reveals places where the requirements were underspecifed or the architecture runs into a serious snag. I can understand a problem space at a high level based on problem statements and UML diagrams, but I can only truly grok it by writing code.
- chemotaxis 11mo agoIn itself, I'm not sure this is a great argument. Putting shoes on a horse is an act of learning. Butchering your own pig is an act of learning. Sewing your own clothes is an act of learning. Writing your own operating system is an act of learning... but if you don't do any of that, you're not necessarily worse off. Maybe you just have more time to learn other things. Maybe there's a broader critique of LLMs in here: if you outsource most of your intellectual activity to an LLM, what else is left? But I don't think this is the argument the author is making.
- johannes1234321 11mo agoThere are parts of software development, which requires understanding purpose and code and making good decisions or having in depth understanding to ootikize. And there are parts where it's just boring ceremony for using a library or doing some refactorings. The first one is mostly requiring experienced humans, the alter one is boring and good to automate. The problem is with all the in between. And in getting people to be able to do the first. There AI can be a tool and a distraction.
- AnIrishDuck 11mo agoThe most critical skill in the coming era, assuming that AI follows its current trajectory and there are no research breakthroughs for e.g. continual learning is going to be delegation. The art of knowing what work to keep, what work to toss to the bot, and how to verify it has actually completed the task to a satisfactory level. It'll be different than delegating to a human; as the technology currently sits, there is no point giving out "learning tasks". I also imagine it'll be a good idea to keep enough tasks to keep your own skills sharp, so if anything kinda the reverse.
- MarsIronPI 11mo ago> There are parts of software development, which requires understanding purpose and code and making good decisions or having in depth understanding to ootikize. And there are parts where it's just boring ceremony for using a library or doing some refactorings. I feel like maybe I'm preaching to the choir by saying this on HN, but this is what Paul Graham means when he says that languages should be as concise as possible, in terms of number of elements required. He means that the only thing the language should require you to write is what's strictly necessary to describe what you want.
- huflungdung 11mo ago[dead]
- dionian 11mo ago> I recently developed a framework for building distributed systems—based on the patterns I describe in my book. I experimented heavily with LLMs. They helped in brainstorming, naming, and generating boilerplate. But just as often, they produced code that was subtly wrong or misaligned with the deeper intent. I had to throw away large sections and start from scratch. Well i do this but i force it to make my code modular and i replace whole parts quite often, but it's tactical moves in an overall strategy. The LLM generates crap, however, it can replace crap quite efficiently with the right guidance.
- bossyTeacher 11mo agoSo is drawing and painting. Didn't stop many techies in here from using it. Many techies believe their tech is improving the world even when their tech is stealing people's copyrighted art or making people depressed.
- Gigachad 11mo agoTech bros here could see that their tech is being used to round up people for camps or blow up children and somehow tell themselves they are doing the right thing.
- Jtsummers 11mo agoThe actual title is: The Learning Loop and LLMs For some reason johnwheeler editorialized it, and most of the comments are responding to the title and not the contents of the article (though that's normal regardless of whether the correct title or a different one is used, it's HN tradition).
- sedatk 11mo agoDoes the editorialized title contradict with the article?
- Jtsummers 11mo agoYes. The editorialized title includes a statement not present in the article at all, "Don't automate". Joshi actually describes how he has used LLMs and his experience with them, and he never says not to use them at all which is what the editorialized title suggested. The bulk of the article is describing how LLMs can break the learning loop (as hinted at in the original title) which is a much more interesting topic than HTML code generation a bunch of people are talking about. [The title has been changed, presumably by a mod. For anyone coming later it was originally incorrect and included statements not present in the article.]
- sedatk 11mo agoI'm glad that it's resolved then.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- xnx 11mo agoI'm happy to learn the essential complexity (e.g. business logic) but see low/no value in learning incidental complexity (code implementation details).
- ares623 11mo agoSpoken like a true CEO. LLMs makes everyone feel like CEOs. Imagine a world where everyone thinks they're CEOs.
- tharne 11mo agoThis one of the things that frightens me about LLMs. Like MBA programs, they seem to make people dumber over time, while simultaneously making them feel smarter and more confident in their abilities.
- ares623 11mo agoThere’s the smarter/dumber aspect yes. But there’s also the empathy aspect. You start looking at other people and their work and you immediately think “what a fucking waste. AI could’ve done that. What the hell is wrong with that person?”
- xnx 11mo agoDumber? Different eras call for different skills. Is the US populace dumb because it doesn't know how to dip candles or render soap?
- aeturnum 11mo agoThe way I talk about is is that the value you deliver as a software "engineer" is: taste and good guesses. Anyone can bang out code given enough time. Anyone can read docs on how to implement an algorithm and implement it eventually. The way you deliver value is by having a feel for the service and good instincts about where to look first and how to approach problems. The only way to develop that taste and familiarity is to work on stuff yourself. Once you can show, without doubt, what you should do software engineers have very little value. The reason they are still essential is that product choices are generally made under very ambiguous conditions. John Carmack said "If you aren't sure which way to do something, do it both ways and see which works better."[1] This might seem like it goes against what I am saying but actually narrowing "everything possible" to two options is huge value! That is a lot of what you provide as an engineer and the only way you are going to hone that sense is by working on your company's' product in production. [1] https://aeflash.com/2013-01/john-carmack.html https://aeflash.com/2013-01/john-carmack.html
- sega_sai 11mo agoI agree, writing some software requires learning and understanding. But sometimes, one just needs something done (if one's job is not software engineer) and then LLMs are indispensable. Also in some software projects (at least in my personal experience) there is stuff that is important and requires thought, and a lot of other stuff that's just boilerplate, connecting this to that etc. I am more than happy to delegate that. It gives me more time to think about stuff that's actually important.
- redhale 11mo agoRespectfully disagree. Why is the current level of language abstraction the ideal one for learning, which must be preserved? Why not C? Why not COBOL? Why not assembly? Why not binary? My hypothesis is that we can and will adapt to experience the same kind of learning OP describes at a higher level of abstraction, specs implemented by agents. It will take time to adapt to that reality, and the patterns and practices we have today will have to evolve. But I think OP's view is too short-sighted, rooted in what they know and are most comfortable with. We're going to need to be uncomfortable for a bit.
- RexFactorem 11mo ago[dead]
- andai 11mo ago>leaving us with zero internalized knowledge of the complex machinery we've just adopted To be fair I have this with my own code, about 3 days after writing it.
- Terr_ 11mo ago> Software development has always resisted the idea that it can be turned into an assembly line. This is... only true in a very very narrow sense. Broadly, it's our job to create assembly lines. We name them and package them up, and even share them around. Sometimes we even delve into FactoryFactoryFactory. > The people writing code aren't just 'implementers'; they are central to discovering the right design. I often remember the title of a paper from 40 years ago "Programming as Theory Building". (And comparatively-recently discussed here [0].) This framing also helps highlight the strengths and dangers of LLMs. The same aspects that lead internet-philosophers into crackpot theories can affect programmers creating their no-so-philosophical ones. (Sycophancy, false appearance of authoritative data, etc.) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42592543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42592543
- auggierose 11mo agoNo, what I think LLMs really teach us is that we have too many different languages. I think we need exactly one informal one, and exactly one formal one, and that's about it.
- Jtsummers 11mo agoWhat would those two languages be, or what out there now is most like what you think they should be?
- jmogly 11mo agoPython and Rust are probably the front runners
- DocSportello 11mo agoI think what the grandparent meant was one human language (e.g. English) and one machine language (e.g. Python).
- marcus_holmes 11mo agoThis ignores learning styles [0], and assumes that everyone learns by experimentation. Some people don't, they learn by reading/studying and don't ever need to experiment. They go from reading all the literature on the subject to building stuff on the first try. Of course they still make mistakes and learn from those mistakes, but they don't experiment to find out what went wrong; they go back to the books/blogs/docs and work out what they did wrong, then correct the code and try again. Similarly there are some engineering departments that absolutely do design everything first and only then code it up, and if there are problems in the coding stage they go back to design. I'm not saying they're efficient or that this is best practice, but it suits some organisations. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles there's a ton of different approaches to this, and a lot of it is now discredited. But the core concept: that people learn differently, isn't disputed.
- Jtsummers 11mo ago> Similarly there are some engineering departments that absolutely do design everything first and only then code it up, and if there are problems in the coding stage they go back to design. That sounds like a slow-motion experiment, not a lack of experimentation.
- keeganpoppen 11mo agothe tool is actually FOR learning, not for replacing it. acting like LLMs are somehow supposed to reflect back more bits than they take in is input is completely absurd to me. i bet my left kidney that i could take the patterns he describes in his book and get an LLM to reproduce them faithfully. and do it with fewer tokens than the book itself.
- discreteevent 11mo agoThis is by far the best piece I have read in relation to programming and LLMs. Not just, on how to approach LLMs as a programmer, but on the nature of programming itself. Inexperienced programmers, in particular, who come across this will be lucky indeed.