5 ms·
To read it in a kinder way, I can focus on a complex logic problem, a flow, an architecture or micro optimisation. I can have an llm setup the test harnesses.
by IanCal 7mo ago
To read it in a kinder way, I can focus on a complex logic problem, a flow, an architecture or micro optimisation. I can have an llm setup the test harnesses.
I improved test speed which was fun, I had an llm write a nice analysis front end to the test timing which would have taken time but just wasn’t interesting or hard.
Ask yourself if there are tasks you have to do which you would rather just have done? You’d install a package if it existed or hand off the work to a junior if that process was easy enough, that kind of thing. Those are places you could probably use an LLM.
- bluefirebrand 7mo ago> Ask yourself if there are tasks you have to do which you would rather just have done? Yeah. My laundry, my dishes, my cooking... You know. Chores. Not my software, I actually enjoy building that
- apsurd 7mo agointeresting comparison to cooking. cooking is a chore and takes effort and people enjoy cooking.
- bluefirebrand 7mo agoEating is also not really optional If you're going to spend a pretty good chunk of your lifetime eating, you might as well get good at it so you can enjoy the food you make
- IanCal 7mo agoDo you want to eat good food or make good food? Is doing the dishes something you hand to a machine or do you always do it by hand? Are there any ingredients you buy pre-made (pesto, curry pastes, do you make your own panko breadcrumbs)?
- apsurd 7mo agoAren't you proving the point that it's nuanced? Thread seems to be saying LLMs are great because they do the dirty work and leave the fun work to humans. The counter-point is not exactly that LLMs aren't capable of doing dirty-work, it's that the nature of work isn't going to split so cleanly. And cooking is a good example. Cooking is work. And slop. And it's also incredibly rewarding and creative, if you want it to be. Robots can help along that entire journey. Maybe this is the core point: "cooking is a solved problem" that's how engineers always think. Except it's not. And 100% automation is still not going to break that discussion so cleanly.
- IanCal 7mo agoThe comment I was responding to was looking at a state where we looked at markdown files instead of programming, my point was to agree with the original quote that they can remove the drudgery. > Maybe this is the core point: "cooking is a solved problem" that's how engineers always think. But it isn’t, that’s a lazy stereotype of a subset.
- apsurd 7mo agoGotcha. the engineer generalization was to plant a stake in the ground. I do hear that quite often, especially from higher titled engineers. in any case, definitely admit it's not all of them, and perhaps it's even a vocal minority that i'm better served to intentionally work to expand my influences.
- bluefirebrand 7mo agoMy point, which you seem to have missed, is that people have an intrinsic incentive to care about learning to cook because eating is something we have to do every single day regardless No such incentive exists for building software
- IanCal 7mo agoNo such incentive exists for an enormous amount of what humans do. People don’t only build software because they have to.
- DennisP 7mo agoI enjoy solving interesting problems in software. But when I was doing it for a living, the majority of my work was pretty tedious. I'd have been thrilled to turn over that part to AI and spend all my time doing the interesting stuff.
- bluefirebrand 7mo agoThis is a fools errand We are paid to do the tedious stuff because it is tedious. If we actually ever succeed in automating away the tedious stuff, we're out of work
- DennisP 7mo agoThere definitely is economic value in solving the more challenging problems. Junior devs who can only do the tedious parts have lower salaries.
- bluefirebrand 7mo agoThere are way fewer challenging problems that people are willing to pay me to solve. Sure I would love to be working on some cutting edge challenging stuff, but the reality is it has been much more realistic to do the tedious stuff for pay instead
- kjkjadksj 7mo agoYou think people are still getting senior level comp when the job is prompting llm? Ha!
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- sph 7mo agoDon’t you get it? Machine do the tedious work, all we get to do now is the fun part and we can just relax the rest of the day. I am producing 5x as before, my boss is paying me the same salary just for two hours of actual work per day. I have so much more time to pursue my passions. Isn’t the future great?
- _aavaa_ 7mo agoYou can enjoy doing woodworking without power tools but that's irrelevant to a job where people want it done fast with power tools.
- wsve 7mo agoWoodworking analogy for AI is not "power tools vs handsaw", its "power tools vs. wood 3D printer". You don't do any of the creating, you only ideate and allow the machine to do all the creating. It's simply not wood working anymore. Its something else entirely
- IanCal 7mo agoYou don’t have to choose between entirely hand coded and entirely AI built code.
- wsve 7mo agoI cannot choose entirely hand-made code, I don't think I'll even be able to choose 50% hand-made code, because my manager will say "why aren't you just using the 3D Wood Printer 9000? Jeff is building house frames 5x faster than you, you need to get with the program or we're gonna let you go"
- _aavaa_ 7mo agoSo what? If I want a cabinet I care about the final product. power tools, 3d printer, I don't care. If it means it gets done faster and cheaper and is good enough for my needs, then that's what I want. Someone else is free to pay for the costly artisanal approach if they want to.
- paradox460 7mo agoA friend was recently redoing his kitchen. They hired a carpenter for cabinetry, and his wife asked him if he would be willing to make it with only hand tools. Carpenter told her he'd be happy to, it would take 8 weeks longer, cost more, and probably wouldn't look any better than the regular way
- 7mo ago
- IanCal 7mo agoAbsolutely everything about it in equal measure? You live environment config, setting up test harnesses, coding the complex part all identically the same? Nothing you would hand off? Do you find there are zero chores in software development and everything is an identical delight?
- relativeadv 7mo agoBut you don't actually do any of that, do you? Instead, you get tired and lazy and attempt to have the LLM solve those hard problems for you too. You just don't tell others about it.
- DennisP 7mo agoWhat an odd bit of moralizing. GP said they enjoy doing the hard parts, in which case they probably do them, because it's fun. If they actually don't enjoy it, there's nothing wrong with them using the LLM, when it's up to the task, and then just checking to make sure the code is good.