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> They can’t tell you what the AI got wrong. AI code generators are trolls. They confidently plausible content which is partly wrong. Then humans try to find t

by Animats 6mo ago

> They can’t tell you what the AI got wrong. AI code generators are trolls. They confidently plausible content which is partly wrong. Then humans try to find their errors. This is not fun. It has no flow.

solumunus 6mo ago
[flagged]
simondotau 6mo ago
I beg to differ, insofar as my own experience has been the exact opposite. I enjoy fixing other people's mistakes. And I especially enjoy outsmarting the LLMs. I find that I can obsessively breathe down the neck of an LLM for far longer than I could ever stay in the traditional flow state.
- neonstatic 6mo ago
  Perhaps you have the psychological make up to thrive in this new environment. Glad it is working for you.
- Terr_ 6mo ago
  I think I might enjoy it for a little bit and then become very depressed at the idea that it will never end, a future of fixing things that should never have been broken in the first place and which won't stay fixed.
  - simondotau 6mo ago
    Literally the job of a senior developer, and always has been.
- lelanthran 6mo ago
  > I find that I can obsessively breathe down the neck of an LLM for far longer than I could ever stay in the traditional flow state. I can do that too. Most programmers can. That's because it requires less skill! Critiquing something is always easier than doing it. I can literally keep an LLM fixing things forever by just saying things like "This is not scalable", or "this is not maintainable", or "this is not flexible" or "this is not robust", ... etc ad nausem. That doesn't take skill at the level to actually write the software. For the market which is hoping to switch to mostly LLM coding, the prize they are eyeing is skill devaluation and not just, as many think, productivity gains. They have no reason to double output, but they'd sure love to first halve the people employed, and then halve the salaries of those people (supply/demand + a glut of programmers in the market), and then halve salaries again because almost no skill necessary...
  - bradleyjg 6mo ago
    That's because it requires less skill! Critiquing something is always easier than doing it. No, it was always the other way around. Mediocre programmers always wanted to rewrite everything because reading and understanding an existing codebase was always harder than writing some greenfield thing with a “modern language” or “modern libraries” or “modern idioms.” So they’d go and do that and end up with 100x the bugs.
    - lelanthran 6mo ago
      > Mediocre programmers always wanted to rewrite everything You are comparing writing something with rewriting something. You don't know what the difference is?
    - ffsm8 6mo ago
      You can't generalize that statement. There is a very valid reason why the Creator of erlang back in the day said something along the line of "you need to iteratively remake your software, improving it each time" As your knowledge about a topic grows, your initial mistaken implementation may become more and more obvious, and it may even mean a full rewrite. But yes, a person which instantly says "rewrite" before they understood the software is likely very inexperienced and has only worked with greenfield projects with few contributers (likely only themselves) before.
    - layer8 6mo ago
      How is that “no” and “the other way around”? The desire to rewrite comes from the ease with which one can critique existing code for being “too hard” to understand.
cbg0 6mo ago
It should have the same flow as reviewing PRs from humans.
- microtonal 6mo ago
  The problem is the LLMs completely change the equation. Before LLMs, beyond very junior (needs serious coaching) levels, reviewing was typically faster than writing the code that was reviewed. With LLMs, writing code is orders of magnitude faster than reviewing it. We already see open source projects getting buried in LLM slop and you have to find the real human or at least carefully curated contributions among the slop. I would not be surprised if many open source projects will outright stop taking PRs. I have had the same feeling several times - if I'm communicating with an LLM through the GitHub PR interface, I'd rather just directly talk to an LLM myself. But ending PRs is going to be painful for acquiring new contributors and training more junior people. Hopefully the tooling will evolve. E.g. I'd love have a system where someone has to open an issue with a plan first and by approving you could give them a 'ticket' to open a single PR for that issue. Though I would be surprised if GitHub and others would create features that are essentially there to rein in Copilot etc.
- t43562 6mo ago
  Who really truly enjoys that and doesn't see it as a chore? I find the real way to review other people's code is to program with it and then I start seeing where the problems are much more clearly. I would do a review and spot nothing important then start working on my own follow-on change and immediately run into issues.
  - sampullman 6mo ago
    I usually don't mind, but tend to split reviews into two types. Either I understand the context and can quickly do an in depth review, or I have to take some time to actually learn about the code by reviewing the surrounding systems, experimenting with it, etc. But in both cases I would at least run the code and verify correctness. I think it becomes a chore when there are too many trivial mistakes, and you feel like your time would have been better spent writing it yourself. As models and agent frameworks improve I see this happening less and less.
catcowcostume 6mo ago
Anything AI generated is troll. There's no logic. It's just pattern repetitions. I don't get how supposedly smart engineers fall for it
- barnabee 6mo ago
  Because a lot of engineering is pattern repetition, which is not very fun for engineers either, and LLMs can do it much faster?
  - skydhash 6mo ago
    Not really. Any patterns got optimized and automated. If you’re still seeing patterns, then you need to look harder, because they will be similar onlu superficially.
- smallstepforman 6mo ago
  We humans cannot scan 100’000 articles looking for the golden nugget, the AI data mining can do it and present it in seconds. Obviously we need to verify the data. A couple of decades ago, we didnt trust compilers, we did assembly manually. Today is same barrier, some developers will explode with productivity while others will be left behind.

by Animats 6mo ago

solumunus 6mo ago

[flagged]

simondotau 6mo ago

I beg to differ, insofar as my own experience has been the exact opposite. I enjoy fixing other people's mistakes. And I especially enjoy outsmarting the LLMs. I find that I can obsessively breathe down the neck of an LLM for far longer than I could ever stay in the traditional flow state.

neonstatic 6mo ago
Perhaps you have the psychological make up to thrive in this new environment. Glad it is working for you.
Terr_ 6mo ago
I think I might enjoy it for a little bit and then become very depressed at the idea that it will never end, a future of fixing things that should never have been broken in the first place and which won't stay fixed.
- simondotau 6mo ago
  Literally the job of a senior developer, and always has been.
lelanthran 6mo ago
> I find that I can obsessively breathe down the neck of an LLM for far longer than I could ever stay in the traditional flow state. I can do that too. Most programmers can. That's because it requires less skill! Critiquing something is always easier than doing it. I can literally keep an LLM fixing things forever by just saying things like "This is not scalable", or "this is not maintainable", or "this is not flexible" or "this is not robust", ... etc ad nausem. That doesn't take skill at the level to actually write the software. For the market which is hoping to switch to mostly LLM coding, the prize they are eyeing is skill devaluation and not just, as many think, productivity gains. They have no reason to double output, but they'd sure love to first halve the people employed, and then halve the salaries of those people (supply/demand + a glut of programmers in the market), and then halve salaries again because almost no skill necessary...
- bradleyjg 6mo ago
  That's because it requires less skill! Critiquing something is always easier than doing it. No, it was always the other way around. Mediocre programmers always wanted to rewrite everything because reading and understanding an existing codebase was always harder than writing some greenfield thing with a “modern language” or “modern libraries” or “modern idioms.” So they’d go and do that and end up with 100x the bugs.
  - lelanthran 6mo ago
    > Mediocre programmers always wanted to rewrite everything You are comparing writing something with rewriting something. You don't know what the difference is?
  - ffsm8 6mo ago
    You can't generalize that statement. There is a very valid reason why the Creator of erlang back in the day said something along the line of "you need to iteratively remake your software, improving it each time" As your knowledge about a topic grows, your initial mistaken implementation may become more and more obvious, and it may even mean a full rewrite. But yes, a person which instantly says "rewrite" before they understood the software is likely very inexperienced and has only worked with greenfield projects with few contributers (likely only themselves) before.
  - layer8 6mo ago
    How is that “no” and “the other way around”? The desire to rewrite comes from the ease with which one can critique existing code for being “too hard” to understand.

cbg0 6mo ago

It should have the same flow as reviewing PRs from humans.

microtonal 6mo ago
The problem is the LLMs completely change the equation. Before LLMs, beyond very junior (needs serious coaching) levels, reviewing was typically faster than writing the code that was reviewed. With LLMs, writing code is orders of magnitude faster than reviewing it. We already see open source projects getting buried in LLM slop and you have to find the real human or at least carefully curated contributions among the slop. I would not be surprised if many open source projects will outright stop taking PRs. I have had the same feeling several times - if I'm communicating with an LLM through the GitHub PR interface, I'd rather just directly talk to an LLM myself. But ending PRs is going to be painful for acquiring new contributors and training more junior people. Hopefully the tooling will evolve. E.g. I'd love have a system where someone has to open an issue with a plan first and by approving you could give them a 'ticket' to open a single PR for that issue. Though I would be surprised if GitHub and others would create features that are essentially there to rein in Copilot etc.
t43562 6mo ago
Who really truly enjoys that and doesn't see it as a chore? I find the real way to review other people's code is to program with it and then I start seeing where the problems are much more clearly. I would do a review and spot nothing important then start working on my own follow-on change and immediately run into issues.
- sampullman 6mo ago
  I usually don't mind, but tend to split reviews into two types. Either I understand the context and can quickly do an in depth review, or I have to take some time to actually learn about the code by reviewing the surrounding systems, experimenting with it, etc. But in both cases I would at least run the code and verify correctness. I think it becomes a chore when there are too many trivial mistakes, and you feel like your time would have been better spent writing it yourself. As models and agent frameworks improve I see this happening less and less.

catcowcostume 6mo ago

Anything AI generated is troll. There's no logic. It's just pattern repetitions. I don't get how supposedly smart engineers fall for it

barnabee 6mo ago
Because a lot of engineering is pattern repetition, which is not very fun for engineers either, and LLMs can do it much faster?
- skydhash 6mo ago
  Not really. Any patterns got optimized and automated. If you’re still seeing patterns, then you need to look harder, because they will be similar onlu superficially.
smallstepforman 6mo ago
We humans cannot scan 100’000 articles looking for the golden nugget, the AI data mining can do it and present it in seconds. Obviously we need to verify the data. A couple of decades ago, we didnt trust compilers, we did assembly manually. Today is same barrier, some developers will explode with productivity while others will be left behind.