3 ms·

LLMs are an additional tool to add to your arsenal. They are not omnipotent and need care, just like any other tool. My best effort, so far, at an analogy is

by gerdesj 5mo ago

LLMs are an additional tool to add to your arsenal. They are not omnipotent and need care, just like any other tool. My best effort, so far, at an analogy is a modern drill driver compared to a screw driver/brace and bit/etc: You can get some remarkable results in a very short time compared to the "old school" gear. You can get some "amazing" anecdotes eg "I screwed down an entire floor at 16" x 1" c/c within an hour instead of an entire day and I took loads of fag breaks" (I could have used a nail gun instead in half the time but I'll never raise that floor easily in the future, and probably done at twice the cost) I have several on prem LLMs and access to the rest and I'm pretty sure I'll be extending my analogy to ... brand, eventually. What I do not expect to be doing is looking for a new job. A drill driver is not a carpenter/site labourer/useful without a person!

maccard 5mo ago
But a modern drill absolutely 100% removes the need for a brace and bit. An LLM doesn't replace any existing tools.
- 2fff 5mo ago
  I think we will see very limited human displacement - it'll be in narrow places where it makes sense. Much of it will just be augmentation.
- ryan_n 5mo ago
  From what I've heard for many devs it replaced an IDE... I still use one myself, but I've a lot of people don't anymore.
  - jaggederest 5mo ago
    Basically IDE free since May 2025. I actually reinstalled vscode when setting up a new machine and I think I've launched it twice? cc -> local automated testing -> github -> PR -> heavy integration tests -> review (github ui, +/-) -> manual test locally -> merge -> deploy -> manual test remotely -> synthetic user testing -> repeat
    - fruit2020 5mo ago
      Do you not need to use the debugger sometimes? Or can cc debug by itself
      - simonw 5mo ago
        Coding agents can use debuggers if they need to. From what I've seen they're more likely to run a python -c "import your_code; your_code.do_stuff()" experiment to figure out what's going on though.
      - jaggederest 5mo ago
        I have not used a debugger in anger in perhaps a decade. I write tests, and if that's not enough, I write more tests. Tests stick around and prevent future problems, whereas the debugger only shows me something once.
        addaon 5mo ago
        But tests show you if a bug is happening, they don’t help you understand the underlying cause of the bug. In a decade, you haven’t hit a compiler codegen issue, a silicon erratum, a race condition, or anything that required actually spending effort understanding the causal path?
        jaggederest 4mo ago
        I don't know what to tell you besides that I've found more, better bugs using comprehensive testing than I ever found with a debugger. The sole exception to that is that, back in the very early days, troubleshooting IE6 really required a debugger. But everything else, from memory leaks to thread hang issues to deadlocks, testing is better.
      - locknitpicker 5mo ago
        > Do you not need to use the debugger sometimes? Or can cc debug by itself A key feature of AI coding assistants and coding agents is troubleshooting. It turns out that LLMs excel at pattern matching, specially when coupled with feedback signals. It turns out that troubleshooting represents just that. A few years ago people searched the likes of stack overflow to fix problems, and it turns out LLMs can do the equivalent of that much faster.
  - maccard 4mo ago
    I've heard that. I hope that the people who are IDE-free are just better AI-wranglers than I am because my experience has been that if I can get an agent to one shot something, it's fine but if I can't, the agents tend to make an absolute mess of spaghetti that doesn't actually do what it was asked to do IME.
- gerdesj 4mo ago
  There are times when you quite literally need to feel the thing you are drilling into and a brace and bit give you feedback that a drill driver wont. Pretty sure I once saw a surgeon using a brace and bit for something unpleasant. I think it was brain/skull related.

by gerdesj 5mo ago

maccard 5mo ago

But a modern drill absolutely 100% removes the need for a brace and bit. An LLM doesn't replace any existing tools.

2fff 5mo ago
I think we will see very limited human displacement - it'll be in narrow places where it makes sense. Much of it will just be augmentation.
ryan_n 5mo ago
From what I've heard for many devs it replaced an IDE... I still use one myself, but I've a lot of people don't anymore.
- jaggederest 5mo ago
  Basically IDE free since May 2025. I actually reinstalled vscode when setting up a new machine and I think I've launched it twice? cc -> local automated testing -> github -> PR -> heavy integration tests -> review (github ui, +/-) -> manual test locally -> merge -> deploy -> manual test remotely -> synthetic user testing -> repeat
  - fruit2020 5mo ago
    Do you not need to use the debugger sometimes? Or can cc debug by itself
    - simonw 5mo ago
      Coding agents can use debuggers if they need to. From what I've seen they're more likely to run a python -c "import your_code; your_code.do_stuff()" experiment to figure out what's going on though.
    - jaggederest 5mo ago
      I have not used a debugger in anger in perhaps a decade. I write tests, and if that's not enough, I write more tests. Tests stick around and prevent future problems, whereas the debugger only shows me something once.
      - addaon 5mo ago
        But tests show you if a bug is happening, they don’t help you understand the underlying cause of the bug. In a decade, you haven’t hit a compiler codegen issue, a silicon erratum, a race condition, or anything that required actually spending effort understanding the causal path?
        jaggederest 4mo ago
        I don't know what to tell you besides that I've found more, better bugs using comprehensive testing than I ever found with a debugger. The sole exception to that is that, back in the very early days, troubleshooting IE6 really required a debugger. But everything else, from memory leaks to thread hang issues to deadlocks, testing is better.
    - locknitpicker 5mo ago
      > Do you not need to use the debugger sometimes? Or can cc debug by itself A key feature of AI coding assistants and coding agents is troubleshooting. It turns out that LLMs excel at pattern matching, specially when coupled with feedback signals. It turns out that troubleshooting represents just that. A few years ago people searched the likes of stack overflow to fix problems, and it turns out LLMs can do the equivalent of that much faster.
- maccard 4mo ago
  I've heard that. I hope that the people who are IDE-free are just better AI-wranglers than I am because my experience has been that if I can get an agent to one shot something, it's fine but if I can't, the agents tend to make an absolute mess of spaghetti that doesn't actually do what it was asked to do IME.
gerdesj 4mo ago
There are times when you quite literally need to feel the thing you are drilling into and a brace and bit give you feedback that a drill driver wont. Pretty sure I once saw a surgeon using a brace and bit for something unpleasant. I think it was brain/skull related.