3 ms·

To me, that touches on the central issue. I think most people support the “I don’t care about the tool, only the outcome “ But, we have long had a stable soci

by lokar 2mo ago

To me, that touches on the central issue. I think most people support the “I don’t care about the tool, only the outcome “ But, we have long had a stable social system for collaboration, and in particular dealing with low quality contributions. Mostly (or at least ideally) it involves taking some time to look at the contribution and provide some feedback. The time invested is not worth it on a single exchange basis, but it’s a repeat game, so you are investing in the future. LLMs, and people willing to just spam crap they don’t really understand blows that all up.

hypfer 2mo ago
Nah, that was already blown up way before LLMs existed. Foss wasn't exactly not miserable before 2022. The dysfunction just got amplified so that we cannot fix it anymore by just throwing more human resources at the problem.
- lokar 2mo ago
  I tried to nod a bit to the inconsistency. Some projects clearly lost patience with imperfect contributions long ago. But many were still pretty supportive. This dynamic also plays out in many companies. I see a lot of posts from mid to sr engineers frustrated with plummeting code quality and unsure how to manage the reviews. They are increasingly pulling away from the idea that they should mentor people to do better.
  - Retric 2mo ago
    The correct response to irresponsible AI use in the workplace is maintaining standards and rejecting poor quality. Performance improvement plans as a fair warning followed by firing people works for incompetence or laziness, AI doesn’t change anything. I’ll admit I’ve seen a spike in negative performance reviews but this is the new normal people will adapt.
    - blackqueeriroh 2mo ago
      It’s almost like late-stage capitalism isn’t built to support mentorship and education and enabling human improvement!
  - aleph_minus_one 2mo ago
    > They are increasingly pulling away from the idea that they should mentor people to do better. Two considerations on this: 1. In the USA, it is common to switch jobs often (in opposite to, for example, Germany). So, in the US-American system it is not often worth the effort to invest a lot of mentoring ressources into some employee if he will leave soon anyway. 2. I personally observe that I often do try to give less experienced programmers good hints on how to improve, but my kind of thinking about programming is often so different that my advice is often of no use for them. Or I often get the arrogant reaction by less experienced programmers that I care far too much about obscure details. I thus seriously do believe that the only way to help junior programmers to become better is to completely crush their ego and arrogance (just like a doctoral study programme in, say, mathematics does to the doctoral students), which is of course not allowed at work. :-(
moring 2mo ago
I'm not convinced it blows up. It might also end up placing a larger burden on contributors, and especially first-time contributors, to provide concise, high-quality documentation that justifies their contribution. I'm thinking of something like: Explain, in at most 300 characters, why we should merge your change, or at least why we should invest the time to read a longer explanation (somethings things ARE complex). If you don't do that, or those 300 characters aren't convincing, or have nothing to do with your change or the longer explanation, then you get a canned response so the maintainers waste minimal time.
- Keyframe 2mo ago
  you know EXACTLY what would happen in such a system.
  - moring 2mo ago
    I don't, please enlighten me.
    - lokar 2mo ago
      My prediction is that many new contributors would complain loudly. Some existing contributors would sympathize. It’s I think a normal evolution of a social norm. There will be a period of competing values.
    - CamperBob2 2mo ago
      Explain, in at most 300 characters, why we should merge your change, or at least why we should invest the time to read a longer explanation (somethings things ARE complex) would simply become a prompt. The solution, of course, is to use the best available LLMs as the first line of defense against slop contributions. But if the project maintainers have issued a sweeping fatwa prohibiting an entire class of useful tools, that option along with many others is off the table.
      - tiahura 2mo ago

by lokar 2mo ago

hypfer 2mo ago

Nah, that was already blown up way before LLMs existed. Foss wasn't exactly not miserable before 2022. The dysfunction just got amplified so that we cannot fix it anymore by just throwing more human resources at the problem.

lokar 2mo ago
I tried to nod a bit to the inconsistency. Some projects clearly lost patience with imperfect contributions long ago. But many were still pretty supportive. This dynamic also plays out in many companies. I see a lot of posts from mid to sr engineers frustrated with plummeting code quality and unsure how to manage the reviews. They are increasingly pulling away from the idea that they should mentor people to do better.
- Retric 2mo ago
  The correct response to irresponsible AI use in the workplace is maintaining standards and rejecting poor quality. Performance improvement plans as a fair warning followed by firing people works for incompetence or laziness, AI doesn’t change anything. I’ll admit I’ve seen a spike in negative performance reviews but this is the new normal people will adapt.
  - blackqueeriroh 2mo ago
    It’s almost like late-stage capitalism isn’t built to support mentorship and education and enabling human improvement!
- aleph_minus_one 2mo ago
  > They are increasingly pulling away from the idea that they should mentor people to do better. Two considerations on this: 1. In the USA, it is common to switch jobs often (in opposite to, for example, Germany). So, in the US-American system it is not often worth the effort to invest a lot of mentoring ressources into some employee if he will leave soon anyway. 2. I personally observe that I often do try to give less experienced programmers good hints on how to improve, but my kind of thinking about programming is often so different that my advice is often of no use for them. Or I often get the arrogant reaction by less experienced programmers that I care far too much about obscure details. I thus seriously do believe that the only way to help junior programmers to become better is to completely crush their ego and arrogance (just like a doctoral study programme in, say, mathematics does to the doctoral students), which is of course not allowed at work. :-(

moring 2mo ago

I'm not convinced it blows up. It might also end up placing a larger burden on contributors, and especially first-time contributors, to provide concise, high-quality documentation that justifies their contribution. I'm thinking of something like: Explain, in at most 300 characters, why we should merge your change, or at least why we should invest the time to read a longer explanation (somethings things ARE complex). If you don't do that, or those 300 characters aren't convincing, or have nothing to do with your change or the longer explanation, then you get a canned response so the maintainers waste minimal time.

Keyframe 2mo ago
you know EXACTLY what would happen in such a system.
- moring 2mo ago
  I don't, please enlighten me.
  - lokar 2mo ago
    My prediction is that many new contributors would complain loudly. Some existing contributors would sympathize. It’s I think a normal evolution of a social norm. There will be a period of competing values.
  - CamperBob2 2mo ago
    Explain, in at most 300 characters, why we should merge your change, or at least why we should invest the time to read a longer explanation (somethings things ARE complex) would simply become a prompt. The solution, of course, is to use the best available LLMs as the first line of defense against slop contributions. But if the project maintainers have issued a sweeping fatwa prohibiting an entire class of useful tools, that option along with many others is off the table.
    - tiahura 2mo ago