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Think about what you would do in an unfamiliar project with no context and the ticket "please fix the authorization bug in /api/users/:id". You'd start by gre
by oxidant 1y ago
Think about what you would do in an unfamiliar project with no context and the ticket
"please fix the authorization bug in /api/users/:id".
You'd start by grepping the code base and trying to understand it.
Compare that to, "fix the permission in src/controllers/users.ts in the function `getById`. We need to check the user in the JWT is the same user that is being requested"
- troupo 1y agoSo, AIs are overeager junior developers at best, and not the magical programmer replacements they are advertised as.
- xpe 1y ago> So, AIs are overeager junior developers at best, and not the magical programmer replacements they are advertised as. This may be a quick quip or a rant. But the things we say have a way of reinforcing how we think. So I suggest refining until what we say cuts to the core of the matter. The claim above is a false dichotomy. Let's put aside advertisements and hype. Trying to map between AI capabilities and human ones is complicated. There is high quality writing on this to be found. I recommend reading literature reviews on evals.
- troupo 1y ago[flagged]
- drodgers 1y agoDon’t be a dismissive dick; that’s not appropriate for this forum. The above post is clearly trying to engage thoughtfully and offers genuinely good advice.
- troupo 1y agoThe above post produces some vague philosophical statements, and equally vague "juts google it" claims.
- xpe 1y agoI’m thinking you might be a kind of person that requires very direct feedback. Your flagged comment was unkind and unhelpful. Your follow-up response seems to suggest that you were justified in being rude? You also mischaracterize my comment two levels up. It didn’t wave you away by saying “just google it”. It said — perhaps not directly enough — that your comment was off track and gave you some ideas to consider and directions to explore.
- troupo 1y ago> There is high quality writing on this to be found. I recommend reading literature reviews on evals. This is, quite literally, "just google it". And yes, I prefer direct feedback, not vague philosophical and pseudo-philosophical statements and vague references. I'm sure there's high quality writing to be found on this, too.
- xpe 1y agoWe have very different ideas of what "literal" means. You _interpreted_ what I wrote as "just Google it". I didn't say those words verbatim _nor_ do I mean that. Use a search engine if you want to find some high-quality papers. Or use Google Scholar. Or go straight to Arxiv. Or ask people on a forum. > not vague philosophical and pseudo-philosophical statements and vague references If you stop being so uncharitable, more people might be inclined to engage you. Try to interpret what I wrote as constructive criticism. Shall we get back to the object level? You wrote: > AIs are overeager junior developers at best Again, I'm saying this isn't a good framing. I'm asking you to consider you might be wrong. You don't need to hunker down. You don't need to counter-attack. Instead, you could do more reading and research.
- troupo 1y ago
- lacker 1y agoLet's split the difference and call them "magical overeager junior developer replacements".
- oxidant 1y agoThe grandparent is talking about how to control cost by focusing the tool. My response was to a comment about how that takes too much thinking. If you give a junior an overly broad prompt, they are going to have to do a ton of searching and reading to find out what they need to do. If you give them specific instructions, including files, they are more likely to get it right. I never said they were replacements. At best, they're tools that are incredibly effective when used on the correct type of problem with the right type of prompt.
- troupo 1y ago> If you give a junior an overly broad prompt, they are going to have to do a ton of > they're tools that are incredibly effective when used on the correct type of problem with the right type of prompt. So, a junior developer who has to be told exactly what to do. As for the "correct type of problem with the right type of prompt", what exactly are those?
- oezi 1y agoAs of April 2025. The pace is so fast that it will overtake seniors within years maybe months.
- whywhywhywhy 1y agoOn a shorter timeline than you'd think none of working with these tools will look like this. You'll be prompting and evaluating and iterating entirely finished pieces of software and be able to see multiple attempts at each solve at once, none of this deep in the weeds fixing a bug stuff. We're rapidly approaching a world where a lot of software will be being made without an engineer hire at all, maybe not the hardest most complex or novel software but a lot of software that previously required a team of 3-15 wont have a single dev. My current estimate is mid 2026
- hu3 1y agomy current estimate is 2030. because we can barely get a JS/TS application to compile after a year of dependency updates. our current popular stack is quicksand. unless we're talking about .net core, java, Django and more of these stable platforms.