8 ms·

I see coworkers reach for AI to perform many tasks that are made trivial by a few keystrokes or a simple macro in Vim.

by shhsshs 2mo ago

eddd-ddde 2mo ago
Your macros are not implementing features, fixing bugs, and writing test cases.
- cryo32 2mo ago
  I literally just watched someone do a text replace on a conference call to show me how good Claude was today.
- runarberg 2mo ago
  They are. And have been since the 1970s, and will continue to do so for another 50 years. Particularly the fixing bugs parts. So often is one bug manifested across 200 lines in 50 different files, and to fix it you need the same 5 exact keystrokes across those 200 lines. vim (or in my case Emacs) macros will allow me to find the fix in the first of these lines where I also define the macro, and then apply in mere seconds across the other 200 lines. As for writing test cases, copy-paste has worked fine since unit tests became popular in the 1990s, and will continue to work fine for the next 30 years. editor macros are not too dissimilar to copy-paste-edit.
- SirFatty 2mo ago
  Said with such confidence...
- orev 2mo ago
  Which is fine. Burn your tokens (with all the carbon emissions they generate in data centers) doing more involved tasks like that. Don’t waste it on silly, easy things like simple macros, search/replace, etc. AI doesn’t need to be a hammer used for everything.
UqWBcuFx6NV4r 2mo ago
This is patronising. We know what macros are. There’s benefit in general, adaptable tools, even if some tasks can be accomplished with something more rudimentary. That’s not the point. Hell, the software that you’re so proud of writing with vim could very well be superseded by someone using an LLM to do it in a worse, more wasteful way. But it’s the tool that’s there, and it’s the tool that they use for everything else, and it more easily ties into their workflow. Comments like this are increasingly just the sounds of someone sticking their head in the sand.

I see coworkers reach for AI to perform many tasks that are made trivial by a few keystrokes or a simple macro in Vim.

by shhsshs 2mo ago

I see coworkers reach for AI to perform many tasks that are made trivial by a few keystrokes or a simple macro in Vim.

eddd-ddde 2mo ago

Your macros are not implementing features, fixing bugs, and writing test cases.

cryo32 2mo ago
I literally just watched someone do a text replace on a conference call to show me how good Claude was today.
runarberg 2mo ago
They are. And have been since the 1970s, and will continue to do so for another 50 years. Particularly the fixing bugs parts. So often is one bug manifested across 200 lines in 50 different files, and to fix it you need the same 5 exact keystrokes across those 200 lines. vim (or in my case Emacs) macros will allow me to find the fix in the first of these lines where I also define the macro, and then apply in mere seconds across the other 200 lines. As for writing test cases, copy-paste has worked fine since unit tests became popular in the 1990s, and will continue to work fine for the next 30 years. editor macros are not too dissimilar to copy-paste-edit.
SirFatty 2mo ago
Said with such confidence...
orev 2mo ago
Which is fine. Burn your tokens (with all the carbon emissions they generate in data centers) doing more involved tasks like that. Don’t waste it on silly, easy things like simple macros, search/replace, etc. AI doesn’t need to be a hammer used for everything.

UqWBcuFx6NV4r 2mo ago

This is patronising. We know what macros are. There’s benefit in general, adaptable tools, even if some tasks can be accomplished with something more rudimentary. That’s not the point. Hell, the software that you’re so proud of writing with vim could very well be superseded by someone using an LLM to do it in a worse, more wasteful way. But it’s the tool that’s there, and it’s the tool that they use for everything else, and it more easily ties into their workflow. Comments like this are increasingly just the sounds of someone sticking their head in the sand.