7 ms·

We clearly have different goals. I want an LLM to review my code, not the other way around.

nolok 2mo ago
It's still the same thing, you can ask it to do a full on report give explanation and details be thorough and then go do something else, another task a lunch break whatever and it will be done when you're back
- allknowingfrog 2mo ago
  How do you maintain a flow state during a lunch break? I'm looping with Claude on a scale of minutes. While you're waiting, I'm iterating.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
  - vitally3643 2mo ago
    This is like comparing a hammer to a screwdriver and feeling smug because you can hammer nails faster than someone else can drive screws. These are fundamentally different tools for entirely different applications. They only look similar to people who don't understand the tools or their purpose.
    - allknowingfrog 2mo ago
      This thread started with me saying "we clearly have different goals" and then being told that I just need to hold the screwdriver differently...
  - fwip 2mo ago
    You don't "maintain flow." You eat lunch. I swear, tech culture has gotten people wanting to work for the machines, rather than the other way round.
    - allknowingfrog 2mo ago
      This was a discussion about LLM usage patterns. I'm not opposed to lunch breaks. I'm opposed to being required to take the equivalent of 12 lunch breaks a day while I wait for slow responses.
    - ClikeX 2mo ago
      Right? Tech should make my work easier. Not have me stressing out even more. Let the machine do its work while I relax, I’ll check up on it later.
- Aurornis 2mo ago
  > another task a lunch break whatever and it will be done when you're back At 5 tokens per second and unknown prompt processing speed, you may need a very extra long lunch break depending on your codebase.
pmarreck 2mo ago
I'm sure this exact topic has been argued hundreds of times already on HN, but I think I have a new "possibly agreeable to both sides" perspective on this after having lost man-years to retired corporate code aka "FAIAP, throwaway code" Let LLMs write the corpo code, as it will be unlikely to still be running in 5-10 years. Frontier AI is already at the point where it writes fewer bugs per LOC than humans. By a lot. Go ahead and do your bespoke coding on your side-project loves and core libraries... The stuff that will last, anyway. But if you're working for a corpo and still doing bespoke... That's... not gonna last, I'm afraid. Well, either you remaining there, or that, as it were.
- allknowingfrog 2mo ago
  There's a whole spectrum of employment between faceless corporations and personal side projects. AI will replace humans because giant business believe they can do the same work, not because they will actually be able to. The correctness of an application is limited by your ability to understand and describe what you need. We have a word for an application specification tool so detailed it eliminates all ambiguity. It's called a "programming language". The mistakes are always in the transfer from human to machine. I still find a high-level programming language to be the best way to express my intent. Humans will make mistakes in the hand-off to AI just like they make mistakes in the hand-off to code, but at least code is deterministic.
  - pmarreck 2mo ago
    > AI will replace humans because giant business believe they can do the same work, not because they will actually be able to. This has been being claimed for at least 2 years now. Wouldn't we already be seeing disasters if this was the case? It's certainly been around long enough to cause some real damage. Instead there is a slow trickle of things that makes the news by people who didn't bother instituting a single fucking control. For example, I am completely immune to `rm -rf` style fuckups because I wrote rm-safe years ago and it is mapped to `rm` in any environment that the LLM will run in: https://github.com/pmarreck/rm_safe https://github.com/pmarreck/rm_safe In any event, it's not a replacer, it's an augmenter. Nothing will replace humans, because we are the stakeholders; it may shift them around, though. > The correctness of an application is limited by your ability to understand and describe what you need. If you write code in Lean 4 or Idris 2, you may not completely understand why it is or isn't correct, but their respective compilers will certainly prove it to you one way or the other. We already are perfectly functional with incomplete understandings. An entire generation of web developers have had successful careers without having a single clue how compilers work or how machine code works. Now is there a type of problem that sometimes comes along that DOES require deep understanding? Of course, that's when you call in the heavy artillery. Or the advanced LLM. Or both. See my point?

nolok 2mo ago

It's still the same thing, you can ask it to do a full on report give explanation and details be thorough and then go do something else, another task a lunch break whatever and it will be done when you're back

allknowingfrog 2mo ago
How do you maintain a flow state during a lunch break? I'm looping with Claude on a scale of minutes. While you're waiting, I'm iterating.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- vitally3643 2mo ago
  This is like comparing a hammer to a screwdriver and feeling smug because you can hammer nails faster than someone else can drive screws. These are fundamentally different tools for entirely different applications. They only look similar to people who don't understand the tools or their purpose.
  - allknowingfrog 2mo ago
    This thread started with me saying "we clearly have different goals" and then being told that I just need to hold the screwdriver differently...
- fwip 2mo ago
  You don't "maintain flow." You eat lunch. I swear, tech culture has gotten people wanting to work for the machines, rather than the other way round.
  - allknowingfrog 2mo ago
    This was a discussion about LLM usage patterns. I'm not opposed to lunch breaks. I'm opposed to being required to take the equivalent of 12 lunch breaks a day while I wait for slow responses.
  - ClikeX 2mo ago
    Right? Tech should make my work easier. Not have me stressing out even more. Let the machine do its work while I relax, I’ll check up on it later.
Aurornis 2mo ago
> another task a lunch break whatever and it will be done when you're back At 5 tokens per second and unknown prompt processing speed, you may need a very extra long lunch break depending on your codebase.

pmarreck 2mo ago

I'm sure this exact topic has been argued hundreds of times already on HN, but I think I have a new "possibly agreeable to both sides" perspective on this after having lost man-years to retired corporate code aka "FAIAP, throwaway code" Let LLMs write the corpo code, as it will be unlikely to still be running in 5-10 years. Frontier AI is already at the point where it writes fewer bugs per LOC than humans. By a lot. Go ahead and do your bespoke coding on your side-project loves and core libraries... The stuff that will last, anyway. But if you're working for a corpo and still doing bespoke... That's... not gonna last, I'm afraid. Well, either you remaining there, or that, as it were.

allknowingfrog 2mo ago
There's a whole spectrum of employment between faceless corporations and personal side projects. AI will replace humans because giant business believe they can do the same work, not because they will actually be able to. The correctness of an application is limited by your ability to understand and describe what you need. We have a word for an application specification tool so detailed it eliminates all ambiguity. It's called a "programming language". The mistakes are always in the transfer from human to machine. I still find a high-level programming language to be the best way to express my intent. Humans will make mistakes in the hand-off to AI just like they make mistakes in the hand-off to code, but at least code is deterministic.
- pmarreck 2mo ago
  > AI will replace humans because giant business believe they can do the same work, not because they will actually be able to. This has been being claimed for at least 2 years now. Wouldn't we already be seeing disasters if this was the case? It's certainly been around long enough to cause some real damage. Instead there is a slow trickle of things that makes the news by people who didn't bother instituting a single fucking control. For example, I am completely immune to `rm -rf` style fuckups because I wrote rm-safe years ago and it is mapped to `rm` in any environment that the LLM will run in: https://github.com/pmarreck/rm_safe https://github.com/pmarreck/rm_safe In any event, it's not a replacer, it's an augmenter. Nothing will replace humans, because we are the stakeholders; it may shift them around, though. > The correctness of an application is limited by your ability to understand and describe what you need. If you write code in Lean 4 or Idris 2, you may not completely understand why it is or isn't correct, but their respective compilers will certainly prove it to you one way or the other. We already are perfectly functional with incomplete understandings. An entire generation of web developers have had successful careers without having a single clue how compilers work or how machine code works. Now is there a type of problem that sometimes comes along that DOES require deep understanding? Of course, that's when you call in the heavy artillery. Or the advanced LLM. Or both. See my point?