6 ms·

With AI people aren't reading, writing, or thinking about the code. I would not say something that helps me remember a function name is comparible.

brookst 18d ago
I’m genuinely curious why it matters to make abstract moral judgments about the differences between remembering function names and deep understanding of the syntax used in a function. Why don’t we just care about results? Code quality, performance, clarity are all measurable. Why bother with philosophical positions on these?
- AlotOfReading 18d ago
  How do you trust the results of a black box that are hard to verify? Most of us use proxies that are easier to check, like historical competence and maturity. For example, it's difficult to verify my compiler produces a binary that correctly implements the code I wrote. I can partially validate the result with testing, but when I send it out into the world to handle unknown inputs I'm trusting that the compiler has done its job correctly. I can have that trust because I know the compiler people (in aggregate) have thought very hard about correctness, and the project is mature enough that bugs are rare. If the GCC developers tomorrow were to start merging anything that passed the test suite and some other list of objective metrics, my trust would rightly decrease.
- deleted 18d ago
  [deleted]
newswasboring 18d ago
That's because you are used to it. I am old enough to have been there during the rise of things like intellisense and language servers, people were making the exact same arguments about them. That not knowing your API to the core makes you a bad programmer. I'm sure for IDEs themselves there were similar arguments and it goes all the way back to Socrates' warning against writing. These arguments always end with "but this time it's different". And inevitably each time it's not.
- inquirerGeneral 18d ago
  Go back to 2007 on this blog archive. It's incredible to read https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/author/vcblog/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/author/vcblog/
- insanitybit 18d ago
  > That not knowing your API to the core makes you a bad programmer. Seriously, this was a huge thing in C and C++, where you had to know/remember/know to look up very specific error codes and conditions in an API and if you didn't then it was very much considered to be a skill issue. This was maybe 15 years ago.
  - skydhash 18d ago
    > Seriously, this was a huge thing in C and C++, where you had to know/remember/know to look up very specific error codes and conditions in an API and if you didn't then it was very much considered to be a skill issue. It was not unless you were part of some very weird circle. There was always manuals and other references that listed everything about a platform or library. Then we got ‘man’ and ‘info’. And I remember being able to download the full docs of windows’ various documentation. That’s like saying as a writer you were looked down at because you had to look at a dictionary every once in a while.
    - insanitybit 18d ago
      I'm not sure what you're saying, or how it is not what I'm saying? You're giving examples of places to read documentation, and I'm saying that the expectation was that behaviors caused by not checking documentation would be your fault. If that isn't your experience, cool, it was definitely mine when posting on forums online 15-16 years ago.
      - skydhash 18d ago
        Why wouldn’t it be? If you were in charge of writing a letter and use words that hinders the purpose of the letter, thus resulting in a flawed communication, wouldn’t it be your fault? Especially when dictionaries are easily available?
insanitybit 18d ago
> With AI people aren't reading, writing, or thinking about the code. Writing, definitely. Reading, maybe. Thinking is another thing. I can think about code in a lot of ways just by reading a description of the code, or knowing how I directed the code to be written, etc. I think people are thinking about the code differently.
vlyan 18d ago
code didn't matter even before LLMs. we only ever cared about the product of it. the current pace of LLM advancement only has to keep for five more years for handmade code to be considered a liability. I wouldn't worry about being able to recall obscure APIs or whiteboard leetcode. I'm far more worried about having to change careers at 40.
- zaneyard 18d ago
  I've seen the result of "code doesn't matter" and it's difficult to change and maintain. I guess if your business is ok with frequent P1 incidents or ships a complete product and never touches it again, but I've never been part of one. I've also never been in a position that cared about leetcode or remembering APIs, so it's possible my experience is completely different from yours.
  - vlyan 18d ago
    ah, but if there are incidents then the product is faulty. by "code doesn't matter" I mean exactly that we don't care what's under the hood as long as it runs. code with "good enough" quality delivered in a week is most often preferable to premium quality code delivered in a month, and even "it's ugly, slow, and there are edge cases when it breaks"-quality code hacked together during the lunch break is often sufficient for the product to function.

brookst 18d ago

I’m genuinely curious why it matters to make abstract moral judgments about the differences between remembering function names and deep understanding of the syntax used in a function. Why don’t we just care about results? Code quality, performance, clarity are all measurable. Why bother with philosophical positions on these?

AlotOfReading 18d ago
How do you trust the results of a black box that are hard to verify? Most of us use proxies that are easier to check, like historical competence and maturity. For example, it's difficult to verify my compiler produces a binary that correctly implements the code I wrote. I can partially validate the result with testing, but when I send it out into the world to handle unknown inputs I'm trusting that the compiler has done its job correctly. I can have that trust because I know the compiler people (in aggregate) have thought very hard about correctness, and the project is mature enough that bugs are rare. If the GCC developers tomorrow were to start merging anything that passed the test suite and some other list of objective metrics, my trust would rightly decrease.
deleted 18d ago
[deleted]

newswasboring 18d ago

That's because you are used to it. I am old enough to have been there during the rise of things like intellisense and language servers, people were making the exact same arguments about them. That not knowing your API to the core makes you a bad programmer. I'm sure for IDEs themselves there were similar arguments and it goes all the way back to Socrates' warning against writing. These arguments always end with "but this time it's different". And inevitably each time it's not.

inquirerGeneral 18d ago
Go back to 2007 on this blog archive. It's incredible to read https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/author/vcblog/ https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/author/vcblog/
insanitybit 18d ago
> That not knowing your API to the core makes you a bad programmer. Seriously, this was a huge thing in C and C++, where you had to know/remember/know to look up very specific error codes and conditions in an API and if you didn't then it was very much considered to be a skill issue. This was maybe 15 years ago.
- skydhash 18d ago
  > Seriously, this was a huge thing in C and C++, where you had to know/remember/know to look up very specific error codes and conditions in an API and if you didn't then it was very much considered to be a skill issue. It was not unless you were part of some very weird circle. There was always manuals and other references that listed everything about a platform or library. Then we got ‘man’ and ‘info’. And I remember being able to download the full docs of windows’ various documentation. That’s like saying as a writer you were looked down at because you had to look at a dictionary every once in a while.
  - insanitybit 18d ago
    I'm not sure what you're saying, or how it is not what I'm saying? You're giving examples of places to read documentation, and I'm saying that the expectation was that behaviors caused by not checking documentation would be your fault. If that isn't your experience, cool, it was definitely mine when posting on forums online 15-16 years ago.
    - skydhash 18d ago
      Why wouldn’t it be? If you were in charge of writing a letter and use words that hinders the purpose of the letter, thus resulting in a flawed communication, wouldn’t it be your fault? Especially when dictionaries are easily available?

insanitybit 18d ago

> With AI people aren't reading, writing, or thinking about the code. Writing, definitely. Reading, maybe. Thinking is another thing. I can think about code in a lot of ways just by reading a description of the code, or knowing how I directed the code to be written, etc. I think people are thinking about the code differently.

vlyan 18d ago

code didn't matter even before LLMs. we only ever cared about the product of it. the current pace of LLM advancement only has to keep for five more years for handmade code to be considered a liability. I wouldn't worry about being able to recall obscure APIs or whiteboard leetcode. I'm far more worried about having to change careers at 40.

zaneyard 18d ago
I've seen the result of "code doesn't matter" and it's difficult to change and maintain. I guess if your business is ok with frequent P1 incidents or ships a complete product and never touches it again, but I've never been part of one. I've also never been in a position that cared about leetcode or remembering APIs, so it's possible my experience is completely different from yours.
- vlyan 18d ago
  ah, but if there are incidents then the product is faulty. by "code doesn't matter" I mean exactly that we don't care what's under the hood as long as it runs. code with "good enough" quality delivered in a week is most often preferable to premium quality code delivered in a month, and even "it's ugly, slow, and there are edge cases when it breaks"-quality code hacked together during the lunch break is often sufficient for the product to function.