In my opinion people that harp on about how LLMs have been game changer for them are the people that put themselves as never actually having built anything sophisticated enough that a team of engineers can work and extend on for years.
I have built web services used by many Fortune 100 companies, built and maintained and operated them for many years.
But I'm not doing that anymore. Now I'm working on my own, building lots of prototypes and proof-of-concepts. For that I've founding LLMs to be extremely helpful and time-saving. Who the hell cares if it's not maintainable for years? I'll likely be throwing it out anyway. The point is not to build a maintainable system, it's to see if the system is worth maintaining at all.
Are there software engineers who will not find LLMs helpful? Absolutely. Are there software engineers who will find LLMs extremely helpful? Absolutely.
And I never said both can't exist at the same time. Are you certain you are not the one fighting straw men and are tiring yourself with the imagined extreme dichotomy?
My issue is with people claiming LLMs are undoubtedly going to remove programming as a profession. LLMs work fine for one-off code -- when they don't make mistakes even there, that is. They don't work for a lot of other areas, like code you have to iterate on multiple times because the outer world and the business requirements keep changing.
Works for you? Good! Use it, get more productive, you'll only get applause for me. But my work does not involve one-off code and for me LLMs are not impressive because I had to rewrite their code (and to eye-ball it for bugs) multiple times.
But what you'll probably find is that people that are skilled communicators are currently getting a decent productivity boost from LLMs, and I suspect that the difference between many that are bullish vs bearish is quite likely coming down to ability to structure and communicate thoughts effectively.
Personally, I've found AI to be a large productivity boost - especially once I've put certain patterns and structure into code. It's then like hitting the N2O button on the keyboard.
Sure, there are people making toy apps using LLMs that are going to quickly become a unmaintainable mess, but don't be too quick to assume that LLMs aren't already making an impact within production systems. I know from experience that they are.
> I suspect that the difference between many that are bullish vs bearish is quite likely coming down to ability to structure and communicate thoughts effectively.
Strange perspective. I found LLMs lacking in less popular programming languages, for example. It's mostly down to statistics.
I agree that being able to communicate well with an LLM gives you more results. It's a productivity enabler of sorts. It is not a game changer however.
> don't be too quick to assume that LLMs aren't already making an impact within production systems. I know from experience that they are.
OK, I am open to proof. But people are just saying it and leaving the claims hanging.
My last project made millions for the bank I was working at within the first 2 years and is now a case study at one of our extremely large vendors who you have definitely heard of. I conceptualised it, designed it, wrote the most important code. My boss said my contribution would last decades. You persist with making statements about people in the discussion, when you know nothing about their context aside from one opinion on one issue. Focus on the argument not the people.
All the programming for the Apollo Program took less then a year and Microsoft Teams is decades in development obviously they are better than NASA programmers.
cle|1 year ago
I have built web services used by many Fortune 100 companies, built and maintained and operated them for many years.
But I'm not doing that anymore. Now I'm working on my own, building lots of prototypes and proof-of-concepts. For that I've founding LLMs to be extremely helpful and time-saving. Who the hell cares if it's not maintainable for years? I'll likely be throwing it out anyway. The point is not to build a maintainable system, it's to see if the system is worth maintaining at all.
Are there software engineers who will not find LLMs helpful? Absolutely. Are there software engineers who will find LLMs extremely helpful? Absolutely.
Both can exist at the same time.
RealityVoid|1 year ago
pdimitar|1 year ago
My issue is with people claiming LLMs are undoubtedly going to remove programming as a profession. LLMs work fine for one-off code -- when they don't make mistakes even there, that is. They don't work for a lot of other areas, like code you have to iterate on multiple times because the outer world and the business requirements keep changing.
Works for you? Good! Use it, get more productive, you'll only get applause for me. But my work does not involve one-off code and for me LLMs are not impressive because I had to rewrite their code (and to eye-ball it for bugs) multiple times.
"Right tool for the job" and all.
LouisSayers|1 year ago
But what you'll probably find is that people that are skilled communicators are currently getting a decent productivity boost from LLMs, and I suspect that the difference between many that are bullish vs bearish is quite likely coming down to ability to structure and communicate thoughts effectively.
Personally, I've found AI to be a large productivity boost - especially once I've put certain patterns and structure into code. It's then like hitting the N2O button on the keyboard.
Sure, there are people making toy apps using LLMs that are going to quickly become a unmaintainable mess, but don't be too quick to assume that LLMs aren't already making an impact within production systems. I know from experience that they are.
pdimitar|1 year ago
Strange perspective. I found LLMs lacking in less popular programming languages, for example. It's mostly down to statistics.
I agree that being able to communicate well with an LLM gives you more results. It's a productivity enabler of sorts. It is not a game changer however.
> don't be too quick to assume that LLMs aren't already making an impact within production systems. I know from experience that they are.
OK, I am open to proof. But people are just saying it and leaving the claims hanging.
pdimitar|1 year ago
richardw|1 year ago
Me001|1 year ago