[silverlake]

You’re clinging to an old model of work. Today an LLM converted my docker compose infrastructure to Kubernetes, using operators and helm charts as needed. It did in 10 minutes what would take me several days to learn and cobble together a bad solution. I review every small update and correct it when needed. It is so much more productive. I’m driving a tractor while you are pulling an ox cart.

[ofjcihen]

“ It did in 10 minutes what would take me several days to learn and cobble together a bad solution.”

Another way to look at this is you’re outsourcing your understanding to something that ultimately doesn’t think.

This means 2 things: your solution could be severely suboptimal in multiple areas such as security and two because you didn’t bother understanding it yourself you’ll never be able to identify that.

You might think “that’s fine, the LLM can fix it”. The issue with that is when you don’t know enough to know something needs to be fixed.

So maybe instead of carts and oxen this is more akin to grandpa taking his computer to Best Buy to have them fix it for him?

[johnfn]

Senior engineers delegate to junior engineers, which have all the same downsides you described, all the time. This pattern seems to work fine for virtually every software company in existence.

[silverlake]

No one is an expert on all the things. I use libraries and tools to take care of things that are less important. I use my brain for things that are important. LLMs are another tool, more flexible and capable than any other. So yes, grandpa goes to Best Buy because he’s running his legal practice and doesn’t need to be an expert on computers.

[mewpmewp2]

I am pretty confident that my learnings have massively sped up working together with LLMs. I can build so much more and learn through what they are putting out. This goes to so many domains in my life now, it is like I have this super mentor. It is DIY house things, smart home things, hardware, things I never would have been confident to work with otherwise. I feel like I have been massively empowered and all of this is so exciting. Maybe I missed a mentor type of guidance when I was younger to be able to do all DYI stuff, but it is definitely sufficient now. Life feels amazing thanks to it honestly.

[jonas21]

If there's something that you don't understand, ask the LLM to explain it to you. Drill into the parts that don't make sense to you. Ask for references. One of the big advantages of LLMs over, say, reading a tutorial on the web is that you can have this conversation.

[gyomu]

> I’m driving a tractor while you are pulling an ox cart.

Or you’re assembling prefab plywood homes while they’re building marble mansions. It’s easy to pick metaphors that fit your preferred narrative :)

[djeastm]

>you’re assembling prefab plywood homes while they’re building marble mansions

Which one are there more of nowadays, hm?

[munificent]

> would take me several days to learn ... correct it when needed.

If you haven't learned how all this stuff works, how are you able to be confident in your corrections?

> I’m driving a tractor while you are pulling an ox cart.

Are you sure you haven't just duct taped a jet engine to your ox cart?

[12345hn6789]

How did you verify this works correctly, and as intended, in 10 minutes if it would have taken you 2 days to do it yourself?

[zombiwoof]

But you would have learned something if you invested the time. Now when your infra blows up you have no idea what to fix and will go fishing into the LLM lake to find how to fix it

[valcron1000]

> It did in 10 minutes what would take me several days to learn

> I review every small update and correct it when needed

How can you review something that you don't know? How do you know this is the right/correct result beyond "it looks like it works"?

[opto]

If it would have taken you days to learn about the topic well enough to write a bad implementation, how can you have any confidence you can evaluate, let alone "correct", one written by an LLM?

You just hope you are on a tractor.

[tauroid]

https://kompose.io/

[silverlake]

Here’s the real rebuttal to my overconfidence in LLMs. Thanks for the link!

[ithkuil]

I think this fits squarely with the idea that LLM today is a great learning tool; learning through practice has always been a proven way to learn but a difficult method to learn from fixed material like books.

LLM is a teacher that can help you learn by doing the work you want to be doing and not some fake exercise.

The more you learn though, the more you review the code produced by the LLM and the more you'll notice that you are still able to reason better than an LLM and after your familiarity with an area exceeds the capabilities of the LLM the interaction with the LLM will bring diminishing returns and possibly the cost of babysitting that eager junior developer assistant may become larger than the benefits.

But that's not a problem, for all areas you master there will be hundreds of other areas you haven't mastered yet or ever will and for those things the LLM we have already today are of immediate help.

All this without even having to enter the topic of how coding assistants will improve in the future.

TL;DR

Use a tool when it helps. Don't use it when it doesn't. It pays to learn to use a tool so you know when it helps and when it doesn't. Just like every other tool

[greenhat76]

This is such an arrogant take.