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Code Is Cheap Now. Software Isn’t (chrisgregori.dev)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/programming@programming.dev
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.bestiver.se/post/856407

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[+] -12 points 10 months ago (14 children)

Everyone could always learn woodworking, weaving, sewing, smithing, ... that is not an argument. The point is that better tools make it easier to learn/perform/perfect these skills. Today anyone with a little torch and a hammer can play around with steel. 300 years ago you had to at least take on an apprenticeship to ever get to do that. Sewing with a sewing machine is so much faster, there is not much time to invest before you can make your own clothes.

Not everyone has 100s of hours free time to sink into this and that skill "the purist way". Any tool that makes the learning curve more shallow and/or the process itself easier/cheaper/... helps democratizing these things.

You argue as if everyone needs to be a super duper software architect, while most people just want to create some tool or game or whatever they think of, just for themselves.

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  • [–] 13 points 10 months ago (8 children)

    Not everyone has 100s of hours free time to sink into this and that skill

    That's life, buddy. Nobody can learn everything, so communities rely on specialists who can master their craft. Would you rather your doctor have 100s of hours of study and practice, or a random person off the street with ChatGPT? If something is worth studying for 100s of hours, then there's more nuance to the skill than any layman or current AI system can capture in a few sentence prompt.

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  • [–] -5 points 10 months ago (7 children)

    What kind of nonsense comparison is that? Somewhat off topic, borderline straw man.

    People still have their job, better tools enable people to do more things in their free time. Some even switch professions later on, once they have enough experience. Lowering the bar (invest, skill, ...) is simply a good thing.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (6 children)

    I personally have spent those 100s (actually more like 1000s) of hours studying Software Engineering, and I was doing my best to give an example of how current AI tools are not a replacement for experience. Neither is having access to a sewing machine or blowtorch and hammer (you still need to know about knots and thread / metallurgy / the endless amount of techniques for using those tools).
    Software in particular is an extremely theoretical field, similar to medicine (thus my example with a doctor).
    ChatGPT is maybe marginally better than a simple web search when it comes to learning. There is simply no possible way to compress the decade of experience I have into a few hours of using an LLM. The usefulness of AI for me starts and ends at fancy auto-complete, and that literally only slightly speeds up my already fast typing speed. Getting a good result out of AI for coding requires so much prerequisite knowledge to ask the right questions, a complete novice is not even going to know what they should be asking for without going through those same 100s of hours of study.

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  • [–] -1 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    Without chatGPT I could not have repaired things where I simply threw the datasheet at it and got code to reprogram it, like for an BMS. I could not digitize data streams by sniffing I2C. I could not use computer vision to decode a display. I could not make control and data logging interfaces for machines, turning decade old shit into good-as-new just based on their serial interface. Etc. Etc.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (4 children)

    It sounds like you still can't.

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  • [–] -1 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    How blinded by your hate/rage are you that you blindly(!) dismiss the things I do (a random person you do not know) with the help of that tool? Disgusting MAGA level of "argument".

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (2 children)

    Hate or rage? That's absolutely silly. I'm a computer scientist and I value actual skill.

    I mean do a little thought experiment. If there was a dude who followed me around everywhere and I could always ask him for code-based solutions to things, and he gives them to me, am I coding? Have I actually done anything?

    You could argue that the system of he and I were accomplishing something together but the problem with that logic is that if you removed me from the system, as a middleman, you're left with someone who still did the work. In that particular system I add absolutely nothing, therefor I'm not actually a part that is of any real use.

    If the box is handing you the answers to things you don't know how to do then guess what - you still don't know how to do those things. Eventually you get into a position where you have a product that you can no longer properly understand, debug, or make any real use out of.

    I think the real tell here is how sensitive you are if anybody calls you out on your b******* and even the smallest way. Have a nice day :-).

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    If you use a sewing machine to fix your clothes, did you even do anything? That is the level of argument we are at here. Absolutely ridiculous. It saved me so much time already. Sure I can also digest a datasheet, put all the registers down, glue logic, bla bla bla, but instead of wasting 10 hours I am already done with everything an hour later.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

    Well you've picked an absolutely terrible analogy, which makes sense given how sensitive you are about it.

    If you were able to talk to the sewing machine and tell it exactly what to do with the fabrics what patterns to follow and so forth--then no you haven't done s***.

    I sew my own clothes and costumes so I know this to be true. Sewing using a machine is no trivial thing. You have to understand the mechanics of the machine the patterns etc. You have to understand how to read a pattern or come up with one yourself and you have to implement it with the correct stitching the correct fabric and so forth.

    If you wanted to pick apart my analogy in an actual careful sense, you would have a situation where you have a person who understands how to use the sewing machine and you give them instructions. But again, in terms of the system you aren't providing any value. The person doing the sewing is. You would still be superfluous and you still wouldn't understand what's actually going on. Call yourself a manager, but don't call yourself a tailor or seamstress.

    But what you did is pick an object That is a regular tool and claim that it's doing the same job, which is preposterous.

    Our compilers already do massive amounts of syntax and semantic checking. Our linyers do the same. There's a ton of tools that don't involve articulating at a high level what you want and magically getting back your entire process.

    Sure, you're done an hour later. And you have no idea what the limitations of your system are. You have no idea what sort of bugs are hidden from your test. You have zero ability to comprehend what's actually going on inside if you don't actually understand the domain.

    What you are is a vibe code or by the sounds of it. Honestly I prefer the old school script kiddies because at least they were doing something themselves.

    Basically what you're doing is the same thing as me opening up CAD and then pretending that I'm an engineer. I'm not a f****** engineer. I didn't take the right training. I'm not licensed in the area. I can create a 3D model all day long. But that's literally all I can do.

    I think you need to understand your limitations the same way the rest of the world does.

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago

    Well, if you want to use that stuff for your personal use that's totally fine. But there is a difference between doing that and selling your creation as a product. To pick up on your example, it's great if someone learns woodworking and puts together a table or something. You probably won't sell it though because unless you get really good at it, the piece of furniture will not meet the standards for a good product. It's absolutely the same when using LLMs to put together a piece of software. It will fall apart quickly unless you put some serious work in it. A lot of people think LLMs are a shortcut to learning this stuff and then go on and pretend to be professional software developers. I also doubt these vibecoders learn a lot about about coding when they don't even understand what the LLM is putting together for them as a result of a few wishful prompts.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    300 years ago you had to at least take on an apprenticeship to ever get to do that. Sewing with a sewing machine is so much faster, there is not much time to invest before you can make your own clothes.

    And four years ago a person needed a $100.00 Raspberry Pi 400 and a $25 Python or Java book, or an Internet connection and the URL for https://scratch.mit.edu/.

    I am also a fan of how AI is making coding more accessible. But it was hardly out of reach before AI hit the scene.

    Many of us in the community pirated our first proprietary code editors and books; and we worked hard for our whole careers to make sure the next generation of developers didn't have to steal their entry to the profession.

    Then AI slurped up and regurgitated our years of hard work, and newbies are thanking AI tech bro assholes for welcoming them to the coding community; instead of thanking the folks who tirelessly wrote and published the materials that the AI is regurgitating.

    It's fine to agree that AI made a difference. But AI only did the final easy part.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (2 children)

    No question, but ethics are a different topic where we seem to agree.

    In any case, I find it appalling how much people argue against what they think who I am or more generally that they argue about me at all instead of the topic. Simply because I am not "on their side". You too do this kind of gatekeeping around "we did the hard work" and "those thanking AI are only noobs", in both cases I am implicitly excluded/meant the way you phrase it. Mind you, both are very much incorrect. I learned to code MCUs 10+ years ago with Arduino and built a potent simulation tool for the chemical industry just prior to the launch of GPT3. I am also absolutely not a professional software engineer. But why do I need to say that? It should be completely irrelevant to the discussion. Instead, people want to show/see authority as if it meant anything.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 child)

    I don't mean to argue with you. I'm just trying to answer your implied question - "Why are so many programmers angry at this new tool?"

    Like artists, this new tool steals our work without giving due credit. And then it tries to replace us with a low quality mass regurgitation of our past work.

    I'm not angry that you have this new tool, I'm still happy if it helps you.

    I'm angry at how this tool was created and how it is being sold and monetized by scam artists.

    Edit: I guess I am arguing one point: People keep unjustly crediting AI for making an on-ramp for new developers. AI didn't do shit. People like myself built that on-ramp. I am happy that AI made the on-ramps I have helped build more discoverable. But I wish folks would not lose site of the fact that AI is just regurgitating guides that I, and my peers, wrote.

    It is annoying (and a little insulting) to constantly hear about how helpful AIs answers are. I wrote many of those answers. AI copied and pasted them.

    Edit: I'm not mad at AI users for having easy access to something I wrote. I wrote it for them.

    I'm mad at AI Tech Bro's for stealing my work and taking credit for it, while charging people for something I gave away for free.

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