Julia EvansFeb 23

i do not want to get into the business of posting LLM takes but very briefly:

It feels clear to me that some people* are getting value out of using LLMs for programming. Basically see https://simonwillison.net/'s whole blog. If I think about it purely on the basis of "in a vacuum, can this help me write programs", it seems like an exciting technology.

BUT...

(1/?)

(* it also feels clear that some people are NOT getting value out of LLMs, hoping to avoid flamewars about that please)

Show threadVicki BoykisFeb 23
@b0rk I think there is a jagged edge - on one side are tasks that benefit from LLMs (new standalone codebases, particularly in dynamic languages, creating written drafts, planning), and a group of people for whom they are useful (people working alone, the very senior who know exactly how to evaluate outputs), and on the other side are places they fall apart, and we (the industry as a whole) don’t spend nearly enough time examining the differences because of the hype
Show threadHenri
@vicki this was the case in 2025, but now it seems that they can chew through huge legacy codebases in compiled languages and come up with detailed answers that would have taken me hours to figure out, but do it in minutes. This is mostly what I have used them recently, not much code writing itself
Feb 23 at 3:43pmWeb