David GerardMar 6

there are people who attempt to distinguish AI-assisted autocomplete from substantially AI-assisted code from raw braindead Gas Town vibe coding

this is not a useful distinction as they *all* end up at the third one

you can tell when they start posting the *same* hype phrases all the others use

there is no moderation on the krokodil advocacy train

Show threadmx alex tax1a - 2020 (6)Mar 6
@davidgerard we had language-model-assisted autocomplete in our emacs in 2013. it's called dabbrev-expand. we also have a random text generator, it's called dissociated-press. we even have a psychiatric chatbot, M-x doctor.
Show threadMoses IzumiMar 7
@davidgerard @atax1a
If I was doing a newsletter on LLM bollocks I'd have a column highlighting reliable, energy efficient solutions to the problems that they claim to solve.

I don't know if Microsoft bundling Visual Basic with every copy of Windows (getting the rubes acquainted with programming) would've prevented the vibecoding epidemic, but it would probably have mitigated it.
Show threadBloognooMar 7

@moses_izumi @davidgerard @atax1a

Office had 2/3rds of a visual basic built in for years just to get excel and access to run. It meant you could do rather a lot, including producing macro viruses that travelled by being passed about. The day you went to save a word doc and it would only save as a dot (template) you knew were in trouble - templates carried and executed scripts automatically so it was the preferred vector.

Quick Basic in MSDos had a much wider effect. MS deciding visual studio would cost a fortune took away a lot of citizen coder opportunities so we went to borland from magazine cover disks and CDs.

Only people interested in coding bothered at any point in this (a be it confused) timeline, and the number of previously respected coders who have programming literacy and have still gone all in AI is horrifying.

I suspect crypto currencies presoftened their heads but we didn't get to see that in public.

Show threadDavid GerardMar 7
@bloognoo @moses_izumi @atax1a i have seen a shocking number of people who saw through cryptos immediately fall for AI krokodil
Show threadMoses Izumi
@bloognoo @atax1a
I guess pinning "Batch Scripting for Dummies" to the desktop/homefolder would also have been an option.
Mostly focused on BASIC being Microsoft's bread&butter for first dozen years.

@davidgerard
Krokodil should be the name of a piracy focused KDE-adjacent media player (or games launcher) that only connects to the dodgiest sources.
(maybe just call it Knark, as a play on Krita).
Mar 7 at 11:31amWeb