Thom, exceedingly pureMar 12

If you hired a translator and they sent you a Google Translate translation, they would be a bad translator.

If you hired an artist and they sent you an image generated by Gemini, they would be a bad artist.

If you hired a programmer and they sent you a slopcoded website, they would be a...?

Yeah.

What is it with programmers and their desire for mediocrity?

Show threadcharlotteMar 12
@thomholwerda i hire a translator, not their tools. if they use google translate and deliver the result, what difference does that make to me?
Show threadTheFwGuy 🇪🇺🇮🇹🇺🇸🖖Mar 12
@halva @thomholwerda If you can't answer to the question the problem is you then.
I bet the only thing you check before to hire somebody, is how much the translator charge.
And maybe your answer could be "hey, why hire a translator when I can use google ?"
Show threadcharlotteMar 12
@thefwguy @thomholwerda im paying to get a job done. im not paying them to perform some specific ritual. if they deliver what i asked them to do using google translate, abbyy lingvo, a 3.5 kilogram book dictionary, their own mind, an llm or all of the aforementioned in any combination doesn't bother me. they're not paid for abstract artisanship. what tools they use is none of my concern, they're being paid to be the one bothering with that and to get me the final result
Show threadOctavi NavarroMar 12
@halva @thefwguy @thomholwerda I think the OP's point is that Google Translate is really bad and no serious professional translator would ever use it to do their job.
Show threadNtropic

@octavinavarro @halva @thefwguy @thomholwerda pretty sure translators use whatever the best tool at the time is and then iterate on that result. The tool will do 90% of it well and then require intervention on the rest. Same with LLM generated code.

Most of coding is boilerplate repititions, arduous dumb things, let me focus on the added benefit I have to the project: The coordination, the data structure layout, the logic.

Mar 12 at 2:18pmWeb
Show threadOctavi NavarroMar 12
@Ntropic @halva @thefwguy @thomholwerda That’s the thing though: I don't think they are good tools for these tasks.
Google Translate has no idea of the context, intention, or tone of the original author, so the real professional will have to carefully rewrite most of the text to achieve a minimum quality.
And I guess the same is true with programming. I find it hard to debug my own code, I can’t imagine how slow and miserable must be to fix everything a dumb machine broke down.
Show threadNtropicMar 12
@octavinavarro @halva @thefwguy @thomholwerda Maybe it's not for you. But also, google translate is not the best tool. I am sure many people have different workflows that work for them. People that don't like to review code should definitely not use coding agents. I personally prefer code completions.