Padraic HarleyMar 19
CodeByJeff

As a programmer, I wish I could help people understand that the fastest part of any project is writing the code...

Non-programmers always want to throw more code writers at a project to speed things up. The "Mythical Man Month" problem aside,

the bottlenecks are all the legwork involved in defining the problem, the scope of this particular task, and fully testing it.

Even before AI, writing code was fast and we already have a lot of tools to crank it out...if we're clear on *what* to crank out.

This is prolly true in all fields, this difference in understanding between the people who actually work in a field, and the people who are adjacent to that field.

Mar 19 at 9:12pmWeb
Show threadjeremiahMar 19
@codebyjeff The only part of code writing that has historically not been fast for me is writing tests but that might be more a problem of knowing what to test and how to accurately capture that in an automated fashion versus the writing itself.
Show threadCodeByJeffMar 19
@jeremiah that's absolutely me, but thankfully I've been showing improvement in that area lately
Show threadjeremiahMar 25
@codebyjeff I think it's just hard. I have also been trying to improve. I'm trying to trick my brain into thinking that it's a lot like writing documentation because I love writing documentation.
Show threadPadraic HarleyMar 19
@codebyjeff "Measure twice, cut once" =)
Show threadAlanna 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️Mar 19
@codebyjeff writing code with the so-called "AI" is probably slower TBQFH.
Show threadCodeByJeffMar 19

@kelpana the small bit I've done has proven to take about the same amount of time, but been incredibly boring

I would love to try it out on a large factoring task, though - there's where I think it would really shine

Show threadAlanna 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️Mar 20
@codebyjeff every time my IDE updates it switches "AI" autocomplete back on. It is extremely annoying more than anything else.
Show threadIvan Sagalaev Mar 19
@codebyjeff what's absolutely *amazing* to me is when actual experienced programmers start singing songs about increased productivity and give examples like "C compiler in two weeks from scratch". They should know better, but it looks like there's something about those tools that captures them on a deep psychological level.
Show threadTom 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️Mar 20

@codebyjeff
Maurice Wilkes, an early computing pioneer, reflecting on the early days, said, "I remember the exact moment when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs."

With AI-generated code, programmers give up the creative pleasure and joy of writing code, and multiply the amount of tedious and difficult debugging instead. What a bargain.

Show threadCodeByJeffMar 20

@tom we also give up a lot of the tedious boilerplate parts of our jobs...

I think it can be argued both ways, depending on how you personally are using it

Show threadRobert BrewerMar 20
@codebyjeff yes, and the REALLY hard part is making the design coherent, which tends to become harder after about 3 people working simultaneously. AI can never good cohere, it can only bad cohere.
Show threadHanno ReinMar 20
@codebyjeff it’s also the really fun part
Show threadWesDymMar 20
@codebyjeff Logically, nine women working together should be be able to produce a baby in just a month.
Show threadPeter LudemannMar 20
@codebyjeff Probably true for the majority of software, that the biggest problem is figuring what the problem is (business rules, use cases, UX, etc)
But some problems are mostly about the code ... compilers, databases, webservers, browsers, operating systems, paxos/raft, end-to-end cryptography, etc, etc.
Show threadJageMar 20
@ChanceyFleet @codebyjeff I feel this. Even working with AI coding, I find that at least half or more of my time is spent planning, testing, etc.
Show threadCurt Olson4h ago
@codebyjeff I am a software guy that works with a bunch of friken engineers. They all know how to build physical stuffs and know all the right things about defining the problem before picking the solution ... until it comes to software and then they forget everything. The solution magics it's way into existing somehow ... the solution that they are picturing (and not close to fully describing) will flow easily. And bonus, it will be easy because I'll be using the tool they already picked out for me to do the development with (that I've never seen before, but the youtube videos talk about how you can build all kinds of cool stuff with zero coding) and it should probably take about a week or two. We are an achievement based organization so ... results ... now!