FreeBSD hacker. Has been known to touch pf and lived to regret it.
Strong opinions on bikes and the need to crush all cars into tiny cubes. More strong opinions about bullshit machines.
Rather foolishly volunteered to run EuroBSDCon 2026 in Brussels.
Ceterum autem censeo FTP esse delendam.
| Country | Belgium |
| Pronouns | he/him |
| Website | https://www.sigsegv.be |
RE: https://mathstodon.xyz/@gregeganSF/116606390500783662
I do not understand how AI is allowed to be so utterly useless.
Well, I mean I do, it's money, but deep down in the core of my being I do not understand.
FFS
But if you use a LLM to write your code, and only look at it, when it doesn't do what you want, you are not training to become a better programmer, you are training to become a better "incoming code quality inspector".
But there is no training-path from incoming code quality inspector to good programmer, because you are (deliberately) not investing the 10k hours.
At the core it comes down to passive vs. active vocabulary: You only grow your active vocabulary by expressing yourself.
2/2
PS:
I really do wish there were more "incoming code quality inspectors" in the world.
I hope EU's CRA makes that a thing.
And then I hope they drive a stake through the m4-armor of the autocrap monster.
I think I can finally put words around what truly bothers me about the "AI changes everything" meme, as far as programming goes:
Programming is fundamentally hard for our brains, because it requires fractal perfection.
(By fractal perfection I mean that each code line must be perfect, but so must the overall architecture and all intermediate levels.)
They way your brain gets better at that is training by doing.
The oft quoted 10k hours is probably about right, also for programming.
1/2
Today I was open-minded enough to give Claude a try.
(Or, in a much more accurate way, I was desperate enough about how awful AWS is to use that I asked Claude for answers).
The very first question I asked it hallucinated where to find the thing I asked about.
So let's not do that again.
(Yes, this is a “Kristof is right about LLMs" post.)
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