Comment by RagnarD | Hacker News Reader

Comment by RagnarD | Hacker News Reader

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Not to be unkind but simply factual: the author is clearly not a great developer. e.g.:

"At one point, we wanted a command that would print a hundred random lines from a dictionary file. I thought about the problem for a few minutes, and, when thinking failed, tried Googling." Really?

"But he had no idea what a pain it is to make an iPhone app. I’d tried a few times and never got beyond something that half worked. I found Apple’s programming environment forbidding." Perhaps. But compared to what? Yeah, it's not using VI to write Javascript or whatever he considers a programming environment.

Power tools didn't stop people from making things. Autocad didn't put architects out of business. Finite element modelling didn't destroy civil engineering. Quickbooks hasn't destroyed the need for accountants. Word processors didn't destroy writing. Google translate didn't remove the need for translators.

LLMs will be a power tool for good developers. I think many underestimate what it'll take to fully replace good or excellent software developers and what they do in totality.

In author's defense he doesn't claim to be exceptional and even concludes his essay with labeling this A.I. moment as “the revenge of the so-so programmer.” I actually enjoyed author's nuanced take, different from the common narrative of AI takeover. To the contrary I think LLM-driven coding is not a tool of power users, but rather a tool of disempowered users. They will bring many more people into the engineering profession and change the profession for many in it towards more complex tasks. Quickbooks hasn't destroyed the need for accountants, yet it allowed millions to become the "so-so accountants", when that's all their business needed.

I don't think a "so-so programmer" would need to google to figure out how to select random lines from a file.

I would have to Google. You really have the library methods you would need for that memorized? I think the last time I had to select random elements from a list at work was...never. Why would I still know that?

Would it be Random.int()? Or Random.range()? Or maybe there's a better choice that operates directly on a list? Or wait is it gonna return the value or a Generator of the value? Etc. Even if you remember how to do random number generation in your language, this specific use case probably necessitates a Google unless you have a godlike memory, or you don't mind half-assing it.

It doesn't sound like the author had to google for specific library methods (otherwise they wouldn't have had to think about the problem for a few minutes beforehand). It sounds like they genuinely couldn't figure it out (even given those library functions).

I don't think googling for library methods is a sign of a bad developer. On the contrary, googling for specific library functions instead of hacking something together using general library functions is a sign of a good developer.

That said, at least for python, I personally wouldn't have to google. I use random.choices a few times a year.

I agree with the sentiment, but cars did put stalls and horse and buggy drivers out of business. Google translate may not have put translators completely out of business but when I travel I dont stress about needing one because I can fall back to translate for emergencies. The new voicebox model from Meta does seem like it really could put translators out of business. Some technologies really do kill entire industries (but I dont think the current iteration of LLMs will do so for programmer)

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