My experience trying to get better coding out of LLMs, and how I walked towards improvement.
792 karma · joined September 29, 2010
More than enough for guided code sessions, at 100% privacy. And i can use obliverated models if i am trying to harden my own app, something i cannot do with cloud providers.
Three days with AI and FluidScript is born. The language is minimalistic, the keywords are simple, and you can stop execution at any line and you get the whole context back, later you can continue from that point passing the context, and it continues as if it hasn't stopped. Full host integration and a Monaco editor example that shows how to do break points.
Dreamed it for years, now, once I have a clear concept and design, AI type it on 3 days.
People want the "Fluent Text Generator" to think for them because its marketing calls it AI. At the end is just a tensor collection, probabilistically backtracked adjusted, text generator. It does produces fluency in the answer, but the fact that it sounds correct, to the point of passing a compiler approval, has nothing to do with been well thought out.
hahaha
Installed Linux mint Xfce Edition for lightness, installed ollama, start to test different models. Gemma4 e4b runs perfectly fine, exposed it to the network, connected to it with my current notebook and use vs code codex to start to run inference.
For about 30 minutes of bliss, this setup work at a reasonable speed... then the MBP shut it self down. It was so hot that it trigger the safety mechanism, the fans sounded like the laptop was about to take off.
I though on leaving it on inside the fridge, but then the WIFI wouldn't reach.
On the other hand, my wife saw all this and offer to buy me an M5... the experiment didn't work as intended, but it did work.
"4.1. Zed's Use of Customer Data Customer hereby grants Zed a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, fully paid-up, non-sublicensable (except to service providers and Customer’s designees), non-transferable (except as set forth in Section 15.1) right to use, copy, store, disclose, transmit, transfer, display, modify, create derivative works from, collect, access, store, host, or otherwise process (“Process”) any materials that Customer inputs into or otherwise makes available to the Service (including prompts and other written content) (collectively, “Customer Data”) solely: (a) to perform its obligations set forth in the Terms, including its Support obligations as applicable; (b) to derive and generate Telemetry (see Section 4.4); and (c) as necessary to comply with applicable Laws. Except as required by applicable Laws, Zed will not provide Customer Data to any person or entity other than Customer’s designees (including pursuant to Section 7) or service providers."
Sorry, no I don't agree to make my source code and the product I am working to give you "non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, fully paid-up, non-sublicensable (except to service providers and Customer’s designees), non-transferable (except as set forth in Section 15.1) right to use, copy, store, disclose, transmit, transfer, display, modify, create derivative works from, collect, access, store, host, or otherwise process (“Process”) any materials that Customer inputs into or otherwise makes available to the Service (including prompts and other written content)"
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/concrete-vibe-coding-jorge-va...
The bottom line is this:
* The developer stop been a developer, and becomes a product designer with high technical skills.
* This is a different set of skills than than a developer or a product owner currently have. It is a mix of both, and the expectations of how agentic development works need to be adjusted.
* The working with an agent feels more like mentoring the AI than ask and receive.
* Use TDD, ask the agent to create the tests, and then code to the test. Don't correct the bugs, make the agent correct them and explain why that is a bug, specially with code design decisions. Store those in AGENTS.md file at the root of the project.
There are more things that can be done to guide the agent, but I need to have clear in an articulable way the direction of the coding. On the other side, I don't worry about implementation details like how to use libraries and APIs that I am not familiar with, the agent just writes and I test.
Currently I am working on a product and I can tell you, working no more than 10 hours a week (2 hours here, 3 there, leave the agent working while I am having dinner with family) I am progressing at I would say 5 to 10 times faster than without it. So, yeah it works, but I had to adjust how I do my job.
This forum (HN) attracts certain population that wants to do things, to understand, to share relatively well based opinions and have a discussion.
But look around, look at the new hires in the other departments. And by new I mean young, in their 20. A lot of them welcome this kind of things, they evaluate by popularity and likes. The marketing begin the AI bubble knows this, and so it pushes for it. Make it popular is more important than make it useful, because there is a tipping point were is popular enough that we capitulate.
Turns out that Idiocracy is not that far behind (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/)
1. Defending science as objective truth is not propaganda, so the editor did not engage un such.
2. The article it self is not about science, but it is weasel propaganda on it self because accusing of propaganda to the editor is a form of propaganda that is presented as "reasonable" but the intended effect is to try to call propaganda what is not.
If I go complaining that you go around beating people up, and that is why I will go and beat you up, and at the end I claim that it is ok because I agree with hitting people is ok doesn't excuse my action.
Also, stating the obvious (SA needs to get back to its roots) serves in this case as a straw man argument, the point was how bad an inexcusable was the editor behavior, not what the roots of SA should be.
This article is closer to the son of the president in the "Don't look up" movie than anything else. It tries to push the previous editor to a square of just do scientific work... but there is a point, in defense of the editor, where people claiming that the earth is flat need to be push back. Objective truth needs to prevail regardless of how people feel about it politically, and it is ok, in my book, to defend that
The while message of the article is to trash talk the departing editor accusing her of political left bias... which in it self (the trash talking) is a political statement from the conservative side.
To the author of the article: you are no better than her...
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/continuous-net-c-and-f-ide/id1...
My attempt of ms access for the web. It is version 0.8, then I hit caveats and limitations of using blazor, so i am in the process of rewriting it on asp.net core 7 mvc
tables, forms and reports are defined in xml, it has basic querying facilities and account and security management. It uses Lua for backend scripting. It allows for full app development in the browser. database is sqlite, but i made an orm that is database vendor agnostic just in case
Created an app for simple course management which is working fine, including certificate generator.
"I wish I knew what happened, or how to replicate it. It’s involved more upfront design than I normally do, by necessity. I like feeling my way forward in general, but there are problems where the approach just doesn’t work"
Yes, immediate (or soon enough) gratification feels good... To me, and maybe is because I am an old fart, this is the difference between programming and engineering.
I call it do you have 10 years of experience? or do you have 1 year of experience 10 times?
As a kid, until 8 or 9 years old, my birthday parties with my friends (kids too) running around and screaming will push me to withdraw to my room and have a meltdown. I remember this stressing my parents because they wanted me to form social bonds, and in the 70s there was no vocabulary to describe what was happening to me. But this help me understand what was happening when I saw my kid doing the same.
The good news is that as we grow up we create coping mechanisms, so this is transitory and most likely will get better. Respecting the fact of having a quiet place to be helps. The clinging is the looking for safety, always welcome it or she will feel rejected at a vulnerable moment.
Which leads me to a warning. Trying to process the sensory overload put us in an emotionally vulnerable position, which in school leads to been a bully victim. Even in high school there was a guy that scream around me so I would contract and he could beat me. Same thing with my son who end up shovel into a locker. We had to involve the police on this one. Things get better around college when bigger responsibilities push away bullies.
Identify something that she likes to do and bring her peace, then provide that when she is overloaded so she can have tools to cope
:D Priceless!
Their curriculum is very VERY far from a completed CS curriculum. Maybe the project is not finished, and when it is it will cover everything that a computer scientist needs to know
But for now I think it is misleading.
2. The mix of concepts between programming paradigms, architectural design, etc. doesn't body well supporting the conclusion about "every programming philosophy"
It feels to me like much ADO about nothing
The lack of ability to prioritize is because every single detail is consider important. Which is why he gain the reputation of writing perfect programs.
Choosing your battles is good in the interpersonal relationships; but Mother nature does not choose battles when enforcing its laws, it doesn't say "well... right now we should suspend gravity because there are bigger fish to fry".
From that perspective there are not major or minor points, there are only points. So, what might seem petulant for neurotypical people, for Asperger's people is much more black and white; which is a blessing and a curse. but you will thank me later.
- don't directly address the point of your question / provide a much complex answer (or even worse, a non-answer) to a simple question
Simple or easy? For once, a lot of time the question oversimplified the problem that is been asked about, and reality is very nuanced. The fact that the person asking assumes that the question is simple and, on top of that, gets frustrated when it is not leads me to believe that doesn't know what is asking or that does not have the emotional maturity to manage his/her feeling. As the person provided the answer, my obligation is to give all the information necessary to understand the answer. This means removing assumptions; specially the assumptions that make believe that the question is easy. If you don't want to hear it, that is on you, not the person answering. What I don't want is later on to get "I asked you and you told me X", without me been able to say "true, within the context I explained, and the context changed"
- don't stay focused to the point of the discussion
Deflection is a good technique that a lot of people uses when trying to tell bad news to power. Other times, maybe what you are asking has origins on other places that you think are unrelated, put attention. In short, if you want to get shot accurate answers, then foster an environment around you where people feels that they can trust you with bad news, and that you are knowledgeable enough to know that what you don't know might be important. Fostering such environment is up to you, and ranting on HN is not going to help you
- don't have some level of clarity in their train of thought and speech
Or maybe it takes time to formulate an answer that can cross the listener's emotional state and reach with the piece of knowledge that is been asked for. When I see that, I need to consider if I stablish a relationship were people is confident that telling things by their name will not result in retaliation, including but not limiting to your personal frustrations.
- generally over-complicate matters by wandering off to other related subjects and extending the scope of the discussion
Ufff... 2 red flags here: "Over-complicate matters" and "other RELATED subjects". Yeah... if people feels that need to walk around you in tiptoes, and measuring what they can or cannot say to you, or how to say it, then that is you not creating trusting relationships, and venting your frustration in HN is not going to fix it.
Work at gaining people trust and feeling safe around you, then you can remove your potential lack of soft skills out of the equation, and will allow you to discover what people need to communicate more clearly with you