mirawelner

Sure, but the specific critique that it is too verbose seems less valid if one of the primary purposes of the piece was to be prose.

Because we went through so many years of school for it

I actually disagreed with that particular point made in the article, because I don't really see myself as somebody who sees value in craft and artistry, I just want effective code that works (which imho LLMs cannot create).

But after reading this comment section... I mean if enjoying well written prose counts as enjoying craft and artistry I guess I do then? Damn.

I somewhat disagree that this is not prose? This didn't seem like a purely expository piece. Like if it were just a straightforward technical piece than yeah its way to long, it could have been a few sentences.

But this seemed like it bridges the gap between prose and an expository essay -it was doing both.

...because reading and writing well-written prose is meaningful and enjoyable?

It feels like half the people here do not read or write in their free time, which would be understandable if this were not primarily a site for software engineers who write (sorta) as a job

I mean just as a counterpoint:

I am a Junior dev (graduated in 2022) and I am gainfully employed at the McGowan institute, earning an okay salary, with colleagues who actively use LLMs, but there is zero talk of firing me or laying me off due of LLMs. I personally avoid LLMs for most things other than:

1) Google search which actually works 2) translating MATLAB, which I have never learned (and probably won't ever)

There is a whole team of Junior devs, and actually on Friday I got an email asking if I could refer another junior/entry level. Granted it was for a 1 year contract, but still.

I really do not get this hype.

No it’s just sloooooowwwwww

“ My next mission is to build an agent that even my mum can use”

There is literally no need to shit on ur mom like that. Sorry your mom sucks at tech but can we please stop using this as a euphemism?

I’m a contract hire that you paid upfront! You can’t fire me!

Also let this be a lesson to internet folks to be careful what you post if your boss shitposts on the orange yelling site

That’s funny bc I linked my post to a server I’m on and I also was told to use an agent.

My worry about an agent is I’m trying to translate the math with full fidelity and an agent might take liberties with the math rather than full accuracy. I’m already having issues with 0 to 1 indexing screwing up some of the algorithm.

But I will try an agent - can’t hurt to try

These posts make me feel like I’m the worst llm prompter in existence.

I’m using a mix of Gemini, grok, and gpt to translate some matlab into c++. It is kinda okay at its job but not great? I am rapidly reading Accelerated C++ to get to the point where I can throw the llm out the window. If it was python or Julia I wouldn’t be using an LLM at all bc I know those languages. AI is barely better than me at C++ because I’m halfway through my first ever book on it. What LLMs are these people using?

The code I’m translating isn’t even that complex - it runs analysis on ecg/ppg data to implement this one dude’s new diagnosis algorithm. The hard part was coming up with the algorithm, the code is simple. And the shit the LLM pours out works kinda okay but not really? I have to do hours of fix work on its output. I’m doing all the hard design work myself.

I fucking WISH I could only work on biotech and research and send the code to an LLM. But I can’t because they suck so I gotta learn how computer memory works so my C++ doesn’t eat up all my pc’s memory. What magical LLMs are yall using??? Please send them my way! I want a free llm therapist and a programmer! What world do you live in?? Let me in!

The type of content I come to HackerNews for

See I like this but also the majority of software jobs these days are a net negative to humanity

Maybe I’m just a silly lab engineer who doesn’t know how big companies work (i did work at a startup for a time but that’s even more anti meeting than a lab) but I feel like maybe if you have so many back to back meetings that you need to plan around them you should have fewer meetings?

Also why is there a hard end time rather than a maximum time? What is even going on? How are you getting work done?

I really love Zed bc it’s fast and doesn’t try to run the code for you. I really dislike the “play” feature of IDEs. I learned Java in eclipse and for the linear time don’t know how to run it from the terminal. It has all the editing and highlighting features of a full ide but makes you run it from the terminal. And if you have Zellij or another muxer set up, it runs it in the Zed terminal automatically.

I like metaphors. I respect a good “run with a metaphor” post. But I feel like if you have to explain the metaphor this much during the post it’s not worth it

I feel like my learning curve for AI is:

1) Learn backprop, etc, basic math

2) Learn more advanced things, CNNs, LMM, NMF, PCA, etc

3) Publish a paper or poster

4) Forget basics

5) Relearn that backprop is a thing

repeat.

Some day I need to get my education together.

Today I learned that there is such a thing as an array language! This is so neat! Need to learn all of them.

I work in a lab which researches regenerative medicine and people often talk about how we are saving lives.

But at the end of the day, it’s not what we are doing that is pushing the needle, its projects like this make existing healthcare accessible for everybody. I want to get a PhD in something related to this at some point. You guys are so insanely cool.

Maybe I live in a bubble but these are not problems I’ve ever heard expressed until now. Bluesky seems perfectly fine for those who use it?

Thank you!!

I’m still processing that this is the Ycombinator cofounder. It’s not a good thing or a bad thing - although tbh it’s better this person founded Ycombinator than say, a nepo baby which is always what I had kind of assumed. But the idea that the cofounder of Ycombinator didn’t discover their ambition until after undergrad is going to take a bit for my brain to absorb.

Blogs like these remind me of the time I was riding my scooter without a helmet. A lady in a wheelchair yelled “wear a helmet it’s how I ended up in this chair”

So now I wear a helmet

It’s funny that they lead with AI tools. I love zed because it’s fast, customizable, has a clean interface and it’s easy to pair program. The LLM bit is just an annoying thing I shut off because imo I’m too junior at the moment to use LLMs

What the hell dude

Firstly, if their site is broken on mobile they’ve fixed it because it works fine for me.

Secondly, they aren’t trying to claim that Google is terrible just that everything doesn’t have to look identical.

Even if Google is “better” it’s cliche at this point. Why are you so angry at somebody suggesting that some sites should not look like Google?

This post is what really helped me get the job

https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/ludics-guide-to-getting-soft...

This sort of thing is why I decided to do research so I could work at universities and small startups! I figured that way I could be away from the corruption and selfishness that exists in large tech companies.

Then my whole department got defunded. More fool me.

The comparison of AI to the fey is the sort of thing I’d normally object to because I dislike mythologizing AI.

But it’s REALLY apt sometimes

As a blogger I use both feeds - it’s a pain bc I manually maintain both but it’s worth it.

I use neither though to decrease my screen time. Perhaps I’m a feed grifter? I hope not.

Sturgeons's Law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law