Thread

1. axegon_ · 1789905896 · focus · HN ↗

   Ah, the "skill issue" argument again. Same crap aswhen everyonewas worshiping Musk 5-6 years ago, this time it's dario and altman with a claude/chatgpt mask. Crash can't come soon enough.

   1. skybrian · 1789906594 · focus · HN ↗

      And why wouldn’t writing software be a skill issue? Yes, it’s an annoying meme, but we should expect that there are better and worse ways to write software. It would be weird if everyone got the same results regardless of experience.

      I’m doubtful that the author’s recommendation always work, but I do some similar things and they do seem to help.

      1. malfist · 1789907364 · focus · HN ↗

         Anyone who thinks they can produce high quality code from an LLM is mistaken about how to judge code. Trust me, I've seen enough PRs to last a life time. A lot of professionals wouldn't know good code if it slapped them in the face.

         1. asutekku · 1789907839 · focus · HN ↗

            I'd argue for most people LLM produces much better code than they would be able to write themselves.

            1. malfist · 1789909414 · focus · HN ↗

               That is not an argument that LLMs produce good code

               1. bluGill · 1789910675 · focus · HN ↗

                  They produce good code when I'm personally reviewing them. There are a few other people who work with who likewise know how to review code and thus can get good code out of an LLM. There are, however, a lot of people who just accept the first slop that they get out of it and that's not good code.

                  The larger issue of good code isn't the actual individual lines, it's the overall architecture. And that's what I'm going to be reviewing first is, is this a good approach? Then the interfaces to other code is this a good interface. Get those two right and we can go back for the details. In a lot of cases, the LLM is plenty good at those details.

                  In some cases, an LLM is better than what I could do. Well, I suppose I can trace down all the locks in all the different special cases, and I have done that, but that was a huge amount of effort that I really don't want to repeat.

                  Note that I'm talking about recent models. If you're asking about the models of just one year ago, I would give a very different answer about the type of code an LLM produces.

            2. abalashov · 1789997560 · focus · HN ↗

               I'm not sure how literally you mean "most people". This might be true in a purely volumetric sense, but that's not really the bar around these parts...

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