Not so long ago I read something on HN which resonated with me: we’re moving into the era that is comparable to car mechanics enthusiasts. You have a previous generation of cars where people just enjoy working on with hand tools, and there’s modern cars where people like to tune with software patches.
From the very start of llms I’ve had nothing but bad experiences with code that was generated for me. Either it’s buggy, it works but I end up losing an evening on some obscure bug, or it’s full of red flags.
My latest hobby project is just in a text editor with markup and that’s it. I’m also done with the augmented assistance in the IDE. I google things I forgot. I constantly read these amazing stories of people vibe-coding some firmware/driver that just works, and honestly I’m starting to question whether I’m reading the posts of some promotional bot.
For me it's just making stuff for my family and kids and seeing if it sticks. LLM's have given me a way to easily get something off the ground whereas it used to be a few months now is a few evenings.
I've made a wealth of cute things for me and my kids to do (shameless self promotion)
<a href="https://drawesome.art" rel="nofollow">https://drawesome.art - multiple people drawing/painting/coloring on the same canvas my kids love this. The architecture took forever for me to get write. Basically server side authoritative state of pixels and blending between two points. How to realistically manage and store it.
<a href="https://www.catchmemeow.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.catchmemeow.com - random where's waldo-esque game where you find a cat or dog wearing a silly hat I made this for my daughter and me to help the shelter she wants to volunteer at.
<a href="https://www.cluestep.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.cluestep.com - this one is weird I've actually tried to productize it but i made this because I had the HARDEST time helping my oldest with her calculus/algebra II homework. Basically I constantly made her cry. I just wish I could make it not look so "Made with AI"
I think LLM's analogy are prefab with nailguns did for carpentry. It's very complicated to prompt it (at least for me) to try and make it do something novel and net new. It always falls back on node/typescript/fastAPI/python. It's not terrible at using more obscure languages but I have the hardest time describing what I want or thinking without starting something more by hand and then letting it take the wheel and seeing where it drives me.
I should mention too at work I'm practically forced, measured even on the amount of AI I use. The expectation feels like use AI for any and everything. So i'm more worried one day I'll be laid off once I'm found to hit the 'enter' key much anymore. Anyways for me I'd say embrace it, use it and you'll find your output is much higher with the caveat that when a bug occurs it's incredibly hard sometimes to fix if it's with LLM generated code.
> this one is weird I've actually tried to productize it but i made this because I had the HARDEST time helping my oldest with her calculus/algebra II homework.
I feel somewhat qualified to opine on how humans learn because I've successfully taught my 2x boys[1].
Teaching is difficult. It requires a lot of patience and understanding, and a working mental model of the human brain.
If you have tried, and failed, teaching calculus to your kid, then maybe you don't have a good model of how human brains work.
TBH, it doesn't even have to be correct, it just needs to work; celestial navigation had the wrong model for centuries, but ships still got to where they were going (mostly).
I'm finding that developers claiming to have learned something have often very superficially learned it. If they were tested on what they learned, they'd fail, just like the HS trig students who read the textbook and did no problems fail when they hit the exam.
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[1] My youngest, at grade-1, reads at a grade 3 level and can do things like multiple 27 by 4 in his head. That is a result of a structured and scheduled 10m lesson per day since he was 3.5 My oldest was getting 5% in trig/geometry in grade 11 (long story behind that one), and became solidly mid-70% after my tuition.
Yeah I have 4 kids. I'm come to the realization all brains are different. My daughter struggles with anxiety and feeling terrible if she doesn't immediately 'get it' especially in a social setting. She does great with online tools where she can feel like no one is judging her.
My son doesn't get upset at all with me he'd just play his mom to get the help to the right answer and didn't have the 'want' to understand a problem he just wanted to move along.
I have another daughter who is autistic. I'm still trying everything I can possibly do to get her past reading at a 2nd grade level. That's another problem I'm trying/struggling to solve.
chicken-stew · · focus · HN ↗
From the very start of llms I’ve had nothing but bad experiences with code that was generated for me. Either it’s buggy, it works but I end up losing an evening on some obscure bug, or it’s full of red flags.
My latest hobby project is just in a text editor with markup and that’s it. I’m also done with the augmented assistance in the IDE. I google things I forgot. I constantly read these amazing stories of people vibe-coding some firmware/driver that just works, and honestly I’m starting to question whether I’m reading the posts of some promotional bot.
kraig911 · · focus · HN ↗
I've made a wealth of cute things for me and my kids to do (shameless self promotion) <a href="https://drawesome.art" rel="nofollow">https://drawesome.art - multiple people drawing/painting/coloring on the same canvas my kids love this. The architecture took forever for me to get write. Basically server side authoritative state of pixels and blending between two points. How to realistically manage and store it. <a href="https://www.catchmemeow.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.catchmemeow.com - random where's waldo-esque game where you find a cat or dog wearing a silly hat I made this for my daughter and me to help the shelter she wants to volunteer at. <a href="https://www.cluestep.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.cluestep.com - this one is weird I've actually tried to productize it but i made this because I had the HARDEST time helping my oldest with her calculus/algebra II homework. Basically I constantly made her cry. I just wish I could make it not look so "Made with AI"
I think LLM's analogy are prefab with nailguns did for carpentry. It's very complicated to prompt it (at least for me) to try and make it do something novel and net new. It always falls back on node/typescript/fastAPI/python. It's not terrible at using more obscure languages but I have the hardest time describing what I want or thinking without starting something more by hand and then letting it take the wheel and seeing where it drives me.
I should mention too at work I'm practically forced, measured even on the amount of AI I use. The expectation feels like use AI for any and everything. So i'm more worried one day I'll be laid off once I'm found to hit the 'enter' key much anymore. Anyways for me I'd say embrace it, use it and you'll find your output is much higher with the caveat that when a bug occurs it's incredibly hard sometimes to fix if it's with LLM generated code.
lelanthran · · focus · HN ↗
I feel somewhat qualified to opine on how humans learn because I've successfully taught my 2x boys[1].
Teaching is difficult. It requires a lot of patience and understanding, and a working mental model of the human brain.
If you have tried, and failed, teaching calculus to your kid, then maybe you don't have a good model of how human brains work.
TBH, it doesn't even have to be correct, it just needs to work; celestial navigation had the wrong model for centuries, but ships still got to where they were going (mostly).
I'm finding that developers claiming to have learned something have often very superficially learned it. If they were tested on what they learned, they'd fail, just like the HS trig students who read the textbook and did no problems fail when they hit the exam.
--------------------------
[1] My youngest, at grade-1, reads at a grade 3 level and can do things like multiple 27 by 4 in his head. That is a result of a structured and scheduled 10m lesson per day since he was 3.5 My oldest was getting 5% in trig/geometry in grade 11 (long story behind that one), and became solidly mid-70% after my tuition.
kraig911 · · focus · HN ↗
My son doesn't get upset at all with me he'd just play his mom to get the help to the right answer and didn't have the 'want' to understand a problem he just wanted to move along.
I have another daughter who is autistic. I'm still trying everything I can possibly do to get her past reading at a 2nd grade level. That's another problem I'm trying/struggling to solve.