Comment by nottorp

Comment by nottorp 9 days ago

20 replies

Here's a rl example from today:

I asked $random_llm to give me code to recursively scan a directory and give me a list of file names relative to the top directory scanned and their sizes.

It gave me working code. On my test data directory it needed ... 6.8 seconds.

After 5 min of eliminating obvious inefficiencies the new code needed ... 1.4 seconds. And i didn't even read the docs for the used functions yet, just changed what seemed to generate too many filesystem calls for each file.

bongodongobob 9 days ago

Nice, sounds like it saved you some time.

  • nottorp 9 days ago

    You "AI" enthusiasts always try to find a positive spin :)

    What if I had trusted the code? It was working after all.

    I'm guessing that if i asked for string manipulation code it would have done something worth posting on accidentally quadratic.

    • noisy_boy 9 days ago

      Depends on how toxic the culture is in your workplace. This could have been an opportunity to "work" on another JIRA task showing 600% improvement over AI generated code.

      • nottorp 8 days ago

        I'll write that down for reference in case I do ever join an organization like that in the future, thanks.

        600% improvement is worth what, 3 days of billable work if it lasts 5 minutes?

    • FeepingCreature 8 days ago

      > What if I had trusted the code? It was working after all.

      Then you would have been done five minutes earlier? I mean, this sort of reads like a parody of microoptimization.

      • nottorp 8 days ago

        No, it reads like "your precious AI generates first year junior code". Like the original article.

    • bongodongobob 9 days ago

      Why would you blindly trust any code? Did you tell it to optimize for speed? If not, why are you surprised it didn't?

      • nottorp 8 days ago

        So, most low level functions that enumerate the files in a directory return a structure that contains the file data from each file. Including size. You already have it in memory.

        Your brilliant AI calls another low level function to get the file size on the file name. (also did worse stuff but let's not go into details).

        Do you call reading the file size from the in memory structure that you already have a speed optimization? I call it common sense.

      • johnnyanmac 8 days ago

        >Why would you blindly trust any code?

        because that is what the market is trying to sell?