Comment by ofjcihen

Comment by ofjcihen 6 days ago

19 replies

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“ It did in 10 minutes what would take me several days to learn and cobble together a bad solution.”

Another way to look at this is you’re outsourcing your understanding to something that ultimately doesn’t think.

This means 2 things: your solution could be severely suboptimal in multiple areas such as security and two because you didn’t bother understanding it yourself you’ll never be able to identify that.

You might think “that’s fine, the LLM can fix it”. The issue with that is when you don’t know enough to know something needs to be fixed.

So maybe instead of carts and oxen this is more akin to grandpa taking his computer to Best Buy to have them fix it for him?

johnfn 6 days ago

Senior engineers delegate to junior engineers, which have all the same downsides you described, all the time. This pattern seems to work fine for virtually every software company in existence.

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  • Wilduck 6 days ago

    > Another way to look at this is you’re outsourcing your understanding to something that ultimately doesn’t think.

    You read this quote wrong. Senior devs outsource _work_ to junior engineers, not _understanding_. The way they became senior in the first place is by not outsourcing work so they could develop their understanding.

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    • mlboss 6 days ago

      How about a CEO delegating the work to an Engineer ? CEO does not understand all the technical detail but only knows what the outcome will look like.

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    • johnfn 6 days ago

      I read the quote just fine. I don't understand 100% of what my junior engineers do. I understand a good chunk, like 90-95% of it, but am I really going to spend 30 minutes trying to understand why that particular CSS hack only works with `rem` and not `px`? Of course not - if I did that for every line of code, I'd never get anything done.

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      • dml2135 6 days ago

        You are moving goalposts significantly here -- a small CSS hack is a far cry from your docker infrastructure.

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    • mewpmewp2 6 days ago

      I have been coding 10+ years, surely it is fine for me to vibecode then?

      Reply View 2 replies
  • ofjcihen 6 days ago

    Comparing apples to oranges in your response but I’ll address it anyway.

    I see this take brought up quite a bit and it’s honestly just plain wrong.

    For starters Junior engineers can be held accountable. What we see currently is people leaving gaping holes in software and then pointing at the LLM which is an unthinking tool. Not the same.

    Juniors can and should be taught as that is what causes them to progress not only in SD but also gets them familiar with your code base. Unless your company is a CRUD printer you need that.

    More closely to the issue at hand this is assuming the “senior” dev isn’t just using an LLM as well and doesn’t know enough to critique the output. I can tell you that juniors aren’t the ones making glaring mistakes in terms of security when I get a call.

    So, no, not the same. The argument is that you need enough knowledge of the subject call bs to effectively use these tools.

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    • johnfn 6 days ago

      > For starters Junior engineers can be held accountable. What we see currently is people leaving gaping holes in software and then pointing at the LLM which is an unthinking tool. Not the same.

      This is no different than, say, the typical anecdote of a junior engineer dropping the database. Should the junior be held accountable? Of course not - it's the senior's fault for allowing that to happen at the first place. If the junior is held accountable, that would more be an indication of poor software engineering practices.

      > More closely to the issue at hand this is assuming the “senior” dev isn’t just using an LLM as well and doesn’t know enough to critique the output.

      This seems to miss the point of the analogy. A senior delegating to a junior is akin to me delegating to an LLM. Seniors have delegated to juniors long before LLMs were a twinkle in Karpathy's eye.

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      • dml2135 6 days ago

        > This is no different than, say, the typical anecdote of a junior engineer dropping the database. Should the junior be held accountable? Of course not - it's the senior's fault for allowing that to happen at the first place. If the junior is held accountable, that would more be an indication of poor software engineering practices.

        Of course the junior should be held accountable, along with the senior. Without accountability, what incentive do they have to not continue to fuck up?

        Dropping the database is an extreme example because it's pretty easy to put in checks that should make that impossible. But plenty of times I've seen juniors introduce avoidable bugs simply because they did not bother to test their code -- that is where teaching accountability is a vital part of growth as an engineer.

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      • ofjcihen 6 days ago

        The second part of my response addresses why your response isn’t analogous to what we’re discussing.

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silverlake 6 days ago

No one is an expert on all the things. I use libraries and tools to take care of things that are less important. I use my brain for things that are important. LLMs are another tool, more flexible and capable than any other. So yes, grandpa goes to Best Buy because he’s running his legal practice and doesn’t need to be an expert on computers.

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  • ofjcihen 6 days ago

    True, but I bet grandpa knows enough to identify when a paralegal has made a case losing mistake ;)

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mewpmewp2 6 days ago

I am pretty confident that my learnings have massively sped up working together with LLMs. I can build so much more and learn through what they are putting out. This goes to so many domains in my life now, it is like I have this super mentor. It is DIY house things, smart home things, hardware, things I never would have been confident to work with otherwise. I feel like I have been massively empowered and all of this is so exciting. Maybe I missed a mentor type of guidance when I was younger to be able to do all DYI stuff, but it is definitely sufficient now. Life feels amazing thanks to it honestly.

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jonas21 6 days ago

If there's something that you don't understand, ask the LLM to explain it to you. Drill into the parts that don't make sense to you. Ask for references. One of the big advantages of LLMs over, say, reading a tutorial on the web is that you can have this conversation.

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