Comment by orbital-decay

Comment by orbital-decay 2 days ago

This reads like you either have an idealized view of Real Engineering™, or used to work in a stable, extremely regulated area (e.g. civil engineering). I used to work in aerospace in the past, and we had a lot of silly Mr Tinkleberry canaries. We didn't strictly rely on them because our job was "extremely regulated" to put it mildly, but they did save us some time.

There's a ton of pretty stable engineering subfields that involve a lot more intuition than rigor. A lot of things in EE are like that. Anything novel as well. That's how steam in 19th century or aeronautics in the early 20th century felt. Or rocketry in 1950s, for that matter. There's no need to be upset with the fact that some people want to hack explosive stuff together before it becomes a predictable glacier of Real Engineering.

grayhatter 2 days ago

> There's no need to be upset with the fact that some people want to hack explosive stuff together before it becomes a predictable glacier of Real Engineering.

You misunderstand me. I'm not upset that people are playing with explosives. I'm upset that my industry is playing with explosives that all read, "front: face towards users"

And then, more upset that we're all seemingly ok with that.

The driving force of enshittifacation of everything, may be external, but degradation clearly comes from engineers first. These broader industry trends only convince me it's not likely to get better anytime soon, and I don't like how everything is user hostile.

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gyomu 2 days ago

Man I hate this kind of HN comment that makes grand sweeping statement like “that’s how it was with steam in the 19th century or rocketry in the 1950s”, because there’s no way to tell whether you’re just pulling these things out of your… to get internet points or actually have insightful parallels to make.

Could you please elaborate with concrete examples on how aeronautics in the 20th century felt like having a fictional friend in a text file for the token predictor?

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orbital-decay 2 days ago

We're not going to advance the discussion this way. I also hate this kind of HN comment that makes grand sweeping statement like "LLMs are like having a fictional friend in a text file for the token predictor", because there's no way to tell whether you're just pulling these things out of your... to get internet points or actually have insightful parallels to make.
Yes, during the Wright era aeronautics was absolutely dominated by tinkering, before the aerodynamics was figured out. It wouldn't pass the high standard of Real Engineering.

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- grayhatter 2 days ago
  
  > Yes, during the Wright era aeronautics was absolutely dominated by tinkering, before the aerodynamics was figured out. It wouldn't pass the high standard of Real Engineering.
  Remind me: did the Wright brothers start selling tickets to individuals telling them it was completely safe? Was step 2 of their research building a large passenger plane?
  I originally wanted to avoid that specific flight analogy, because it felt a bit too reductive. But while we're being reductive, how about medicine too; the first smallpox vaccine was absolutely not well understood... would that origin story pass ethical review today? What do you think the pragmatics would be if the medical profession encouraged that specific kind of behavior?
  > It wouldn't pass the high standard of Real Engineering.
  I disagree, I think it 100% is really engineering. Engineering at it's most basic is tricking physics into doing what you want. There's no more perfect example of that than heavier than air flight. But there's a critical difference between engineering research, and experimenting on unwitting people. I don't think users need to know how the sausage is made. That counts equally to planes, bridges, medicine, and code. But the professionals absolutely must. It's disappointing watching the industry I'm a part of willingly eschew understanding to avoid a bit of effort. Such a thing is considered malpractice in "real professions".
  Ideally neither of you to wring your hands about the flavor or form of the argument, or poke fun at the gamified comment thread. But if you're gonna complain about adding positively to the discussion, try to add something to it along with the complaints?
  
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  orbital-decay 2 days ago
  
  As a matter of fact, commercial passenger service started almost immediately as the tech was out of the fiction phase. The airship were large, highly experimental, barely controllable, hydrogen-filled death traps that were marketed as luxurious and safe. First airliners also appeared with big engines and large planes (WWI disrupted this a bit). Nothing of that was built on solid grounds. The adoption was only constrained by the industrial capacity and cost. Most large aircraft were more or less experimental up until the 50's, and aviation in general was unreliable until about 80's.
  I would say that right from the start everyone was pretty well aware about the unreliability of LLM-assisted coding and nobody was experimenting on unwitting people or forcing them to adopt it.
  >Engineering at it's most basic is tricking physics into doing what you want.
  Very well, then Mr Tinkleberry also passes the bar because it's exactly such a trick. That it irks you as a cheap hack that lacks rigor (which it does) is another matter.
  
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  grayhatter 2 days ago
  
  > As a matter of fact, commercial passenger service started almost immediately as the tech was out of the fiction phase. The airship were large, highly experimental, barely controllable, hydrogen-filled death traps that were marketed as luxurious and safe.
  And here, you've stumbled onto the exact thing I'm objecting to. I think the Hindenburg disaster was a bad thing, and software engineering shouldn't repeat those mistakes.
  > Very well, then Mr Tinkleberry also passes the bar because it's exactly such a trick. That it irks you as a cheap hack that lacks rigor (which it does) is another matter.
  Yes, this is what I said.
  > there's a critical difference between engineering research, and experimenting on unwitting people.
  I object to watching developers do, exactly that.
  
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