Comment by photonthug
6 days ago
> unable to find utility.. aren’t using them correctly
Tfa makes this argument too then later says:
> All this is to say: I write some Rust. I like it fine. If LLMs and Rust aren’t working for you, I feel you. But if that’s your whole thing, we’re not having the same argument
So reasonable people admit that the utility depends on the use case.. then at the same time say you must be an idiot if you aren’t using the tools. But.. this isn’t actually a reasonable position.
Part of the issue here may be that so many programmers have no idea what programmers do outside of their niche, and how diverse programming actually is.
The typical rebuttals of how “not everyone is doing cliche CRUD web dev” is just the beginning. Author mentions kernel dev, but then probably extrapolated to C dev in general. But that would be insane, just think about the training sets for Linux kernel dev vs everything else..
It’s dumb to have everyone double down on polarizing simplistic pro/con camps, and it’s rare to see people even asking “what kind of work are you trying to do” before the same old pro/con arguments start flying again.
Yeah, very much agreed that in the spirit of good discussion I should’ve at least asked about their experiences and use case before jumping to finger wagging.
But that said, let me reiterate a couple important points from my post:
> With no disrespect meant
I’m not calling anybody an idiot because they aren’t using an LLM. I’m sharing my honest opinion that they’re not using it correctly, but that’s very different than calling them an idiot.
> if you’re unable to find utility in these tools
This is a bit lawyerly, but note my carefully generic wording here: “find utility”. If you’re a Rust developer who doesn’t like the Rust output from your LLM, sure - but that’s not 100% of the job.
You’ll also touch bash scripts, make files, YAML, JSON or TOML config, write bug reports/feature requests, discuss architectural ideas and coding patterns, look through stack traces/dumps/error logs, or whatever else.
My point is that it is exceedingly unlikely that there is nothing an LLM can do to help your work, even if it’s not good at writing code in your domain.
Hence the statement that if you cannot find utility, you’re not using it correctly. It takes time to learn how to use these tools effectively, even in domains they excel in.
Its such an insane argument
Its like I can't just switch our whole 1-million line codebase on a dime
These articles act like everyone is just cranking out shitty new webapps, as if every software job is the same as the author's