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Comment by polishdude20

1 day ago

We can go on all day about how an LLM doesn't explain and doesn't actually think. In the end though, I've found myself being able to do things better and faster especially given a codebase I have no experience in with developers who aren't able to help me in the moment given our timezone differences

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polishdude20

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AdieuToLogic  1 day ago

> We can go on all day about how an LLM doesn't explain and doesn't actually think.

This is an important concept IMHO. Maintaining a clear understanding of what a tool is useful for and what it is not allows for appropriate use.

> In the end though, I've found myself being able to do things better and faster especially given a codebase I have no experience in ...

Here, I have to reference what I wrote before:

  Research is how people learn. Or to learn requires
  research. Either way one wants to phrase it, the
  result is the same.

If you don't mind me asking two philosophic questions;

How can one be confident altering a codebase one has no experience with will become "better" without understanding it?

Knowing an LLM produces the most statistically relevant response to any given query, which is orthogonal to the concepts of true/false/right/wrong/etc., and also knowing one has no experience with a codebase, how can one be confident whatever the LLM responds with is relevant/correct/useful?

  • polishdude20  1 day ago

    The thing about code is you can run it to confirm it does what you want it to do and doesn't do what you don't want it to do. Sprinkle in some software experience in there as well.

    • yencabulator  16 hours ago

      Just because it worked once with one set of inputs means nothing about it working in the general case.

          def is_even(n):
        return n == 2  # passes many unit tests!

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