Comment by thunky
7 days ago
> Yes, but "good ideas" compared to what? If you were aware of the better alternatives, you probably wouldn't be discussing those details with an LLM
Even when I already have a good idea of how I plan to do something, I may still ask AI and then find it gave me better idea for some particular thing.
I liken it to using GPS even when you know the route like the back of your hand. It can still steer you around an accident.
To do this effectively I have to drop the idea that I always know better than it does.
If we are going to use the GPS analogy, not every trip is a route or even paved. GPS is notoriously unreliable when on a hike. You have to be a lot more careful than that.
Most real world software tends to be exactly that kind of situation. You need the rest of the business to help decide every detail of a service that will be in production long term. You are not just on a hike. Business is conquest. You are setting up camp with the lofty goal of scaling to a settlement, then a town, etc.
This sounds dramatic, but I think many are too easily impressed/jaded. Some people can't believe it, but this is still very early days for software. We're barely at the point where, maybe, the layperson can just about build small trivial gadgets for themselves. Meanwhile, there are people out there sailing the seas and beyond.
Sure, if you're one of the few that is building something truly novel, I agree AI will not be as useful to you.
That's why I added the disclaimer above: I'm not working on anything groundbreaking (like most people).
And I disagree with your premise overall, because I think the overwhelming majority of software development is much more like driving on a paved highway than it is like hiking through unmarked forest. Which is exactly why AI works so well: it's trained on thousands of examples of very similar solutions to very similar problems.
All of the hard work has already been done by people before us. We have the luxury of sitting down in front of incredible hardware, operating systems, fully designed languages, optimizing compilers, IDEs to fill in the blanks for us, and now AI to write up entire programs for us - none of which we had anything to do with the creation of. All we need to do is hook things together and slap on a layer of paint.
> the overwhelming majority of software development is much more like driving on a paved highway than it is like hiking through unmarked forest
The difficulty comes from meeting the exact requirements and providing a reliable result. Would you be so sure of this opinion if the requirement was to write "a simple CRUD app", but it had to integrate with a poorly documented legacy system and was for a big client with an SLA that could sink the business? Many devs find themselves in that exact situation all the time. What you end up writing, with AI no less, is tomorrow's poorly documented legacy system.
You don't know what you don't know. I'm reminded of stories where people from Europe traveled to America and underestimated how massive it is. They thought "just a few 5 hour roadtrips" sounded relaxing. They overlooked the details and found themselves falling asleep at the wheel, thirsty/hungry, and backtracking for hours.
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