Comment by brookst
18 hours ago
This is true, but as usual nobody can agree on what "doing it yourself" means.
Few cars are manual steering, manual brakes, manual transmission.
Few grappling bodies go all Greek-naked.
Few chess bodies forbid researching previous games or your opponent.
The list is indeed endless, and every single person thinks they are using just the right amount of assistance; anything less is pointlessly difficult, anything more is cheating that takes the sport out.
Me, I've been a hobbyist programmer since youth (6502 assembly, represent). I'm having a blast "writing" software without touching a line of code. Sure, I'm old, and maybe I'm like those guys blasting Veyrons through highways, relying on traction control and all the computers to let me drive beyond my abilities. And... ok? I'm having fun, even if I'm not doing it right, by random anonymous peoples' views.
> I'm having a blast "writing" software without touching a line of code.
And that’s totally fine, enjoy your hobby however you enjoy it best. Most people programming by hand for fun don’t care that you program with an LLM for fun. The problems come when those two worlds collide, like in the linked GitHub issue, in chess engine leaderboards. In the long run for both groups to have their fun and friendly competition you’ll need two separate leaderboards. This is also very common in other hobbies. In racing there are car classes so that your Veyron and someone’s old Miata don’t go head to head. In combat sports there’s weight classes. Most sports separate amateurs and pros. Usually there is respect across the group boundaries and appreciation for the other groups deeply specialized skill. There’s even the concept of cross training to get better in your flavor of a sport. This will be figured out with programming as well.
Sure, I agree, and it’s already figured out. The demoscene has been around for decades. That’s real programming.
But I think you’re on to something important: framing programming as a competition of intrinsic skill where rules are necessary to equalize. That’s certainly true in some cases, and more power to those who enjoy it.
I guess I’m just more of a product guy these days, where the equalizer is the market and the consumers rather than the implementation methodology.
You never went to a programming competition in school? None of what was said is novel, it’s all been around forever, the tricky bit is the regurgitation software mucking everything up.
Not that it’s about me, but I was doing programming competitions 25 years ago, half of which were on paper with no keyboard allowed.
> This is true, but as usual nobody can agree on what "doing it yourself" means.
Not everyone has to agree. Just everyone in a particular group at a particular time. Grappling competitions exist and so do MMA competitions, and both of them will expect you to follow their own rules.
One of the great things about hobbies is that you can enjoy them whatever way you want. But honestly is it not more accurate to say that you are now a hobbyist prompter, rather than a hobbyist programmer? I get the "its just a tool" mentality and I guess LLMs can be used that way, but if you are not touching a line of code yourself then it seems less analogous to using power steering and more analogous to just taking a taxi.
What I really don't understand how differently it seems that AI for programming and for anything else is treated.
I don't think there is insignificant group who would say that using LLM to write a book does not make you an author. Or make a song musician. Or draw a picture a painter or artist.
This just somewhat baffles me... Or maybe the LLM for programming people all believe that you are as much artist if you use AI in those fields and the product generates as such is as if not more valuable than one by more traditional means.
I've seen people here insist that LLMs enable everyone to make music or art. It's diametrically opposed from my own view that making something is the process of making something, neither the result of nor the motivation for that process.
My retort is usually a variation of one I've already posted in this thread: they do that to the same extent that taxis enable everyone to drive, which is something most people will intuitively understand as nonsense, even if they've given clear instructions to the driver and even though they've arrived at the intended destination. If you aren't driving, you aren't driving. If anything, the taxi service enables more people not to drive.
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A renowned author would still write. They don't suddenly start managing a team of junior writers and instructs them how to write.
A programmer that has climbed up the ladder in their field, on the other hand, often stopped coding themselves. Instead, they manage others who code, or provide vision/direction on the project.
I think it really depends on what people on the senior level of your field do. If they mostly move to managerial roles, then it's much more likely they'd embrace LLM.
Ironically I observe this in academia too. Professors (who often stopped doing hands-on research, but only provide guidance to postdocs and grad students in their research) tend to embrace LLM more than the fields you mentioned.
Sure, I’m both a professional and hobbyist prompter. But then, that’s been true for decades, since I made the switch from engineering to product.
Only difference is I’m prompting LLMs rather than engineering teams. But honestly it’s not all that different, except that in the hobby flavor I can write specs that would take tens or hundreds of engineers to implement.
Maybe it all comes down to semantics: does “programming” mean typing in code, designing app architecture, or producing software? When I was young I was probably 75 / 5 / 20 between those. Now I’m 5 / 20 / 75. Maybe it merits a different word?
"Developer" became popular to mean all three to distinguish from "programmer", only the first one.
But LLM usage isn’t equivalent to power steering, it’s what a full kitchen is to a microwave. You can sure put effort into a microwave meal but it’ll always work against you and much of the time you’re better off just picking up a pan.
Not to diminish your enjoyment, you’re completely entitled to it, I just think this is a bit of a false equivalence
An LLM is more akin to a staffed pro kitchen than a microwave.
Agents are effectively a full McDonalds kitchen, yes.
...and yes, I know you don't mean that. I just disagree.
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Fully agree with this. Also did lots of 6502 assembly, and also love doing agent-driven development. I also still like writing code manually and tweaking everything for myself, but those serve two different purposes.
Sometimes I'm having fun getting to the output I want and otherwise wouldn't have had time to. Sometimes I'm having fun exploring the code.
I don't care if someone don't see the value in one or the other of those, and to me they stand on equal footing as things I find both fun and valuable for different reasons.
> anything less is pointlessly difficult, anything more is cheating that takes the sport out.
https://c2.com/cgi/wiki?BlubParadox
> Few cars are manual steering, manual brakes, manual transmission.
Tell me you are not in European or African continent without telling me.
In Europe you would be hard pressed to find a car without power steering or assisted brakes.
Still plenty to acquire around in second hand.
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I'm in Central Europe and there aren't many manual transmissions around anymore where I am. But if you paint with a brush of two entire continents, you might paint a little too broadly.
I’m in Central Europe too and most cars are manuals. Must be just your neck of the woods. But I agree it’s a pointless debacle.
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Unless you are driving an EV, or lucky to own Audi, Volvo, BMW or Mercedes top class of vehicle, most people are on manual.
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My 21 year old car in the uk has power steering, and it was low end when new