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- Tags: AI code fav revolución
[!summary]Writing good software used to take a lot of time, skill, and effort. Now, AI tools help create code quickly, changing how software is made forever. But this also means there will be a flood of low-quality code, so trust and expert oversight are more important than ever.
Highlights
id986413726
The physiological, cognitive, and emotional cost I generally incur to achieve the software outcomes I want or am capable of engineering, has undoubtedly reduced by several orders of magnitude. The time and bandwidth this has freed up, I now spend on engineering, architecting, debating, tinkering, trying to expand my imagination, and writing much more concise and meaningful code that I actually want to write.
id986413845
Without human creation, perfection and flaws, language, literature, art, music etc. are unenjoyable (to most). Infinite, instantly-generatable stuff without human constraints and limits, is actually very difficult to value.
id986494833
Vibe coding has its place, especially for non-technical people, who, for the first time, can tinker, explore, have fun, and empower themselves with software. I see this happening all around me. However, the fanatical acolytes of vibe coding are missing a very important thing that makes humans take artefacts seriously—finitude. They’re generating a vast Borgesian library where they themselves are likely to be lost in an ocean of slop generated by sycophantic agents. Slop, not because the code is of poor quality, but because anything that can be generated infinitely without effort and has no meaningful provenance, is very hard to value or take seriously. Humans fundamentally do not deal well with an infinite supply of anything, especially choices. Completely unsurprising because we are heavily constrained biological beings that have evolved on a finite planet with finite resources to live out finite lifetimes.
id986496327
But what about the young folks who are just starting out? If one does not have their fundamentals in place, if one has not developed an innate and nuanced understanding of systems and the process of software development, then these technologies are unreliable, dangerous genies. One asks for code, it gives code. One asks for changes, it gives changes. Soon, one is stuck with a codebase whose workings one doesn’t understand, and one is forced to go back to the genie and depend on it helplessly. And because one is hooked on and dependent on the genie, the natural circumstances that otherwise would allow for foundational and fundamental skills and understanding to develop, never arise, to the point of cognitive decline.[21] What then happens to an entire generation of juniors, who never get an opportunity to become seniors meaningfully?
Esta es una experiencia que yo mismo he tenido pidiéndole a Claude que haga código por mí, lo que resultó en un RMD indescifrable y eterno, y yo sin aprender en el camino. Es un caso particular de una aplicación más general en educación: cognitive decline. ¿Cuál es el término medio? ¿Cuál es el “ejercicio” para estas nuevas condiciones de comodidad que nos permite mantener las externalidades positivas de la actividad física que era inevitable al trabajar hace siglos? Pienso que la lectura y escritura, tal como la estoy practicando, es un camino.
id986496816
At this point, for a hands-on developer, reading and critically evaluating code have become more important than learning syntax and typing it out line by line. Of course, that is still an important skill, because the ability to read code effectively comes from that in the first place. But, the daily software development workflows have flipped over completely. An experienced developer who can talk well, that is, imagine, articulate, define problem statements, architect and engineer, has a massive advantage over someone who cannot, more disproportionately than ever. Knowledge of specific language, syntax, and frameworks—code—is no longer a bottleneck.
Cuál es el equivalente genérico de estoy? Qué es lo que debiésemos estar optimizando, en términos de resultados, en la educación?