I wrote an essay about why I'm done using AI for coding, even if it costs me my job and career: https://brettcodes.com/im-done-using-ai/
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@iinavpov @brettcodes Let me tell you a story about "better" and "worse" that seems analogous to using AI in coding.
When I started seriously programming, back on the 1980s, I wrote a lot of libraries. If it was a numerical computation, I'd read the academic paper, implement it, test it and fix all the bugs I'd written. Then use it and rewrite or debug some more. I was **proud** of those libraries.
Then, the Internet and numpy happened, and all of a sudden, I didn't need to write numeric libraries any more. It hurt. I felt that I was reduced to gluing libraries together. I couldn't do the "real" coding any more.
But life goes on, and I mostly use scipy these days. I still itch to do some real coding sometimes. But I get more done, with fewer bugs. And my job is to solve problems, not to write another Runge-Kutta implementation.
I dislike trusting library code I didn't write, but I do, because that's how you got stuff done in 2024.And I see AI coding as another, similar revolution. I'm depending more on code that something else /someone else wrote. It's like the library revolution all over again.
And I'm not a worse programmer because I use libraries. Different, though.
@cpr320 @iinavpov @brettcodes That comparison doesn't entirely hold up: I'm not saying, all libraries are perfect, but there is a significant difference between libraries and LLM-generated code.
– Libraries are deterministic: At the point where you use them, they've been tested by automatic tools and probably already been "battle-tested" by other devs who might have submitted bug reports. With LLM-generated code, you are entirely on your own1/
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@cpr320 @iinavpov @brettcodes That comparison doesn't entirely hold up: I'm not saying, all libraries are perfect, but there is a significant difference between libraries and LLM-generated code.
– Libraries are deterministic: At the point where you use them, they've been tested by automatic tools and probably already been "battle-tested" by other devs who might have submitted bug reports. With LLM-generated code, you are entirely on your own1/
@cpr320 @iinavpov @brettcodes
– Libraries are (not always, but on average) written by "experts" and with "collective intelligence" if they are open source, meaning that they are constantly improved, so they tend to be better implementations than a custom one would usually be2/
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@cpr320 @iinavpov @brettcodes
– Libraries are (not always, but on average) written by "experts" and with "collective intelligence" if they are open source, meaning that they are constantly improved, so they tend to be better implementations than a custom one would usually be2/
– The entire point of using libraries is that you don't have to maintain them because someone (usually responsible) takes care of it for you. But you still have to maintain LLM-generated code yourself even if you use an LLM for code maintenance
– You can still contribute to open-source libraries3/
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– The entire point of using libraries is that you don't have to maintain them because someone (usually responsible) takes care of it for you. But you still have to maintain LLM-generated code yourself even if you use an LLM for code maintenance
– You can still contribute to open-source libraries3/
– If you just glue libraries together, your code seems to be not that complex. This doesn't apply to all projects. There are pretty complex apps where you still get your share of custom code
– You can blame the library but you can blame your own code. LLMs can't take responsibilities, you have to sign-off on them.4/4
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I wrote an essay about why I'm done using AI for coding, even if it costs me my job and career: https://brettcodes.com/im-done-using-ai/
The basic gist is: AI made me a worse, apathetic programmer. I think it's bad for humanity, the planet, and the craft of software engineering. And I'm done using it.
@brettcodes I'd be interested to know how this pans out for you. It's quite a reasonable position to take on a solo project, but if you're working with a team of people addicted to AI, the entire codebase may regularly shift under you whenever a bot is used.
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@gurkenlabs @brettcodes I work at a company selling sustainability management software and a coworker constantly says things like "I don't care how much water it uses. I asked five agents to do the task."
@shaedrich
OMG, the hypocrisy is real.
@brettcodes -
The people also using the AI think they’re better than they are, which lowers the overall quality and turns the industry into a black hole of sunken costs.
@cyberquixote
They do everything that promises a way of paying human workers less. Deskilling, demotivating, and superficially "replacing" humans with AI is working exactly as designed.
@brettcodes -
I wrote an essay about why I'm done using AI for coding, even if it costs me my job and career: https://brettcodes.com/im-done-using-ai/
The basic gist is: AI made me a worse, apathetic programmer. I think it's bad for humanity, the planet, and the craft of software engineering. And I'm done using it.
@brettcodes I really hope we'll start seeing more push back like yours in the near future. Seeing the industry adopting AI nonchalantly has been very disappointing. Same way it was disappointing seeing the industry push back against unions.
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– If you just glue libraries together, your code seems to be not that complex. This doesn't apply to all projects. There are pretty complex apps where you still get your share of custom code
– You can blame the library but you can blame your own code. LLMs can't take responsibilities, you have to sign-off on them.4/4
@shaedrich
I don't think I disagree.But rhere are valid reasons for reimplementing stuff, however. For example, the numerics world is really happy Eigen came about because some guy saw Lapack and said yuck. And Lapack is *very* uh, "good".
Or sometimes libraries do something pretty small, and is the dependency worth saving a day of implementation?
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@shaedrich
OMG, the hypocrisy is real.
@brettcodes -
@shaedrich
I don't think I disagree.But rhere are valid reasons for reimplementing stuff, however. For example, the numerics world is really happy Eigen came about because some guy saw Lapack and said yuck. And Lapack is *very* uh, "good".
Or sometimes libraries do something pretty small, and is the dependency worth saving a day of implementation?
@iinavpov @cpr320 @brettcodes All valid reasons
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I wrote an essay about why I'm done using AI for coding, even if it costs me my job and career: https://brettcodes.com/im-done-using-ai/
The basic gist is: AI made me a worse, apathetic programmer. I think it's bad for humanity, the planet, and the craft of software engineering. And I'm done using it.
I started teaching myself guitar when I was 14. (I'm 78 now). I could have just bought records and listened to other guitarists. But I would have missed out on so much learning, fun times teaching guitar, and a lifetime of wonderful musical memories. Humans are meant to learn and often that means learning by doing--struggle, fail, keep trying, learn, succeed. If we're just button pushers and prompt writers, there's not much point in working. And who's going to rescue us when stuff breaks?
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I wrote an essay about why I'm done using AI for coding, even if it costs me my job and career: https://brettcodes.com/im-done-using-ai/
The basic gist is: AI made me a worse, apathetic programmer. I think it's bad for humanity, the planet, and the craft of software engineering. And I'm done using it.
@brettcodes But there are valid use cases for AI!
Like... um... Well, maybe we will find them one day if we just keep wasting resources.
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I also made a ramble-y video about why I'm done using AI for coding: https://youtu.be/2ZU3j4GQ4K8
@brettcodes I, too, am worried about the degradation of coding skills caused by using LLMs. In a time when processors and memory are insanely expensive, we need more efficient code, not bloated LLM generated code.
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