Free software people: A major goal of free software is for individuals to be able to cause software to behave in the way they want it toLLMs: (enable that)Free software people: Oh no not like that
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@mjg59 Fuck off with that shit. This doesn't even smell like a good faith argument.
@barubary given my history, if your immediate conclusion is that I'm not presenting an honest opinion then I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of who I am
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@jenesuispasgoth I mean kind of the point of free software is that people get to modify it to their own ends and that doesn't mean it has to be good - when I first started hacking things to meet my needs I was definitely writing stuff that couldn't be upstreamed, but it worked for me, and making it easier for others to do that is a win
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Personally I'm not going to literally copy code from a codebase under an incompatible license because that is what the law says, but have I read proprietary code and learned the underlying creative aspect and then written new code that embodies it? Yes! Anyone claiming otherwise is lying!
Clearly my most unpopular thread ever, so let me add a clarification: submitting LLM generated code you don't understand to an upstream project is absolute bullshit and you should never do that. Having an LLM turn an existing codebase into something that meets your local needs? Do it. The code may be awful, it may break stuff you don't care about, and that's what all my early patches to free software looked like. It's ok to solve your problem locally.
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@tthbaltazar I agree with your distinction, and also both outcomes can involve me either writing by hand or engaging sufficiently clearly with an LLM to get that outcome.
But, well, we all know software engineering isn't what we all engage in. Sometimes we just want to fix a thing and we don't want to write tests and we don't want it to be perfect and there's value in that!
@mjg59 @tthbaltazar might i suggest you not compare that to software engineering then?
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@mjg59 @tthbaltazar might i suggest you not compare that to software engineering then?
@dysfun @tthbaltazar Where did I do that?
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@chris_evelyn @mjg59 I haven't taken a proper look at it either, so I don't know if it is open-washing as has been the case with a lot of other models, but if this means anything RMS has stated that it appears to "be free".
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(Yes ok there are cases where code is beauty and embodies an idea that could make a grown man cry and:
(1) your code is not that code
(2) you would think nothing of copying the creative aspect of that code if you needed to don't fucking lie to me)@mjg59
> There's no way to turn "increment this variable" into life changing prose.
"There's no possibility for prose to be beautiful. There's no way to turn 'What time is it?' into life-changing prose."
> (1) your code is not that code
Maybe *yours* isn't. -
@mjg59
> There's no way to turn "increment this variable" into life changing prose.
"There's no possibility for prose to be beautiful. There's no way to turn 'What time is it?' into life-changing prose."
> (1) your code is not that code
Maybe *yours* isn't.@p If you're doing something other than
var++
then you're doing something wrong. Code is instructions to a machine. The description of what that code does may be creative, if the actual implementation is then you are almost certainly in a bad place.
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@Nfoonf If you're willing to accept that then what's the problem? Are we threatening to burn down Ikea stores now?
@mjg59 the problem ist the expansive nature of low quality capitalism and the vulnerability of craftmanship to industrial mass production. One day you only can get the low class slop and the many ways in which it hurts people due to it‘s shortcomings will be normalized. And we lose craft and skill in the way that will not be replaced but has to be bought from the rent seeking owners of the factories of low class goods. Of course people of wealth will not see this as a problem.
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@mjg59 the problem ist the expansive nature of low quality capitalism and the vulnerability of craftmanship to industrial mass production. One day you only can get the low class slop and the many ways in which it hurts people due to it‘s shortcomings will be normalized. And we lose craft and skill in the way that will not be replaced but has to be bought from the rent seeking owners of the factories of low class goods. Of course people of wealth will not see this as a problem.
@mjg59 you can probably buy yourself free from the misery of the shortcomings of low quality goods and services.
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@mjg59 you can probably buy yourself free from the misery of the shortcomings of low quality goods and services.
@Nfoonf Back in the day I had software that didn't do what I wanted, and I didn't know C yet. I patched stuff in many awful ways that met my needs and which taught me nothing in the moment and could never be upstreamed. How would having a machine help me achieve that make free software worse?
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@mjg59 you can probably buy yourself free from the misery of the shortcomings of low quality goods and services.
@mjg59 so LLM slop is probably once again a class problem and as it not only keeps people from getting better quality goods but also denies people knowing certain skills of earning their livelihood by offering these low quality solutions you can not possibly compete with.
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@mjg59 so LLM slop is probably once again a class problem and as it not only keeps people from getting better quality goods but also denies people knowing certain skills of earning their livelihood by offering these low quality solutions you can not possibly compete with.
@Nfoonf The irony here is that now I have money I would rather pay people to solve these problems
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@dekkzz78 There's truth in what you're saying and also a lot of it is the same shape as arguing against mass produced clothing over hand tailored clothing
true, but then its down to values & how you prioritise such things
wrt coding specifically companies are worried about skill loss & being dependant plus it ties the seniors into code review all the time
also I know 2 auto companies that have banned them due to creep into safety critical code
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@dekkzz78 There's truth in what you're saying and also a lot of it is the same shape as arguing against mass produced clothing over hand tailored clothing
plus mass produced clothing wont cause a plane to drop out of the sky
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true, but then its down to values & how you prioritise such things
wrt coding specifically companies are worried about skill loss & being dependant plus it ties the seniors into code review all the time
also I know 2 auto companies that have banned them due to creep into safety critical code
@dekkzz78 I am absolutely not going to argue that LLMs replace the need for skilled developers! But many people who want to modify software are just doing it for personal use and if we argue using LLMs for that is unethical we risk alienating them all
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plus mass produced clothing wont cause a plane to drop out of the sky
@dekkzz78 Safety critical and security critical software should always have an appropriately skilled human in the loop
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@tthbaltazar I agree with your distinction, and also both outcomes can involve me either writing by hand or engaging sufficiently clearly with an LLM to get that outcome.
But, well, we all know software engineering isn't what we all engage in. Sometimes we just want to fix a thing and we don't want to write tests and we don't want it to be perfect and there's value in that!
@mjg59 no amount of prompt clarity is going to get you a correct/"according to spec" outcome; LLMs are categorically incapable of that
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Free software people: A major goal of free software is for individuals to be able to cause software to behave in the way they want it to
LLMs: (enable that)
Free software people: Oh no not like that@mjg59 it is absolutely wild to see self-described free software enthusiasts cheerfully be on the same side of copyright maximalism as Disney, RIAA and MPA
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@mjg59 no amount of prompt clarity is going to get you a correct/"according to spec" outcome; LLMs are categorically incapable of that
@dngrs sure! Define smaller blocks, examine them, modify if the output isn't what you need
