←back to thread

The quality of AI-assisted software depends on unit of work management

(blog.nilenso.com)
170 points mogambo1 | 1 comments | 18 Sep 25 13:06 UTC | HN request time: 0.347s | source
Show context
OptionOfT ◴[18 Sep 25 15:22 UTC] No.45290784[source]▶
And the value of AI as pushed to us by these companies is in doing larger units of work.

But... reviewing code is harder than writing code. Expressing how I want something to be done in natural language is incredibly hard.

So over time I'm spending a lot of energy in those things, and only getting it 80% right.

Not to mention I'm constantly in this highly suspicious mode, trying to pierce through the veil of my own prompt and the code generated, because it's the edge cases that make work hard.

The end result is exhaustion. There is no recharge. Plans are front-loaded, and then you switch to auditing mode.

Whereas with code you front-load a good amount of design, but you can make changes as you go, and since you know your own code the effort to make those are much lower.

replies(5): >>45291216 #>>45291738 #>>45291762 #>>45298898 #>>45301645 #
nicce ◴[18 Sep 25 16:35 UTC] No.45291738[source]▶
> Expressing how I want something to be done in natural language is incredibly hard

Surprise, surprise… that is why programming languages were created.

replies(2): >>45291806 #>>45297471 #
dragonwriter ◴[18 Sep 25 16:40 UTC] No.45291806[source]▶
Programming languages don’t solve that problem, since someone still has to explain what needs to be done in natural language unless the end customer is also the programmer.

Programming languages were created because of the different problem of “its very hard to get computers to understand natural language even if you know how to express what you want in it”.

replies(4): >>45291960 #>>45294677 #>>45295928 #>>45297725 #
soraminazuki ◴[19 Sep 25 03:40 UTC] No.45297725[source]▶
I don't but that. In the same spirit, are you telling me that you solve math problems without using any mathematical notation because it doesn't offer any improvement over natural language?
replies(2): >>45297844 #>>45299139 #
1. pxc ◴[19 Sep 25 04:07 UTC] No.45297844[source]▶
I had a logic textbook in college where all the proofs were just prose with very little notation. It was okay. But it felt like it took a lot more effort to process than denser, more specialized notation!