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fellowniusmonkHNSource author
Lessons learnedExperience excerpt · English

I really don't understand people who are down on LLM

I really don't understand people who are down on LLM. In terms of code output. I have gone from the productivity of being a Sr. Engineer to a team with .8 of a Sr. Engineer, 5 Jr. Engineers and One dude solely dedicated to reading/creating documentation. Unlike a lot of my fellow engineers who are also from traditional CS backgrounds and haven't worked in revenue restricted startup environments, I also have been VERY into interpreted languages like ruby in the past. Now compiled languages are even better, I think from a velocity perspective compiled languages are now incredibly on par for prototyping velocity and have had their last weakness removed. It's both exciting and scary, I can't believe how people are still sleep walking in this environment and don't realize we are in a different world. Once again the human inability to "gut reason" about exponentials is going to screw us all over. One terribly overlooked thing I've noticed that I think explains the differing takes. …

Original discussionThe Unreliability of LLMs and What Lies Ahead159 source comments · at import
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JM
jmathaiHN

My experience with LLm-based chat is so different from what the article (and some friends) describe. I use LLM chat for a wide range of tasks including coding, writing, brainstorming, learning, etc. It’s mostly right enough. And so my usage of it has only increased and expanded. I don’t know how less right it needs to be or how often to reduce my usage. Honestly, I think it’s hard to change habits and LLM chat, at its most useful, is attempting to replace decades long habits. Doesn’t mean quality evaluation is bad. It’s what got us where we are today and what will help us get further. My experience is anecdotal. But I see this divide in nearly all discussions about LLM usage and adoption.

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WH
whyowhy3484939HN

There is this interesting thing called the Paradox of Automation where increasing automation increases the importance of human intervention. We are trying this out on a societal level. It will be.. interesting, to say the least. Also, congratulations on becoming a team. I sure hope you have the mental bandwidth to check all that output carefully. If so, doubly congrats, because you might be the smartest human that ever lived.

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YO
yoyohello13HN

> Those who are on the MOST extreme end of the mathematic side and are linguistically bereft HATE LLM's and effectively cannot use them. This is an interesting observation. It at least aligns with my experience. I wouldn't say I'm "linguistically bereft" lol, but I do lean more toward the "functional programming is beautiful" side. I even have a degree in math. I'm not totally down on LLM coding, but I do fall more on unfavorable feelings side. I mostly just hate the idea of having a bunch of code I don't fully understand, but also am responsible for. I do use them, and find them helpful. But the idea of fully giving control of my codebase to LLM agents, like some people are suggesting, repels me.

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