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I've been programming all of my adult life - really from a teen around 1980, but with serious intent since beginning college in 83. I love being a part of such a fast-moving industry, but I do agree that we may well have stumbled over our feet with AI.
Here's the thing: I program with all of that old school as a foundation - man pages/reference books at hand as needed, wishing I could type faster wit accuracy to keep up with my plan for the code. I remember the beginnings of widgets, objects, and relational database design. Because I have all of that in my experience, I can make good use of code recommendation/auto-complete. It's like spelling for me - I'm pretty sure I know how to spell a word, but it's nice to have the confirmation of the auto-completer. What concerns me about newer programmers is that they have likely never had to man a function call. Do they use reference resources, or do they just use code snippets? Do they understand the 'grammar' of their coding language, or is the boilerplate a black box for them? And does it matter? I think it does; I don't know how it could fail to matter, but maybe things have just changed that much so that it doesn't matter in the end.
I love efficient code. I think it's important to optimize performance and write code that is maintainable because it's not junked up. I believe that the basics are important and we skip them to our doom, but I could be wrong; maybe this is how great leaps are made, by leaving the ground.
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Yep. I'm betting using AI to help you program is going to make a new software engineer a less able architect/programmer. It's going to be like how the calculator (app these days) has destroyed younger peoples ability to do basic math.
I've got a college professor friend I game with who teaches immunology. He made the decision that his students couldn't use their cell phones during labs. There was an uproar from the students and one of the issues was they couldn't use their calculator app on the phone. He then posed a simple problem to the students: What's 13 divided by 26. Not one of the students was able to answer the question without using their calculator app!
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Really, he was horrified.
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I have been using ChatGPT the last couple of weeks and find it quite amazing, as a tool for me. And I am sure that as time progresses I will find it ever more useful. It is an accelerator, not a replacement. One of the core issues with technological advancement is the speed with which software is developed. Moore's Law defines technological, hardware advancement in geometric or exponential terms, but software advancement has been largely arithmetic, linear. It is an expensive and time consuming process to create software. It also takes a good deal of time for a developer to get comfortable with different programming languages, and it takes time to comprehend all of the complexity. AI is going to help accelerate significantly the speed at which developers can produce useful code, and that is a good thing. AI code will get better, a lot better, and we will learn how to become better programmers as a result of that. AI is not some singular independent consciousness, it is a cross section of our collective recorded history on the internet. It is us, empowered. Grab on tight.
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I think it's an accurate view. Yet it does not HAVE to be that way.
First, there was "vi"
We got Notepad on Windows.
Then Visual C++.
Then we got Visual Studio with Intellisense (Visual C++ did not have that).
Now we have code-writing AI.
You can still program in Notepad today. Would you do it?
Probably not. But programming using Intellisense is a dependency, too.
You can do without, but it's slower. The quality will suffer only because it takes too much time, not really because of a different procedure.
It might be the same way with AI.
The only thing I hope is that no-one ever will think that AI can actually replace creativity in humans. And that's a key in programming.
But how could AI as a rule-built and rule-depending thing (may the rules be ever so obscure), compared to actual creativity of live beings? Of course it cannot, but the danger is that people might think it's "the same". People who think so must think that humans are just machines like a computer. I possibly digress but it might also be very pertinent.
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until I read this [^], I just didn't get it.
«The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled» Plutarch
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Neal Stephenson's latest book "Termination Shock" has eagles taking down drones!
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I love Neal Stephenson's writing. I have Snow Crash and The Diamond Age on my shelf here next to me. Been meaning to read more of his books.
Neal appears to be prophetic almost, in his visionary writings; a little freaky if you ask me.
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I am so sharing this.
“AI Comes Home to Roost” 😆
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Did you notice the second video later on the page where the young man was throwing the "drone" and it flapped upwards? Two seconds of the "drone" flapping but no sustained flight images. I'm betting it crashed right away.
I’ve given up trying to be calm. However, I am open to feeling slightly less agitated.
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I wonder if I will be charged if I shoot one of these down because of droppings in my property...
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It's like a spin-off of the Walking Dead. The Flying Dead. Just creepy.
There are no solutions, only trade-offs. - Thomas Sowell
A day can really slip by when you're deliberately avoiding what you're supposed to do. - Calvin (Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes)
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Distant - Born of Blood[^]
Been listening to this album last week.
Just found out they're from Rotterdam and I may or may not have seen them live some years ago
This is from their third album.
They play deathcore.
Not much to say, except SOTW!
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Hmmm - I lean more towards "Noise of the Week".
We have different tastes Sander, but thanks for sharing.
Best wishes from Minnesota!
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Bit heavy for me, could'nt even pick up the link.
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The last four weeks have all been metal!
It's probably been years since I've listened to so much metal for so long
I have a strong feeling next week's SOTW may be different
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Quote: How did you set out to find extreme metal, but found traditional Japanse music instead? I guess I am in sync with YT algorithm: I checked some DM / MC tracks like August Burns Red, or Hands of Attrition, then suddenly I saw a new really good track from Babymetal, then I selected a great classic track from Oslo Philharmonic playing Liszt with the notorious Yuja Wang, and before I knew it, YT gave me this really enjoyable long Japanese folk track ... perfect synergy , the algorithm understood somehow what I was looking for ...
modified 18-Feb-23 12:28pm.
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That is a nice one!
What's with all the female DJ's doing sets like this in front of a camera?
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Evidently it is now a 'thing,' and YouTube's algorithm wants to share it. Fortunately, some of them are good, although I wasn't very taken with her skin suit or whatever it was. Liked her music, though.
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Sorry. Just Plain Bad Noise. Nothing there that doesn't sound like "HELL". Good luck.
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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