If AI is so good at coding - where are the open source contributions?
You can hardly get online these days without hearing some AI booster talk about how AI coding is going to replace human programmers. AI code is absolutely up to production quality! Also, you’re all…
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AI is at its most useful in the early stages of a project. Imagine coming to the fucking ssh project with AI slop thinking it has anything of value to add 😂
The early stages of a project is exactly where you should really think hard and long about what exactly you do want to achieve, what qualities you want the software to have, what are the detailed requirements, how you test them, and how the UI should look like. And from that, you derive the architecture.
AI is fucking useless at all of that.
In all complex planned activities, laying the right groundwork and foundations is essential for success. Software engineering is no different. You won't order a bricklayer apprentice to draw the plan for a new house.
And if your difficulty is in lacking detailed knowledge of a programming language, it might be - depending on the case ! - the best approach to write a first prototype in a language you know well, so that your head is free to think about the concerns listed in paragraph 1.
the best approach to write a first prototype in a language you know well
Ok, writing a web browser in POSIX shell using yad now.
writing a web browser in POSIX shell
Not HTML but the much simpler Gemini protocol - well you could have a look at Bollux, a Gemini client written im shell, or at ereandel:
https://github.com/kr1sp1n/awesome-gemini?tab=readme-ov-file#terminal
I'm going back to TurboBASIC.
AI is only good for the stage when...
AI is only good in case you want to...
Can't think of anything. Edit: yes, I really tried
Playing the Devils' advocate was easier that being AI's advocate.
I might have said it to be good in case you are pitching a project and want to show some UI stuff maybe, without having to code anything.
But you know, there are actually specialised tools for that, which UI/UX designers used, to show my what I needed to implement.
And when I am pitching UI, I just use a pencil and paper and it is so much more efficient than anything AI, because I don't need to talk to something, to make a mockup, to be used to talk to someone else.
I can just draw it in front of the other guy with 0 preparation, right as it came into my mind and don't need to pay for any data center usage.
And if I need to go paperless, there is Whiteboards/Blackboards/Greenboards and Inkscape.
After having banged my head trying to explain code to a new developer, so that they can hopefully start making meaningful contributions, I don't want to be banging my head on something worse than a new developer, hoping that it will output something that is logically sound.
AI is good for the early stages of a project ... when it's important to create the illusion of rapid progress so that management doesn't cancel the project while there's still time to do so.
Ahh, so an outsourced conmancomputer.
Its good as a glorified autocomplete.
Except that an autocomplete, with simple, lightweight and appropriate heuristics can actually make your work much easier and will not make you have to read it again and again, before you can be confident about it.
True, and it doesn't boil the oceans and poison people's air.
