this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2024
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sometimes working smarter is actually putting the work in so you don't have to waste time and stress about if it's going to work or not.
I get Dreamweaver vibes from AI generated code. Sure, the website works. looks exactly the way it should. works exactly how it should. that HTML source though... fucking aweful.
I can agree, AI is an augment to the tools you can use. however, it's being marketed as a replacement and a large variety of devs are using it as such.
shitty devs are enabled by shitty tools.
Same. AI seems like yet another attempt at RAD just like MS Access, Visual Basic, Dreamweaver, and even to some extent Salesforce, or ServiceNow. There are so many technologies that champion this....RoR, Django, Spring Boot...the list is basically forever.
To an extent, it's more general purpose than those because it can be used with multiple languages or toolkits, but I find it not at all surprising that the first usage of gen AI in my company was to push out "POCs" (the vast majority of which never amounted to anything).
The same gravity applies to this tool as everything else in software...which is that prototyping is easy...integration is hard (unless the organization is well structured, which, well, almost none of them are), and software executives tend to confuse a POC with production code and want to push it out immediately, only to find out that it's a Potemkin village underneath as they sometimes (or even often) were told the entire time.
So much of the software industry is "JUST GET THIS DONE FASTER DAMMIT!" from middle managers who still seem (despite decades of screaming this) to have developed no widespread means of determining either what they want to get done, or what it would take to get it done faster.
What we have been dealing with the entire time is people that hate to be dependent upon coders or other "nerds", but need them in order to create products to accomplish their business objectives.
Middle managers still think creating software is algorithmic nerd shit that could be automated...solving the same problems over and over again. It's largely been my experience that despite even Computer Science programs giving it that image, that the reality is modern coding is more akin to being a millwright. Most of the repetitive, algorithmic nerd shit was settled long ago and can be imported via modules. Imported modules are analogous to parts, and your job is to build or maintain the actual machine that produces the outcomes that are desired, making connecting parts to get the various components to interoperate as needed, repairing failing components, or spotting the shoddy welding between them that is making the current machine fail.
No, shitty devs are enabled by piss-poor hiring practices. I'm currently working with two devs that submit mind bogglingly bad PRs all of the time, and it's 100% because we hired them in a hasty manner and overlooking issues they displayed during interviews.
Neither of these bad devs use AI to my knowledge. On the other hand I use copilot constantly and the only difference I see in my work is that it takes me less time to complete a given task. It shaves 1-2 minutes off of writing a block/function several times an hour, and that is a good thing.
so your argument is because shitty devs exist that AI can't be a shitty tool.
Shitty tools exist. shitty devs exist. allowing AI code generation only serves as an excuse for shitty devs when they're allowed to use it. "oh sorry, the AI did that." "man that didn't work? musta been that new algorithm github updated yesterday."
shitty workers use shitty tools because they don't care about the quality and consistency of the product they build.
ever seen a legitimate carpenter use one of these things to build a house?
yeah, you won't because anything built with that will never pass inspection. shitty tools are used by shitty devs.
could AI code generation get better? absolutely! is it possible to use it today? sure. should you use it? absolutely not.
as software developers we have the power to build and do whatever we want. we have amazing powers that allow us to do that, but rarely do we ever stop to ask if we should do it.