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[–] 5 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

This might get me banned here but I mostly agree with him

I have seen a turn in the tide in the past few months. Whereas online forums discussing LLM tools for coding used to be near 100% brigade against them with mostly bluff and bluster and no real basis for the arguments, attitudes have been softening. I actually read one rather long thread with 90%+ support for the tools - not blind enthusiasm with no evidence, but clear statements from users about what is working well for them and what still needs improvement. All in all, work with the new tools seems to be going better "in the trenches" than work without used to.

In the end, it doesn't matter if you wrote the code, an LLM wrote the code, your cat tapped it out, or aliens communicated it by blinking their home sun... you check it, it works to your satisfaction, you submit it for review and merge for use by others. In all those scenarios, it's "your code" - the LLM, your cat, aliens, none of them are going to stand up and defend the quality of the product. If you don't really understand why what your cat wrote works, you probably shouldn't sumbit it. Especially the alien code should be carefully examined before running, but at the end analysis it's the code that matters, not its provenance.

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  • [–] 7 points 5 hours ago (1 child)

    I don't think the arguments against it had no basis. It's clear that those tools have become really useful, but a huge chunk of those arguments are ethical about the environmental and economic impact.

    What I'm seeing is that those arguments are beign faded out, along with those that talked about it as if LLMs didn't work as expected.

    They are clearly useful now, and it can't be said that they aren't anymore, but those example that Linus gave minify the other problems and it makes it seems that anyone that does not abide by AI is a fool and an elitist, which I don't think that's the case.

    I think that this position makes how you wrote your matter for some people.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 hours ago

    a huge chunk of those arguments are ethical about the environmental and economic impact.

    I have never seen an economic or environmental argument that puts objective numbers in context, how much more energy, water, etc. is AI using or projected to use? It's all handwaving as if every single ChatGPT query is burning down a Macaw's home tree in the rain forest and polluting a small town's water supply, single handedly raising the average ocean temperature 5C.

    makes it seems that anyone that does not abide by AI is a fool and an elitist

    Back in the late 80s, there was a large contingent of the workforce who felt they were "too old to learn the computer." Linus, and I, were getting our starts around then and we were the young upstarts using this "solitare playing machine" to do "a few little tricks, not sure if there's actual value to justify the cost." Through the 90s there was a good 20% or more of the workforce that probably would have been more effective in their jobs if they would have "skilled up" on "that computer stuff," but they didn't and we all got through.

    Adopting AI is going to be easier than learning how to use Win95 when you're coming from dictation, letter openers and interoffice memos delivered on paper, but I won't be surprised or disappointed if a significant chunk of the workforce stays away from AI for a whole variety of reasons, and that's fine. I also highly encourage those using AI to ensure that it's actually improving their product, not just making something passable faster.

    makes how you wrote your matter for some people.

    Pedigree and provenance, whose child wrote this paper, who they studied under, where they grew up, all of that matters, a lot, to a lot of people, in a lot of fields. In computer code, particularly in computer code like the Linux kernel, it shouldn't.

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