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0 pointskcplate1y ago0 comments

There is a concept in tools, particularly knives, chisels, and other cutting tools used for work called “functional sharpness”. Basically it’s the concept of sharpening a tool to be “good enough” to do the job it needs to do and no more, rather than making the tool how sharp it can possibly be. The cost of time between functionally sharp vs “as sharp as possible” is not worth the effort and costs the user time that has no practical payoff.

What I think AI will very soon get to is being able to generate code to that “functional sharpness” level, while human engineers are caught striving for that as “sharp as possible” level because they care for their craft. The cost difference is just not worth it to the organizations and the trade off will be AI generated code that will be “good enough”. Sure a talented dev could do better, but that juice just won’t be worth the squeeze. To me, embracing the tools and becoming an prompting expert is the way to go, rather than some Luddite-like rejection of the technology because of some offended artistic notions.

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6 comments · 3 top-level

wenc1y ago· 2 in thread

I can relate. This sort of trade off exists today in almost all commercial code. Sharp enough to do the job, but not sharper.

A solo programmer can afford to be an artisan, but commercial code is rarely artisanal. It's full of trade-offs and compromises.

Commercial code is always about business costs -- maintenance cost, buy-vs-build cost, refactoring cost, business continuity costs, etc. You're always working under constraints like time, headcount, available expertise, maintainability, and coordination bottlenecks.

Craftsmanship in commercial code is rare. Sometimes you get geniuses like John Carmack who writes inspired stuff in code that ships. But most of the time, it's just a bunch of normal people trying to solve a problem under a ton of constraints.

bowsamic1y ago

> it's just a bunch of normal people trying to solve a problem under a ton of constraints.

What makes you think that doesn’t involve craftsmanship?

kcplateOP1y ago

I read the point to be that was the kind of coding that was the current equivalent of functional sharpness.

sifar1y ago· 1 in thread

>> To me, embracing the tools and becoming an prompting expert is the way to go, rather than some Luddite-like rejection of the technology because of some offended artistic notions

Your first part may be right, however using the term Luddite as a pejorative without understanding what they meant or stood for (given the social context) is a sign of ignorance.

kcplateOP1y ago

I am aware of the history and used the term intentionally. Historically, one of the chief complaints from those English workers (along with their compensation concerns…but there are always compensation concerns when human labor is changed in any way) was how the automated machines would lower the quality of the textiles.

The commenter I was responding to was specifically speaking to code quality concerns generated by AI automation. While the modern usage of “Luddite” tends to generalize towards rejection of any new technology. When I mentioned “Luddite-like rejection of the technology because of some offended artistic notions” it was specific to the Luddite complain that the automation of would lower quality.

That might be a specific detail in the history that you may have missed, forgotten, or perhaps simply ignored—but it’s an important detail with a direct parallel in this conversation.

bowsamic1y ago

I am a Luddite, happily. They were right

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6 comments · 3 top-level

wenc1y ago· 2 in thread

I can relate. This sort of trade off exists today in almost all commercial code. Sharp enough to do the job, but not sharper.

A solo programmer can afford to be an artisan, but commercial code is rarely artisanal. It's full of trade-offs and compromises.

bowsamic1y ago

> it's just a bunch of normal people trying to solve a problem under a ton of constraints.

What makes you think that doesn’t involve craftsmanship?

kcplateOP1y ago

I read the point to be that was the kind of coding that was the current equivalent of functional sharpness.

sifar1y ago· 1 in thread

>> To me, embracing the tools and becoming an prompting expert is the way to go, rather than some Luddite-like rejection of the technology because of some offended artistic notions

Your first part may be right, however using the term Luddite as a pejorative without understanding what they meant or stood for (given the social context) is a sign of ignorance.

kcplateOP1y ago

That might be a specific detail in the history that you may have missed, forgotten, or perhaps simply ignored—but it’s an important detail with a direct parallel in this conversation.

bowsamic1y ago

I am a Luddite, happily. They were right

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse