Ask HN: Software engineers who enjoy working with LLMs?

3 pointseviluncle1mo ago2 comments

As a veteran software engineer that's been working with LLMs for the last year (tried'em all, keep up with latest trends and methodologies), I find the experience more tiresome than helpful and overall not enjoying my work as much as I used to before LLMs.

I'm curious to hear others who are more enthusiastic and find themselves actually enjoying their work in this modern age? And if you are, what is your workflow, what makes you engaged and fulfilled in the work?

2 comments

RobinL1mo ago

I work on an open source record linkage library called Splink. The list of features I want to add has always been far larger than the time I have. I enjoy working with LLMs because they have enabled me to work through my backlog much faster.

I think the primary reason I enjoy working with them is that coding, for me, has always been a means to and end. I like the product of it more than the process. This quote sums it up quite well for me:

> People are really worried about their jobs. And I just want to remind them that the purpose of your job and the tasks and tools that you use to do your job are related, not the same. I've been doing my job for 33 years. I'm the longest running tech CEO in the world, 34 years. And the tools that I've used to do my job has changed continuously in the last 34 years, and sometimes quite dramatically, you know, over the course of a couple, two, three years.

Source: https://lexfridman.com/jensen-huang-transcript

karel-3d1mo ago

I don't enjoy them writing code. The code is always so messy and needs so many changes.

I enjoy throwing Codex code I don't understand and asking "where is X done" or "what does this line do". It's not always correct but it saves me a lot of time.

I also sometimes give it code for review. It sometimes finds actual bugs. About half of the time, but I ignore the other half. Like a better linter.

I really hate LLM generated documentation that I sometimes see now. In my opinion documentation should be intentional by humans.

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