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0 pointsstavros3d ago0 comments

Perhaps the experts have decided that, for this specific instance, the thing we need to do is ad-hoc and throwaway, and is simply not worth paying the extra cost to make it tasteful.

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jurgenburgen3d ago

How can a bash one-liner be more expensive to build than a full-blown CLI tool with the maintenance burden that comes with it?

stavrosOP3d ago

What expert would build a cli tool to avoid writing a bash one-liner?

dgellow3d ago

I cannot judge without more context. Depending on the one liner, the problem at hand, and overall situation that can be justified. A CLI is straightforward to create.

A bash oneliner can be a chain of 5+ programs, each buffering the stdin/out, what if the CLI is doing the same operation via streams instead? Just a random example but that can easily be worth it

stavrosOP3d ago

Sure, then there's a point where the extra taste isn't worth its cost.

I just don't like the fictional straw man where an expert has somehow been brainwashed by AI into forgetting everything they ever knew.

leafarlua3d ago

Perhaps the ones that were experts before letting their brain rotten by AI.

adamtulinius3d ago

I'm sorry but "extensive documentation, scalable, high test coverage, perfect code style" seems to me to be the opposite of throwaway.

It sounds like the kind of thing people will think surely must be very important and in use, because why go through all those hoops instead of doing a quick hack?

But I guess we can just throw AI at the maintenance burden anyways..

stavrosOP3d ago

I agree, so you should ask yourself "why would the expert do this?"

I decided to go for the charitable interpretation of "the alternatives are close enough in functionality that writing by hand is not worth it", instead of the uncharitable interpretation of "these examples are completely made up".

adamtulinius3d ago

Because the expert has forgotten. Skills that we don't use are forgotten, and there's nothing new in that. Except for the proverbial bicycle.

stavrosOP3d ago

Ok, if you think the expert has forgotten that a problem can be solved by a bash one-liner and instead think they need a whole extensive CLI with documentation, our viewpoints are too far apart for fruitful discussion.

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jurgenburgen3d ago

How can a bash one-liner be more expensive to build than a full-blown CLI tool with the maintenance burden that comes with it?

stavrosOP3d ago

What expert would build a cli tool to avoid writing a bash one-liner?

dgellow3d ago

I cannot judge without more context. Depending on the one liner, the problem at hand, and overall situation that can be justified. A CLI is straightforward to create.

A bash oneliner can be a chain of 5+ programs, each buffering the stdin/out, what if the CLI is doing the same operation via streams instead? Just a random example but that can easily be worth it

stavrosOP3d ago

Sure, then there's a point where the extra taste isn't worth its cost.

I just don't like the fictional straw man where an expert has somehow been brainwashed by AI into forgetting everything they ever knew.

leafarlua3d ago

Perhaps the ones that were experts before letting their brain rotten by AI.

adamtulinius3d ago

I'm sorry but "extensive documentation, scalable, high test coverage, perfect code style" seems to me to be the opposite of throwaway.

It sounds like the kind of thing people will think surely must be very important and in use, because why go through all those hoops instead of doing a quick hack?

But I guess we can just throw AI at the maintenance burden anyways..

stavrosOP3d ago

I agree, so you should ask yourself "why would the expert do this?"

adamtulinius3d ago

Because the expert has forgotten. Skills that we don't use are forgotten, and there's nothing new in that. Except for the proverbial bicycle.

stavrosOP3d ago

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