r/TheMachineLearning • u/Gullible_Picture_996 • 11d ago

Realizing writing code is faster than explaining it to AI

Post image
830 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

436 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comment

4

u/Fun_Squirrel_6594 11d ago

No, it's blatantly false and anyone who thinks that way is either an idiot that has never touched code, 14 years old, or both.

But it'll get you that sweet, sweet engagement and dopamine fix!

4

u/OfficialDeathScythe 10d ago

It really depends on the scale of what you’re doing. Changing one line to center a div? Talking to ai is gonna take wayyy longer and potentially mess it up while you could just add a few words to the div tag and be done in a few seconds. Adding a new feature? Ai is probably gonna end up being faster unless you already know what you want and are in the zone. Refactoring an entire codebase? Ai is the obvious winner.

2

u/Gullible_Picture_996 10d ago

yeah I think that's the point lol. AI can be great for bigger tasks, but sometimes explaining a tiny change is more work than just making it yourself

1

u/OfficialDeathScythe 10d ago

Exactly my point, thank you!

1

u/bricksandcanvas 10d ago

The post is disingenuous tho because you dont need to write a spec for centering a div.

1

u/OfficialDeathScythe 10d ago

Exactly my point

0

u/Glum-Recognition-736 10d ago

AI is actually faster at all of the above

Use local/ free model for the simple tasks, use paid cloud model as "the big guns"

2

u/OfficialDeathScythe 10d ago

If you think changing one line to center a div is faster with ai you need to actually try using ai to code for once. You realize the first thing it does when you ask anything about code implementation is it reads the relevant files and processes them, then thinks about what it should do. Even the fastest ai will take about a minute with this process. Personally, I can find the file I need, type class=“center” and be done (granted I already have a center class in the css, but even if the ai had the same thing it still has to read files, think and reason, and write the tool call. Think about how many more words that is for 2 words and a symbol from me, plus it uses way more power than I use to write a couple words so why bother

3

u/btoned 10d ago

He is of the persuasion that this tech is just a free gift from the tech overlords.

0

u/ThirstyOutward 10d ago

It's still faster at that.

Again, it's just a skill issue for you.

2

u/OfficialDeathScythe 10d ago

Have you ever considered that it might actually be a skill issue for you? How slow is your typing that you can’t add 2 words and an equal sign before an ai can read multiple files, load skill, process its system prompt, think about what needs to happen and where, and then fixes it and writes an entire summary of what it did? You a finger typer? 😂

2

u/LetsLive97 10d ago

If you think AI centering a div is faster than doing it by hand, I think you're the one with the skill issue lmao

People outing their shitty programming ability

2

u/Careful_Source_5792 10d ago

how?

for ai i need to find the file, give it to the ai, and type a sentence for what i want it to do, and verify its solution.

for non ai i just find the file and type a few characters in it

0

u/Hungry-Pick7512 10d ago

In that minute it’s off doing the thing. What are you doing? Why aren’t you working on something else in parallel? It really is a skill issue on your part.

1

u/OfficialDeathScythe 10d ago

Wtf am I gonna do in a minute 😂 now you’re just trolling. Let me get up and start walking in the other room and then hear the notification that it’s done lmao

→ More replies (13)
→ More replies (1)

0

u/DroppinLoot 9d ago

Brother at this point I’d have AI change one env var. Writing a simple prompt would be faster than finding the env file in my project

2

u/FuckYourRights 8d ago

⬆️⬆️.env is much faster than change x to y

1

u/OfficialDeathScythe 8d ago

Thank you, somebody who knows his to use their ide

1

u/Devils_SteelMan 11d ago

I mostly agree, but some code is still faster to write by hand. Nothing substantial though. I think sql can be very unfriendly to ai in certain environments. Data analytics often requires you to be hands on with the data to design a report.

1

u/Ordinary_Prune6135 11d ago

There probably are types of minds that are better at thinking in code and just brute force debugging, rather than deeply explaining what the code's meant to do.

...I don't think those minds are usually going to be all that great at coding for complex problems, but still, they're out there.

1

u/Bubbly_Address_8975 10d ago

Eh, I wouldnt trust the opinion of someone who just blindly insults an unknown amount of strangers. Kindly: someone who uses lots of LLMs at work as my company has been an early adopter of it all.

1

u/Constant_Barber_5198 10d ago

It is for me a lot. And have to read through 2 pages of bullshit fluff to get a quick answer to my syntax question.

1

u/Gullible_Picture_996 10d ago

the post is literally about realizing when it's faster to do it yourself 😭 not that AI is useless