kmac_ (u/kmac_) - Readit News

kmac_ commented on Software factories and the agentic moment factory.strongdm.ai/... · Posted by u/mellosouls

> “define the spec concretely“

(and unambiguously. and completely. For various depths of those)

This always has been the crux of programming. Just has been drowned in closer-to-the-machine more-deterministic verbosities, be it assembly, C, prolog, js, python, html, what-have-you

There have been a never ending attempts to reduce that to more away-from-machine representation. Low-code/no-code (anyone remember Last-one for Apple ][ ?), interpreting-and/or-generating-off DSLs of various level of abstraction, further to esperanto-like artificial reduced-ambiguity languages... some even english-like..

For some domains, above worked/works - and the (business)-analysts became new programmers. Some companies have such internal languages. For most others, not really. And not that long ago, the SW-Engineer job was called Analyst-programmer.

But still, the frontier is there to cross..

kmac_ · 12 hours ago

Code is always the final spec. Maybe the "no engineers/coders/programmers" dream will come true, but in the end, the soft, wish-like, very undetailed business "spec" has to be transformed into hard implementation that covers all (well, most of) corners. Maybe when context size reaches 1G tokens and memory won't be wiped every new session? Maybe after two or three breakthrough papers? For now, the frontier isn't reached.

kmac_ commented on Coding agents have replaced every framework I used blog.alaindichiappari.dev... · Posted by u/alainrk

throwaw12 · 18 hours ago

95% of the industry wasn't creating creative value, it was repetitive.

* auth + RBAC, known problem, just needs integration

* 3rd party integration, they have API, known problem, just needs integration

* make webpage responsive, millions of CSS lines

* even video gaming, most engines are already written, just add your character and call couple of APIs to move them in the 3D space

kmac_ · 17 hours ago

That's why they bring a lot of value. Plus, new models and methods enable solutions that weren't available a decade ago.

kmac_ commented on Coding agents have replaced every framework I used blog.alaindichiappari.dev... · Posted by u/alainrk

abcde666777 · 19 hours ago

It's strange to me when articles like this describe the 'pain of writing code'. I've always found that the easy part.

Anyway, this stuff makes me think of what it would be like if you had Tolkein around today using AI to assist him in his writing.

'Claude, generate me a paragraph describing Frodo and Sam having an argument over the trustworthiness of Gollum. Frodo should be defending Gollum and Sam should be on his side.'

'Revise that so that Sam is Harsher and Frodo more stubborn.'

Sooner or later I look at that and think he'd be better off just writing the damned book instead of wasting so much time writing prompts.

kmac_ · 18 hours ago

Current models won't write anything new, they are "just" great at matching, qualifying, and copying patterns. They bring a lot of value right now, but there is no creativity.

kmac_ commented on European Alternatives european-alternatives.eu... · Posted by u/s_dev

gtirloni · 16 days ago

This is nice but if Europe doesn't fix their tech salaries situation (half US' in most cases, if not lower), I don't think it's sustainable.

kmac_ · 16 days ago

It's not just about salaries, but also the lack of a culture for seeding and financing. The fear of failed investments really dominates. Government and EU-backed financing is a joke, and I'm not even talking about the terms or amounts, but who actually gets them. It's pure waste of taxpayer money and should be abandoned.

kmac_ commented on Macron says €300B in EU savings sent to the US every year will be invested in EU old.reddit.com/r/europe/c... · Posted by u/consumer451

nradov · 17 days ago

Macron is making up numbers. Unless the EU member states actually impose capital controls, investors will continue to send their capital wherever it can earn the highest returns. Profitable investment opportunities in the EU remain slim and so far they seem uninterested in pursuing a growth policy.

kmac_ · 17 days ago

No idea what this number actually is. If it includes pension funds' investments in the US stock market and US bonds, then it is underestimated.

kmac_ commented on Vibe coding is a hobby. Let me explain medium.com/@wob/vibe-codi... · Posted by u/dham

kmac_ · 19 days ago

Nah. I'm using it daily for work and producing clean, fully controlled PRs. I don't get this denial, as the value is there, development is visibly faster, and without impact on quality (I'm controlling the agent, not vice versa).

kmac_ commented on Bikeshedding, or why I want to build a laptop geohot.github.io//blog/je... · Posted by u/cspags

vladvasiliu · 2 months ago

> Input lag is the topmost issue

What do you mean? I haven't daily driven a Mac in almost five years now. I mainly run Linux and occasionally Windows on regular PCs. Whenever I open a MacBook, the first thing I notice is how reactive it feels. Sure, I could do without the animations, but I think that's a different issue. This impression is all the more pronounced if I'd been using Windows just before, but that's probably because Linux is a pretty bare i3 setup.

kmac_ · 2 months ago

I mean mouse (Magic Mouse, precisely) and trackpad lag. The Magic Mouse also had random stuttering, a really horrible experience on brand new hardware. There were also other pain points. Returning to "standard" PC hardware and Linux was a real bliss.

kmac_ commented on Bikeshedding, or why I want to build a laptop geohot.github.io//blog/je... · Posted by u/cspags

kmac_ · 2 months ago

There's plenty of good hardware outside the Apple world. Heck, whenever I get convinced to try Apple hardware or software, its quirks and obvious glitches put me off. Input lag is the topmost issue. It immediately washes off the "quality" impression. But I understand that Apple users are used to that and don't notice such issues.

kmac_ commented on Discontinuation of ARM Notebook with Snapdragon X Elite SoC tuxedocomputers.com/en/Di... · Posted by u/Venn1

admash · 3 months ago

LG Gram laptops have excellent battery life. E.g. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lightweight-with-power-and-20-...

I have an LG Gram 15 from 2021 and it gets 15+ hours under light usage in Linux.

kmac_ · 3 months ago

LG Gram user here with Debian as a daily driver. Can confirm, maybe not 15h, but I don't think about charging. Plus, it's super stable, not a single crash or hang-up over years. It just works. I hope LG will keep this up and not mess up next iterations of the hardware.

kmac_ commented on AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is fastcompany.com/91435192/... · Posted by u/felineflock

georgemcbay · 3 months ago

> You have an amazing amount of confidence that the new devs are going to fix subtle race conditions…

> They’ll add a few sleep(5) calls to make them go away though..

I don't think torginus's point is that the new devs will find the proper fixes for the code, more that such a hack might be good enough in the eyes of both the company's management and the company's users.

As much as it pains me to recognize this (as a fan of clean, elegant code) not every bit of software needs to be clean and elegant to achieve its intended purpose (which is, at least in the corporate software world being discussed here, to make money).

If you meet the needs of your software's users, you can make a lot of money for a lot of years selling a piece of crap held together with chewing gum and elastic bands (and many companies have).

kmac_ · 3 months ago

Such "sleep(5)" is actually a milestone in a project, a milestone that marks the beginning of deterioration and the end of architectural changes. I've seen multiple pull requests with "sleep" and similar shortcuts, and worse, I've rewound coding agent context and changes because of such model suggestions. I'm responsible for informing management about the consequences of such shortcuts and why we have to take the correct, often more time-consuming and more expensive, approach to avoid project derailment in the long term. I believe that management picks employees. If they don't trust my judgment, then it's okay for me, but I don't feel obliged to be responsible for the consequences.