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vrc commented on AI can code, but it can't build software   bytesauna.com/post/coding... · Posted by u/nreece
simonw · 2 months ago
This is a good headline. LLMs are remarkably good at writing code. Writing code isn't the same thing as delivering working software.

A human expert needs to identify the need for software, decide what the software should do, figure out what's feasible to deliver, build the first version (AI can help a bunch here), evaluate what they've built, show it to users, talk to them about whether it's fit for purpose, iterate based on their feedback, deploy and communicate the value of the software, and manage its existence and continued evolution in the future.

Some of that stuff can be handled by non-developer humans working with LLMs, but a human expert needs who understands code will be able to do this stuff a whole lot more effectively.

I guess the big question is if experienced product management types can pick up enough coding technical literacy to work like this without programmers, or if programmers can pick up enough enough PM skills to work without PMs.

My money is on both roles continuing to exist and benefit from each other, in a partnership that produces results a lot faster because the previously slow "writing the code" part is a lot faster than it used to be.

vrc · 2 months ago
I’m a PM and I’ve been able to do a lot of very interesting near production ready bits of coding recently with an LLM. I say near production ready because I specifically only build functional data processing stuff that I intentionally build with clean I/O requirements to hand to the real engineers on the team to slot in. They still have to fix some things to meet our standards, but I’m basically a “researcher” level coder. Which makes sense — I do have an undergrad and MS in CS, and did a lot of mathy algo stuff. For the last 15+ years I could never use anything in my brain to help the team solve things I was best suited to solve. I am now, and that’s nice.

The one key point is that I am keenly aware of what I can and cannot do. With these new superpowers, I often catch myself doing too much, and I end up doing a lot more rewrites than a real engineer would. But I can see Dunning Kruger playing out everywhere when people say they can vibe code an entire product.

vrc commented on AWS multiple services outage in us-east-1   health.aws.amazon.com/hea... · Posted by u/kondro
energy123 · 2 months ago
It happens 2-3x a year during peacetime. Tail events are not homogeneously distributed across time.
vrc · 2 months ago
Well technically AWS has never failed in wartime.
vrc commented on A built-in 'off switch' to stop persistent pain   penntoday.upenn.edu/news/... · Posted by u/gmays
warrenmiller · 2 months ago
goblin squats helped my persistent lower back pain almost immediately.
vrc · 2 months ago
Goblet? Or is this something new? Deep goblets are great for opening the ankles and hips/SI area in ways that have helped my back. Some combination of improving mobility in other reasons prevents my back from overcompensating I guess
vrc commented on GLP-1s are breaking life insurance   glp1digest.com/p/how-glp-... · Posted by u/alexslobodnik
helicalmix · 5 months ago
hmm...doesn't this possibly incentivize ozempic subsidies even more?

If you know a "customer" of yours (an individual employee) is only going to be with you until they either change jobs or go on Medicare, then it seems the name of the game then is to make sure that nothing catastrophic happens to them until you can hand them off to someone else.

In which case, they should definitely go on ozempic. Even if the effects of ozempic immediately come off after usage, it's a short-term enough solution that benefits the insurance company, no?

vrc · 5 months ago
Yes. For very high risk patients, payers do want this. I’ve even heard of some paying pharmacies $100/fill if done on time for select people.

The problem is, prediabetic and folks who may have crossed 7.0 A1C once, and just overweight folks with docs who are willing to play fast and loose are demanding it. Skipping metformin and other first line treatment options that are way cheaper. For those folks, complications might be the next guys problem.

vrc commented on The death of partying in the USA   derekthompson.org/p/the-d... · Posted by u/tysone
lawlessone · 5 months ago
Partying is more expensive than watching TV or playing games.
vrc · 5 months ago
I was going to disagree but then realized I now shell out at least $100 when two families and their kids show up for 3-4 pizzas with toppings and chips and dip and some juices.

And god forbid I try and provide fresh fruit and beverages on that budget…

vrc commented on Why English doesn't use accents   deadlanguagesociety.com/p... · Posted by u/sandbach
wredcoll · 5 months ago
I want to know who thought that chinese transliterated into "english characters" should use a whole bunch of q, x and zs to represent sounds in a way that no other english word does.

Why is Zhou pronounced that way?!

vrc · 5 months ago
Wait til you get a load of Tamil/Malayalam transliterations’ use of “zh”. It was proposed by some German linguist to represent a really retroflex “r” and now makes outsiders pronounce kozhikode as “cozy-code” instead a closer “korikode”
vrc commented on Administering immunotherapy in the morning seems to matter. Why?   owlposting.com/p/the-time... · Posted by u/abhishaike
raverbashing · 6 months ago
It's ok, the strongest defenders of EBM are never going to discover anything worthwhile as they get caught in a loop of "no evidence enough to test" and "no evidence for this because nobody tests it"
vrc · 6 months ago
Counterpoints: the detractors of this purported loop would likely neither fund the vast amounts of research they’d demand be done nor believe the results if they conflicted with their anecdata. I have yet to see a good faith argument against evidence based method that provides an effective and realistic alternative. Because that would take evidence.
vrc commented on The scientific “unit” we call the decibel   lcamtuf.substack.com/p/de... · Posted by u/Ariarule
gwd · 7 months ago
> Aspect ratio is a ratio.

Right, but in this case they only give you one of the two numbers. Imagine being told that your TV had an aspect ration of ":16", and you just have to magically know what the other number means in the context. And sometimes ":16" actually means ":4", because quadratic mumble mumble, and sometimes the number is scaled according to some other "how big it seems to humans" factor; all of which you also just have to know in context.

vrc · 7 months ago
4:3 only makes sense to you because you know which is length and width a priori. I for example, always have to recheck that. So if it was written as 1.33 or 4/3 it makes the same difference to me, and is similar in that way to dB
vrc commented on Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri   finance.yahoo.com/news/ap... · Posted by u/bbzjk7
ThrowawayB7 · 9 months ago
> "When companies grow, they eschew the folks who helped build it from the ground up and are intimately familiar with the business, products and customers in favor of people who have 'worked at big companies'."

Microsoft's revitalization occurred only after Steve Ballmer was ousted and Satya Nadella pushed out much of the old guard who were set in their ways.

vrc · 9 months ago
Satya had been at the company for quite a while himself. Perhaps not as long as others, but he was a well known veteran within the company
vrc commented on My Time at MIT   muratbuffalo.blogspot.com... · Posted by u/rrampage
ilamont · 10 months ago
There are other places at MIT with a similar vibe. Media Lab springs to mind.

I took a class co-taught by TBL called Linked Data Ventures (6.898). There was an effort to seed a Semantic Web startup ecosystem with project teams formed in the class. IIRC one of the groups did get funded and was eventually acquired, but not using Semantic Web/Linked Data.

Regardless, it was an amazing experience having TBL review our little demo app.

vrc · 10 months ago
Locu. Acquired by GoDaddy. Morphed into a Yext competitor called GetFound.

u/vrc

KarmaCake day694May 29, 2016View Original