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0 pointsNotAnOtter9mo ago0 comments

I disagree that they are so different you can't compare them.

Imagine a senior IC staffed with 4 juniors, and they spend 2 hours with each every day. Then the junior is left with 6 hours to think through what they were taught/told. This is very similar to LLM development except instead of context switching 3 times each day, the senior can skip over the 6 hours of independent time the junior required to absorb the changes. But it still takes the same amount of time to deliver the 4 separate projects.

I find the existence of LLM development deeply troubling for a long list of reasons. But refuting the claim that an LLM is similar in many ways to a junior dev is unsubstantiated

>It also is completely useless to perform many tasks that a Junior developer can.

And there are many things one junior could be helpful with that a different junior would be useless at.

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surgical_fire9mo ago

> Imagine a senior IC staffed with 4 juniors, and they spend 2 hours with each every day. Then the junior is left with 6 hours to think through what they were taught/told. This is very similar to LLM development except instead of context switching 3 times each day, the senior can skip over the 6 hours of independent time the junior required to absorb the changes.

This is not how Juniors work. I don't know what else to say. It is just not true.

I don't give juniors a prompt and let them to implement code for a few hours. They work as any other developer, just generally in features and/or tickets of more limited scope. At least initially. This is not what LLMs do

> But refuting the claim that an LLM is similar in many ways to a junior dev is unsubstantiated

I sometimes get the feeling I talk to people who never worked in a real professional setting.

A LLM can do things that Juniors can't. When I bounce around ideas for implementing a certain feature, when I explore libraries or frameworks I am unfamiliar with, when I ask it to review pieces of code looking for improvements, when I get it to generate boring glue code, scaffolding, unit tests. All those things are helpful, and make LLMs an excellent code assistant in a way that Juniors are not.

But it is completely unable to properly do things without me giving very precise instructions of what it needs to code. The less precise I am, the worse its output. It is very happy to generate completely bullshit code that kinda looks like it does what I need but not really. I constantly need to tweak what it generates, and although it saves my time as it outputs a lot of code in little time, the results are very unreliable to meaningfully act with any sort of independence.

> And there are many things one junior could be helpful with that a different junior would be useless at

Which completely fails to address the point I am making.

NotAnOtterOP9mo ago

I'm not saying that is a typical workflow. I'm saying A ~= B, and B ~= C.

A - normal, conventional senior dev work flow

B - A non-traditional but plausible senior dev workflow

C - Senior dev with LLM

I'm not claiming A = B = C, just that the step from one to another is relatively small when compared to something like a linter or other tool that accelerates development in some way.

> Which completely fails to address the point I am making.

If an LLM can do 20% more things than a junior dev can but also cannot do a different 20% of things a junior dev can, then the LLM is similar the a junior. And when comparing two juniors within a given field, it's entirely likely the above logic could apply. E.g. one junior may not be able to write SQL queries while the other does not understand the DOM. An LLM on the other hand is "kinda ok" at everything, but cannot engage in 'real' conversations about system architecture or reason through user experiences reliably. So it can do 20% more, and also 20% less. Just as a junior dev.

No one is claiming A = C, so don't keep punching the wind. They are claiming A ~= C.

surgical_fire9mo ago

> If an LLM can do 20% more things than a junior dev can but also cannot do a different 20% of things a junior dev can

This is not how it works. I am only punching wind because your arguments are as solid as air.

Comparing an LLM to a Junior Dev is like comparing a Secretary to an Answering Machine - both can technically answer calls, so they must be somewhat similar? What a load of hot, steaming bullshit.

> No one is claiming A = C, so don't keep punching the wind. They are claiming A ~= C.

And I am claiming that A != C. I was not even arguing against they are equal, I am arguing against them being similar in any way.

I maintain what I said before, I sincerely doubt the competence and experience in real life professional setting of anyone claiming LLMs are in anyway remotely similar to junior devs

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surgical_fire9mo ago

This is not how Juniors work. I don't know what else to say. It is just not true.

> But refuting the claim that an LLM is similar in many ways to a junior dev is unsubstantiated

I sometimes get the feeling I talk to people who never worked in a real professional setting.

> And there are many things one junior could be helpful with that a different junior would be useless at

Which completely fails to address the point I am making.

NotAnOtterOP9mo ago

I'm not saying that is a typical workflow. I'm saying A ~= B, and B ~= C.

A - normal, conventional senior dev work flow

B - A non-traditional but plausible senior dev workflow

C - Senior dev with LLM

I'm not claiming A = B = C, just that the step from one to another is relatively small when compared to something like a linter or other tool that accelerates development in some way.

> Which completely fails to address the point I am making.

No one is claiming A = C, so don't keep punching the wind. They are claiming A ~= C.

surgical_fire9mo ago

> If an LLM can do 20% more things than a junior dev can but also cannot do a different 20% of things a junior dev can

This is not how it works. I am only punching wind because your arguments are as solid as air.

Comparing an LLM to a Junior Dev is like comparing a Secretary to an Answering Machine - both can technically answer calls, so they must be somewhat similar? What a load of hot, steaming bullshit.

> No one is claiming A = C, so don't keep punching the wind. They are claiming A ~= C.

And I am claiming that A != C. I was not even arguing against they are equal, I am arguing against them being similar in any way.

I maintain what I said before, I sincerely doubt the competence and experience in real life professional setting of anyone claiming LLMs are in anyway remotely similar to junior devs

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