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lumayesterday at 8:00 PM2 repliesview on HN

What sense of pride an accomplishment do you get from using a library, or a high level language? You didn't write that code, you didn't hand translate into processor opcodes, etc. There are a million man hours of other people's work involved in making a simple python script run.

Given that any coding effort relies heavily on a much greater amount of work as a prior than the code you yourself are writing... Why do you feel accomplishment?

Making things is fun, using tools to make things can continue to be fun. I have fun woodworking with hand tools and I also enjoy using my CNC where the job permits. Both bring joy.


Replies

lbritoyesterday at 9:17 PM

That's a poor analogy, because the intention is orders of magnitude greater on those things than with an LLM. You still need the intention to write Python instead of C, or C instead of assembly. You need an insignificant amount of intention for LLMs, which will happily spew code even for the worst, most incomplete or nonsensical commands.

slopinthebagyesterday at 8:14 PM

I think most people feel pride when they put effort into doing something challenging and in return achieve a good result. You can use high level languages and libraries and still put effort into something that is challenging, thus feeling a sense of pride. Of course, they may feel more pride if they achieve the same result without libraries, or in a more challenging language.

Prompting an LLM neither requires comparative effort nor is comparatively challenging, thus it's would be odd to feel a sense of pride from any associated outcomes.

I cannot believe this even requires an explanation.