mhoye
I have a couple of deeply held beliefs that make me sound like a lunatic shouting from a streetcorner whenever I raise them but this is my corner so you can listen to me: we are collectively blind to what computers and code actually means and what they are for.
We have metis and techne without episteme, without gnosis.
I am exactly correct about that but you can see what I mean about sounding like a lunatic.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@mhoye yep. One of the main benefits of LLMs for me in my coding practice is doing this kind of research on someone else's library.
mhoye
@evan You have misunderstood me completely.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@mhoye ah. I thought you said: the documentation sucks, and it opened up an opportunity for LLMs to provide value. I was confirming that point.
mhoye
@evan no, my argument is that LLMs are antithetical and actively hostile to the most important things computation can become.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@mhoye here's what I read and responded to: "the state of knowledge transfer in tech is awful, or to put it in more techy terms, the documentation is shit. More than anything else, I think this is the main place where we've created space for LLMs to grow in our field."
I'll reread.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@mhoye so, your thesis is that we need synthesis and integration of information about different technologies and techniques, and that senior developers should provide this instead of LLMs?
mhoye
@evan My thesis is that the gnosis of computation is a community of shared understanding and practice, not in a service that charges per token.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@mhoye I do not share your dream.
mhoye
@evan I know.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@jwillemricci it is the opposite, I think. @mhoye is proposing a very supportive and interactive community of developers who share knowledge in a way that is cross-disciplinary, integrative, and near-instantaneous, in order to give similar software development support that some of us currently get from LLMs. I do not share his premium on the value of human labour in this process.
joe ricci
@evan hello, lurker here. Yeesh, what is happening? Call me naive but I am so beguiled by this conversation. What dream do you believe in that you think @mhoye might not share?
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@emd @suetanvil Why?
I don't think @mhoye 's idea of forgoing LLMs as a documentation tool in favour of an extremely idealistic interactive community of software developers is realistic or even desirable. I don't want to be a Mentat answering API argument name and format questions from memory for anyone who asks me.
![Chris [list of emoji]](https://gnusocial.jp/avatar/76364-48-20230220155936.webp){kind=small}
Chris [list of emoji]
I am *deeply* disappointed to hear this.
Erin Dalzell (He/Him) 🇨🇦
@suetanvil @evan @mhoye me too!
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@emd @suetanvil @mhoye externalizing knowledge for easy access is one of the great technological leaps forward for humans -- first on clay tablets, then paper, then digital systems.
I find chat-based information sharing -- "Join our Discord channel!" -- absolutely horrendous. It's a mother-may-I game of asking the question just the right way, getting told over and over that your question is wrong or invalid, or simply being ignored.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@emd @suetanvil Anyway, I'm interested to hear why you all think an oral history culture of software development is better. I think @mhoye has identified a real problem in software development that LLMs solve exceptionally well.
Erin Dalzell (He/Him) 🇨🇦
@evan @suetanvil @mhoye not oral. The issue with bad info is not LLM, it’s better info written down.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@emd @suetanvil I don't think that's plausible for @mhoye 's stated problem space -- "At a current count, the technologies that run my website currently have 78 different official documentation pages between them, and this isn't for a particularly complex project!"
It doesn't matter how great each documentation set is -- he needs integration documentation for many different moving parts. That's an exponentially growing problem -- probably not tractable with human labour.
mhoye
@evan @emd @suetanvil even the framing of this conversation as an exponentiated problem space is admitting defeat. These are symptoms, not axioms.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@mhoye @emd @suetanvil I'm not defeated! I'm having a great time doing good work.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@mhoye @emd @suetanvil I **hate** doing documentation review, Stack Overflow searches, and Discord channel supplication. I am not looking for any reason to ever do those things again. There is no joy or enrichment for me in those experiences.
Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@emd @suetanvil @mhoye I do not know that person and I do not take orders from them. I give myself permission to have whatever views I want.
Erin Dalzell (He/Him) 🇨🇦
@evan @suetanvil @mhoye and re llms: https://wandering.shop/@xgranade/116624772859472926
Erin Dalzell (He/Him) 🇨🇦
@evan @suetanvil @mhoye yup of course, but they match my views.
We disagree here, that's fine. You do do great work and I truly appreciate all the work you've done and continue to do for the fediverse Evan, you're good people.
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