Developer and refugee from Reddit

  • 28 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • I don’t think that comparison is apt. Unlike with music, there are objectively inefficient and badly-executed ways for a program to function, and if you’re only “vibing,” you’re not going to know the difference between such code and clean, efficient code.

    Case in point: Typescript. Typescript is a language built on top of JavaScript with the intent of bringing strong and static type-checking sanity to it. Using Copilot, it’s possible to create a Typescript application without actually knowing the language. However, what you’ll end up with will almost certainly be full of the any type, which turns off type-checking and negates the benefits of using Typescript in the first place. Your code will be much harder to maintain and fix bugs in. And you won’t know that, because you’re not a Typescript developer, you’re a Copilot “developer.”

    I’m not trying to downplay the benefits of using Copilot. Like I said, it’s something I use myself, and it’s a really helpful tool in the developer toolbox. But it’s not the only tool in the toolbox for anyone but “vibe coders.”


  • I’m of two minds on this.

    On the one hand, I find tools like Copilot integrated into VS Code to be useful for taking some of the drudgery out of coding. Case in point: If I need to create a new schema for an ORM, having Copilot generate it according to my specifications is speedy and helpful. It will be more complete and thorough than the first draft I’d come up with on my own.

    On the other, the actual code produced by Copilot is always rife with errors and bloat, it’s never DRY, and if you’re not already a competent developer and try to “vibe” your way to usablility, what you’ll end up with will frankly suck, even if you get it into a state where it technically “works.”

    Leaning into the microwave analogy, it’s the difference between being a chef who happens to have a microwave as one of their kitchen tools, and being a “chef” who only knows how to follow microwave instructions on prepackaged meals. “Vibe coders” aren’t coders at all and have no real grasp of what they’re creating or why it’s not as good as what real coders build, even if both make use of the same tools.






  • That’s an odd thing to say. For one thing, there are plenty of physical activities that one could get a reasonable description of from ChatGPT, but if you can’t actually do them or understand the steps, you’re gonna have a bad time.

    Example: I’ve never seen any evidence that ChatGPT can properly clean and sterilize beakers in an autoclave for a chemical engineering laboratory, even if it can describe the process. If you turned in homework cribbed from ChatGPT and don’t actually know how to do it, your future lab partners aren’t going to be happy that you passed your course by letting ChatGPT do all the work on paper.

    There’s also the issue that ChatGPT is frequently wrong. The whole point here is that these cheaters are getting caught because their papers have all the hallmarks of having been written by a large language model, and don’t show any comprehension of the study material by the student.

    And finally, if you’re cheating to get a degree in a field you don’t actually want to know anything about… Why?


  • Why fight against it? Because some of these students will be going into jobs that are life-or-death levels of importance and won’t know how to do what they’re hired to do.

    There’s nothing wrong with using a large language model to check your essay for errors and clumsy phrasing. There’s a lot wrong with trying to make it do your homework for you. If you graduate with a degree indicating you know your field, and you don’t actually know your field, you and everyone you work with are going to have a bad time.