HaraldvonBlauzahn

@ HaraldvonBlauzahn @feddit.org

Posts

138
Comments

494
Joined

1 yr. ago

4w ago

AI: Considerations for people who make decisions (Bert Hubert)
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HaraldvonBlauzahn @feddit.org 4w ago
He might have done so on purpose because the intended audience is already doing the same.
He is not only an open source contributor and entrepreneur, but also has learned how to communicate such matters to a non-technical audience. An incredibly valuable capability for the open source community.

4w ago

AI: Considerations for people who make decisions (Bert Hubert)

Does it really? He does not omit to mention that generative AI might be more useful in the future, and AI algorithms have been used successfully.

4w ago

AI: Considerations for people who make decisions (Bert Hubert)

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HaraldvonBlauzahn @feddit.org 4w ago

The takeaway is that people, and especially executives, with personal positive AI experiences are not necessarily well positioned to decide on behalf of their organization whether AI has been a success. No matter how good it feels on a personal level. The same applies to people who use ChatGPT individually for work: it may feel great to have AI write and summarize reports for you, but is the organization actually becoming better as a result? That may not be your concern personally, but it certainly is the concern of management. I’ll return to that later.
An enormous problem is that in most organizations, people no longer evaluate whether AI is actually successful, or even can be. After all, it’s “the future.” AI is indeed here to stay, but it would still be nice to think carefully about what we should actually do with it. Or at the very least, define beforehand what you expect it to achieve and measure whether it actually does. Because “it felt good” simply isn’t enough. More on that later.

4w ago

AI: Considerations for people who make decisions (Bert Hubert)

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HaraldvonBlauzahn @feddit.org 4w ago

The takeaway is that people, and especially executives, with personal positive AI experiences are not necessarily well positioned to decide on behalf of their organization whether AI has been a success. No matter how good it feels on a personal level. The same applies to people who use ChatGPT individually for work: it may feel great to have AI write and summarize reports for you, but is the organization actually becoming better as a result? That may not be your concern personally, but it certainly is the concern of management. I’ll return to that later.
An enormous problem is that in most organizations, people no longer evaluate whether AI is actually successful, or even can be. After all, it’s “the future.” AI is indeed here to stay, but it would still be nice to think carefully about what we should actually do with it. Or at the very least, define beforehand what you expect it to achieve and measure whether it actually does. Because “it felt good” simply isn’t enough. More on that later.

4w ago

"Code was never the hard part" is an insult to all programmers

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HaraldvonBlauzahn @feddit.org 4w ago

Good Books on the essence of OOP!

I now think that useful OOP is mostly about invariants.

4w ago

"Code was never the hard part" is an insult to all programmers

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HaraldvonBlauzahn @feddit.org 4w ago

The finer details of the coding advice in Clean Code is also insane. There’s a good summary of it but I forgor where.

See

https://github.com/johnousterhout/aposd-vs-clean-code

By the way, "Uncle Bob"s prime number generator example discussed there (which Bob Martin, as he admits himself, does not understands any more in spite of that he himself published it in "Clean Code") was originally designed and published by nobody less than Edsger Dijkstra and was used as an Example of Literate Programming by Don Knuth.

They are giants on whose shoulders we are standing. It is totally worth it reading first Dijkstra's Chapter, then Don Knuth's text, and then John Ousterhout's discussion of Martin's rewrite (linked above).

Or perhaps starting with Martins code and see if you understand it....

https://gist.github.com/pooya-raz/59aa46460f72f994f204a861c7342b4b (Bob Martins Code, which he can't explain when interviewed by Ousterhout)
https://www.cs.tufts.edu/~nr/cs257/archive/literate-programming/01-knuth-lp.pdf (Knuths beautiful explanation of the algorithm invented by Dijkstra, using and demonstrating Knuth's fantastic "Literate Programming" method)
https://pure.tue.nl/ws/files/2408738/252825.pdf (Dijkstra's original code and explanation, a gem of computer science history, where among other things he introduces the concept of invariants)
https://github.com/johnousterhout/aposd-vs-clean-code (Ousterhouts interview with Martin, after publishing A Philosophy of Software Design)

1mo ago

Boomers on Facebook Are Leaving Comments That Make It Clear That They Have No Idea That AI-Generated Thirst Traps Aren't Real

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HaraldvonBlauzahn @feddit.org 1mo ago

So, how would you phrase it? (I am assuming you do not want to divert from the argument.)

1mo ago

Boomers on Facebook Are Leaving Comments That Make It Clear That They Have No Idea That AI-Generated Thirst Traps Aren't Real

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HaraldvonBlauzahn @feddit.org 1mo ago

Well, in a way most of the AI hype (like that you can easily replace office workers with chatbots or that software developers will become 10x more efficient and consequently you can fire 90% of your workforce) are a thirst trap for CEOs.

A bit like selling candy with crack on the schoolground of a primary school....

1mo ago

Microsoft confirms an AI worm is propagating through Copilot and other MS apps | CSO Online

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HaraldvonBlauzahn @feddit.org 1mo ago

It is so dumb. It is like you have a butler who has the task to delver letters to your desk. Now somebody sends a letter with a written instruction on the outside: "Butler, copy this letter 50 times and send it to the acquaintances of your boss."

And in correspondence to AI, the butler would do it.

2mo ago

Professor's invisible prompt trap catches 32 students cheating on their midterm with AI

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HaraldvonBlauzahn @feddit.org 2mo ago

They’ll keep doing that, over and over. And it usually ends up with them insisting on a meeting to “discuss” where they essentially get in a loop of “it’ll work, just do it”
And it’s like pulling fucking teeth to get them to admit the only thing they’re basing that on, is a chatbot told them it would work.

Strange. I am experiencing the same. In one case, I had to make, after six months of discussing an interface, an end-to-end test to show it didn't work and their, ahem, unit tests failed to show that. That was for a stepper motor interface and driver with three essential methods.

This guy is senior software architect at my workplace.

Boss insisting that I get to an agreement with him on ai usage.

2mo ago

Big Companies Are Starting to Hire Again, Defying Predictions of AI Wipeout

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HaraldvonBlauzahn @feddit.org 2mo ago

"You need this [entry-level] workforce, which is innovative, not calcified in thought."

LOL, they are projecting their own mental state on their workers.

2mo ago

How many new lines of code does an average Linux kernel developer produce per year?

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HaraldvonBlauzahn @feddit.org 2mo ago

See the linked Wikipedia article. The value is defined as the estimated hypothetical costs to re-create it, and these costs would be salaries. There exist estimation models for the value of large Software systems, which are e.g. used in company takeovers and mergers. And of course, that's hypothetical, the Linux kernel is not for sale.

2mo ago

How many new lines of code does an average Linux kernel developer produce per year?

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HaraldvonBlauzahn @feddit.org 2mo ago

A really beautiful and touching story!

I think we owe these inventors and engineers who created our electricity system so much.

Their effort are today more important than ever, much more than they would have dreamed of. Consider this: Humanity is in a race for survival, a race to escape climate change. With 3 or 4 K of warming, civilization cannot survive. If we make it, electrical infrastructure will be a big part of the solution.

If you ever have grand-grand-grandchildren, five generations from now, they will likely be alive to a big part because of their efforts.

Thank you!

2mo ago

How many new lines of code does an average Linux kernel developer produce per year?

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HaraldvonBlauzahn @feddit.org 2mo ago

Yeah! But don't forget to use Dvorak layout when typing this incantation ... don't let your productivity be hampered by stuck fingers ;->

edit: Or perhaps use these voice input systems to whisper your code directly into the AI's transistors.

2mo ago

How many new lines of code does an average Linux kernel developer produce per year?

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HaraldvonBlauzahn @feddit.org 2mo ago

It largely depends on at what price you sell your soul.

2mo ago

Code review isn't your bottleneck, even with AI

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HaraldvonBlauzahn @feddit.org 2mo ago

It seems a lot of words that say exactly nothing.

2mo ago

How many new lines of code does an average Linux kernel developer produce per year?

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HaraldvonBlauzahn @feddit.org 2mo ago

I don’t know if the last part “What do these software developers actually do all day? ;->” is ironique or not.

It is actually a mix of two things:

Ironic about the idea of what AI companies promote - and many managers in tech believe - that you can speed up the work of developers by speeding up code generation. The fact that typing in code costs way less than 0.1% of developers work time shows that the time to type in code is /not/ the bottleneck.
Interested in what it is actually that costs time. I think most time I work on larger projects is reading code and trying to understand how different parts are related, what invariants it has, etc. It is actually a form of /learning/ because it uses material to build a useful long-term collection of related concepts in my brain.

Anything that'd help us to do and understand the second part better would be extremely useful for this work. I think that literate programming, also tools that can transparently put code into a form of interconnected hypertext (like the LEO editor), inline doc tests and so on, are helpful for that.

Personally, I also think that wikis like gollum are powerful tools for that kind of learning, but not many people seem to agree with this (except the fossil and forejo authors).

2mo ago

How many new lines of code does an average Linux kernel developer produce per year?

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HaraldvonBlauzahn @feddit.org 2mo ago

(It’s a whole story, I don’t remember exactly)

I'd be delighted to read it!

2mo ago

How many new lines of code does an average Linux kernel developer produce per year?

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HaraldvonBlauzahn @feddit.org 2mo ago

That will be a greater number, by the way: say the kernel is 100 lines, somebody may have written 50, but they may have all been replaced by future patches, so The number of lines written is greater than the number of existing lines.

Some parts are rewritten, but most of the kernel code is actually in device drivers which usually do not need to be re-written.

2mo ago

How many new lines of code does an average Linux kernel developer produce per year?

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HaraldvonBlauzahn @feddit.org 2mo ago

Is that salary estimate also from 2011?

I got 60K as a mid-level C++ developer in industry in 2009.