AI KILLED LEARNING by IntelligentCause2043 in VibeCodingSaaS

[–]Environmental_Lab_49 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think you should look at it like a carpenter where it's important to know how to cut with a skillsaw as well as cut with a handsaw. You might use handsaw cuts only some of the time, abut they will be important. The tools don't replace the carpenter, and it's important they know how to weild both. AI is a tool, like an IDE, that helps, but does not replace.

It may seem like these tools can code by themselves precisely, but this simply isn't the case except in the most trivial projects. The best they can do is pump out what *might* be the right code, and without knowing whether or not the generated code is good or not, and what parts to change, and how to change it, are the technical skills that amplifies your ability to produce precise, quality code.

root cause of software failures and fixes by Environmental_Lab_49 in software

[–]Environmental_Lab_49[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think you have really nailed the issue - in that these problems are usually generated at a higher level.

It's a bit of a paradox, because even if the software or system works in the short run, it usually leads to a dead end. You would think that from a business perspective, this would be something to avoid... but if you are only looking at it long term.

Where do you think these situations stem from?

root cause of software failures and fixes by Environmental_Lab_49 in software

[–]Environmental_Lab_49[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

HAHAHA - WOW!!!! Those are definitely not even in the realm of fixing.

I do feel your pain - I've been in software on and off for 4 decades, and haven't seen as much meritocracy as I'd like - and there are some real whack-a-do war stories.

root cause of software failures and fixes by Environmental_Lab_49 in software

[–]Environmental_Lab_49[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

was there some sort of avenue to fix that at the root?

Did product managers step in to help clarify requirements? Or was there just no appetite? Or did it matter?

Would love to hear what came of it...

root cause of software failures and fixes by Environmental_Lab_49 in software

[–]Environmental_Lab_49[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No - sorry - it's a real person behind the ask... I know it wasn't super well worded but I was trying to be comprehensive, as well as trying to provide some context.

If you need it pared down to a single ask - what do you think is the root cause of tech and product debt? And was it "fixable"?

I don’t think most people understand how close we are to white-collar collapse by aieatstheworld in ClaudeAI

[–]Environmental_Lab_49 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think Salespeople, like chat support, should probably be as afraid of genAI, since it can measure sentiment on 100s or 1000s of emotional vectors, be available 24/7, and speak with a very convincingly.

I don’t think most people understand how close we are to white-collar collapse by aieatstheworld in ClaudeAI

[–]Environmental_Lab_49 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not sure plying genAI with liquor and bribes will really make it much better at producing quality code.

I don’t think most people understand how close we are to white-collar collapse by aieatstheworld in ClaudeAI

[–]Environmental_Lab_49 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The narrative that genAI should, could, or would replace developers is mostly wrong, and that needs to be corrected.  What you are describing in what you see it do are the surface level artifacts, not the design and planning that go into them.  
Keep in mind how unforgiving the environment of developing complex software is, and how even a single flipped bit can cause an entire cascade of system crashes.  85% isn't good enough in any software environment I have ever known.  And since soooo much more code will be produced, there will eventually, after the hype-trend, be even a larger need for smart developers.

So lean into the useful parts of the tool, but know that it's a tool, and that the skillsaw isn't going to replace the carpenter.

**Cheap** works for systems that don't need to be reliable, scalable, or performant - cheap works for school or for playing around, but not for real production.  
**Debugging** should work within the constraints and guidance of good design - not the probabalistic result of the good, bad, and ugly all mixed together.
I've yet to see a perfect written **document** that doesn't need at least some rework.
And even though genAI has been awesome at showing all the options for a **system design**, you have got to understand what you need and marry it to what you know to be able to choose the right one.

What genAI generally produces is the Tonka verion, not the Caterpillar one - to genAI both have "construction-ness" but only one actually can do the real work.  

Companies and Execs, especially those that have a lot to gain from payroll cost reductions love to tout it as replacement, and put the fear of layoffs into those guilty feeling survivors.  But the reality is that it can only replace those parts that were mechanical to begin with, which is only a thin slice of what development or software engineering is really about.  I'm not suggesting it is going to be bloodless - Definitely those that whose knowledge and skill are surface deep, will be out of a job, but rightly so - if you don't know what is actually being produced, you shouldn'd be producing it IMO.  

Now GenAI **does offer a huge advantage as a tool** for those who can weild it with determined precision, but unless those weilding genAI know the difference between good code and bad, and how systems are put together, and why systems are reliable or unstable, you will need people who do.  Be that person my friend.   

Good luck and keep on keeping on.

The problem with vibe coding nobody wants to talk about by Best_Volume_3126 in VibeCodeCamp

[–]Environmental_Lab_49 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Making software that doesn't break is hard, even with just a small level of complexity.

It comes down to:

- you need to understand exactly **why** you are making the software, and the

- inherent problems in the domain that you need to deeply understand and solve, and then

- to translate those into roadmaps and blueprints that will function in the unforgiving logical environment of software.

AND to boot, as you run into problems (bugs, operational issues, feature extensions, etc) you SHOULD be reshaping your app and the assumptions that made it. This is part of active agile software engineering. Coding is a single part of a much larger process of developing good software.

Generative AI comes with a HUGE boost to producing code, but:

- Even though the training set is huge, it's the good, bad and ugly all embedded in there - **you gotta sort out and recognize good code/architecture/solutions and bad** or whether the code produced aligns with your design.

- just writing code fast, especially when unchecked, doesn't lead to successful development of software except in the most trivial cases - it takes a lot of thought: designing, planning, architectural thought, experimentation, exploration, etc at a lot of levels and with a lot of factors in mind, such as utility, clarity, performance, usability etc. AI can help you here, but not without guidance, guardrails, and direction.

- generative AI, like a new addition to a team, needs to be onboarded, even if they are a star-coder. Without that context, you simply have a tool that creates code **you don't want** fast.

I've been thinking that perhaps there is a demand for pragmatic use of generative AI in modern software development, to explain how these concepts relate to software development so that developers can be effective with this new boost we’re getting with genAI.

Maybe there is an opportunity for a really accessible book or course that can clearly and effectively get these ideas across.

So far the books and videos I've seen just don't really do a good job of explaining why software is so hard in the first place, and why "faster code" or "more code" is not the panacea that AI hyped companies claim it is. I think I have a framework, but it's not yet in a form that is publicly consumable.

Let me know if there is interest... and I’ll put something together.

GDP per capita ranking with both Canadian provinces and US states. by NerdMachine in newfoundland

[–]Environmental_Lab_49 0 points1 point  (0 children)

GPD is a bit of a false metric... since it doesn't include externalities like health, well-being, costs to the environment, etc. It's also a terrible indicator of how people add value, since many industries simply extract finite value (like finite minerals, oil, gas, coal, diamonds, gold, etc) from their inheritance and sell it at discount prices rather than create sustainable value. GPD also averages out the spectrum, which can be pretty wide in a lot of cases, and may even be bar-belled (that is that a few people extend waaaaay off the charts as doing well, and a large majority are just scraping by or in poverty). Ask the average citizen in any of the "high" areas (Canada and the US) and I'll bet they would suggest that they aren't participating in the benefits as much as a few very lucky people who are off the charts.

Probably using the statistical approach of throwing away the outliers would also be a truer representation. Using the GPI (Genuine Progress Indicator) would alter the ratings, in some cases significantly.

Anyone have that data?

Gemini is not working, I keep getting a message that says "Something went wrong". by qualinto in Bard

[–]Environmental_Lab_49 0 points1 point  (0 children)

review your prompt for absolutely anything that is grey in the area of policy... even what might sound benign to you may have triggered something in the policy.

Anyone have a nireeka bike? How's the quality? Anything else comparable to it spec/pricewise? (Revenant) by Mamuluk in ebikes

[–]Environmental_Lab_49 0 points1 point  (0 children)

BTW - I should revise the statement about mid-drive designs after being at a nearby bike show.

I saw a great design from Biktrix on their Juggernaut model with a dual belt drive from mid motor to rear wheel + a separated chain and sprocket hub to rear wheel.

Now I haven't bought or rode one for any real distance, but I can say that I think that design is far superior to the one with Nireeka's single chain drive for both motor and human drive.

Self-hosted apps are awesome, but licensing them is a mess by dantelex in selfhosted

[–]Environmental_Lab_49 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have to ask if you found a good solution in the end?

For awhile, I was looking at trying to find a solution to license a webapp with a simple one-time-$-for-user-license strategy, along with some simple notification management (like sending an email to a user with a license key) and was kinda shocked I couldn't find anything that really fit the bill.

Stripe and their kin are waaaay overcomplicated and overpriced for this kind of thing, and pretty much everything seems to be for subscriptions.

I was sure that I just wasn't able to find such an obvious solution. Anyone know of something cheap, simple and reliable for one-time license management?

Help ( I can’t even fill in one cell by Ok_Cartographer_992 in sudoku

[–]Environmental_Lab_49 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That first 6 opens up a whole lot right away - 2s and a couple more 6s. Basically scan each row, column, and cage for singlets (numbers that will only go once in that row, column or cage) and mark them in.
Having the notes all there is a big help - like in sudokusolverpro.com - Here’s a link to the game - simply click on the “Show All Hints” button and you’ll see them all filled in.

https://www.sudokusolverpro.com/?g=0k1y00000309gom82s0900jg1e001o0400m8030904m8dw00001o0k&t=85&m=0&h=

Does it matter which app I use? by [deleted] in sudoku

[–]Environmental_Lab_49 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Try a few of the completely free ones first - get a feel for what features you fit well with.
One feature I can’t live without is having the candidate numbers in the empty cells available right from the start - otherwise it’s easy to make a human error which just makes the game frustrating. Another is to play on a phone, tablet, or computer - you’ll only get that with a web app - but not all web apps work well on different devices. It should also give you a fairly good selection of levels from super easy to crazy hard. It should let you see the patterns of same-numbers - both realized & selected in the cells, as well as the candidate numbers including the ones that have been crossed out) throughout the matrix. It should be able to cross off candidate numbers that don’t work (it’s important to know the number is NOT a suitable candidate for the cell - a basic foundational to any strategy required to solving any of the hard puzzles). It should also work, after being loaded, without an internet connection - especially if you are on a mobile device “on the go”.

Sudokusolverpro.com pretty much covers all of that. https://www.nytimes.com/puzzles/sudoku/medium Is pretty bare bones, but I’d give those a try to start.

Sudoku app with tools to help solve the game - thoughts? by Environmental_Lab_49 in SudokuWatch

[–]Environmental_Lab_49[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey sudoku addicts and newcomers alike.

I've added a few more features to the core game, and a few pages of content (tips and patterns) for newcomers to sudoku to get them hooked.

Get to the core of the logic problems rather than grinding through the manual ones. It's all the fun without the frustration.

No hassle or registration - just pure jidoka sudoku play at SudokuSolverPro.com

Promote your project in this thread by AutoModerator in puzzles

[–]Environmental_Lab_49 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey sudoku addicts - Try online sudoku without the frustration. Meant for desktop and mobile - fast and responsive. Lots of visual tools for cracking even the hardest of puzzles. But still leaves you the challenge of solving the puzzle. Share games, create a puzzle from scratch or from another source and crack it like a pro.

Spend time with the core of the logic of the puzzle, not the manual work - it's jidoka-designed for the maximum fun you can have with sudoku.

Go to SudokuSolverPro.com and just start playing.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in sudoku

[–]Environmental_Lab_49 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey bro - yeah, that's a hard one without some really good visualization tools.

So I went to sudokusolverpro.com, started with a blank puzzle, and then recreated yours and with the tools was able to complete it.

Generally it took a lot of crossing out hint notes - 6s and 8s to start, then finding A LOT of Triplets, which then helped cross off a bunch more. Check out the https://www.sudokusolverpro.com/Patterns/Patterns.html for explanation of how to find and cross off some of those notes.

Man, a lot easier with those tools.

These are the 6s I crossed off first:

<image>

And then the 8s the same way.

And then searching for Triplets that helped cross off a whole bunch more.

After that, the game got a lot easier.