Gosh, I must be doing something wrong. I spent 15 minutes (of which a lot was waiting while it was thinking about "backwards rationalising" it's decision and "gaslighting"[1]) arguing with it over why it keeps using `node -e "console.log(require('fs').readdirSync('…'))"` instead of `ls -l …`.
Like it did everything:
- this is not a Linux system (true, it was macOS)
- it is not an available command
- the binary is corrupted
- node/js is more precise
- V8 JavaScript is faster than bash (true technically??? But not in this context lol)
- JavaScript is more versatile
I forgot what else we went through but there were a few more things. I indulged it because it was incredulous and funny. The prompts from my side were all questions, never instructions. I assume an instruction would've helped here, but also I don't think Opus ever did this (but on the other hand Opus wrote python scripts to format/indent, instead of just running cargo fmt, so I guess potato potato)
Gosh, that seems like a conclusion someone came to using AI lol.
I agree that intuition is important, and that it's sometimes easier to develop correct intuition without a conflicting bias/habit, BUT... I don't think traditional engineering skills conflict with using AI tools. If anything it's more important, but maybe that's just the recently sprouted gay hair on my head talking
Lol... I noticed it does weird stuff sometimes. I'll see it generate a python script inline on the CLI to edit files. Like... Yo what the fuck? It literally used the edit tool until 5 turn ago.
Also, it'll run a formatter, read, edit to undo auto formatting and then continue on its merry way. What is the point of that??? Lol
It's an algorithm (albeit an expensive one) designed to produce engaging output. It's not a doctor, it's definitely not more capable than experts in their fields. It's not replacing anyone, same way pocket calculators didn't replace people 50 years ago.
Unless you're being sarcastic because of all the fearmongering in news? In that case, the joke went over my head lol
The achievements of thousands of of agents vibe coding in parallel. Marvellous, simply marvellous. And the news fearmonger how AI will replace jobs. Lol
Yes, but if chokemegently420 on some random sub Reddit gave them that advice, nobody would be the wiser. It's not like ChatGPT is a certified clinician
It's not much to go on by, but I kinda feel ya. I think one exception I'd perhaps make is doing a large mechanic refactor. I find them incredibly daunting. So, I'll just ask AI for that. I mean it probably takes me a similar time to do, but it feels less daunting.
I've been trying to get into agentic coding and there are non-refactoring instances where I might reac for it (like any time I need to work on something using tailwind; I'm dyslexic and I'd get actual headaches, not exaggerating, trying to decipher Tailwind gibberish while juggling their docs before AIs came around)
If I'm very tired (after I had insomnia for two or so days) I have mild hallucinations, and they're pretty boring/benign. But mine are more auditory than visual.
This isn't unusual when people are sleep deprived though. I think lots of people just don't realise they are hallucinating in that state
The thing is, the development timeline is so compressed that you lose intimate knowledge of the codebase. Like, I don't think humans can form memories that detailed that quickly? Maybe it's just a me problem though. Anyway, so when you need to debug or fix stuff, AI's reasoning will be "welp makes sense, I suppose" and your mental mood of the codebase is now slippery. Eventually there comes a time where at best you can draw an incoherent high-level diagram of the architecture.
And AIs solution to problem is generally "more of the same" to fix it. It rarely looks at fixing design problems
Memory _is_ data at the level Rust works. It just has a few abstractions in the stdlib that hide this. And the code you highlighted is taking steps in the "let's add abstraction" direction
It frequently gets indentation wrong on projects, then tries to write sed/awk scripts. Can't get it right, then write a python script that reformats the whole file on stdout, makes sure the indentation is correct, then writes requests an edit snippet.
And you might be thinking. Well, you should use a code formatter! But I do!
And then you might say, well surely you forgot to mention it in you AGENTS/CLAUDE file. Nope, it's there, multiple times even in different sections because once was apparently not enough.
And lastly, surely if I'm watching this cursed loop unfold and am approving edits manually, like some bogan pleb, I can steer it easily... Well, let me tell ya... I tried stopping it and injecting hints about the formatter, and it stick for a minute before it goes crazy again. Or sometimes it rereads the file and just immediately fucks up the formatting.
I think when this shit happens, it probably uses like 3x more tokens.
For a Rust project, it recently stated analysing binaries in the target as directory a first instinct, instead of looking at the code...
Honestly, I thought it was a skill issue too, but it just turns out I wasn't using it enough.
I started a new job recently, so I'm asking it a lot of questions about the codebase, sometimes just to confirm my understanding and often it came up with wrong conclusions that would send me down rabbit holes only to find out it was wrong.
On a side project I gave it literally a formula and told it to run it with some other parameters. It was doing its usual "let me get to know the codebase" then a "I have a good understanding of the codebase" speech, only to follow it up with "what you're asking is not possible" I'm like... No, I know it's possible I implemented it already, just use it in more places only to get the same "o ye ur right, I missed that... Blabla"
Curious, what do you normally use? I had to write a few timing sensitive MC drivers and the only way I knew how onto do that reliably was using assembly. But granted, it wasn't _often_, just more than I expected (especially for someone who doesn't normally do that low level stuff, this was for an art project)
Yes, and to add, in case it's not obvious: in my experience the maintenance, mental (and emotional costs, call me sensitive) cost of bad code compounds exponentially the more hacks you throw at it
I have been doing this for years, especially for libraries (internal or otherwise), anything that's `pub`/`export`, or gnarly logic that makes the intent not obvious. Not _everything_ is documented, but most things are.
I'm doing it because I know how much I appreciate well-written documentation. Also this is a bit niche, but if you're using Rust and add examples to doc-comments, they get run as tests too.
Also given we both managed to produce more than one sentence, and include capital letters in our comments, it's entirely possible both of us will be accused of being an AI. Because, you know... People don't write like this, right?
There's many JS implementations out there. Quality kind depends on what you need, and there's some engines more or less complete in which quirks are supported.
And for example, v8 doesn't make much sense in embedded contexts
Random aside: I've seen a 2015 game be accused of AI slop on Steam because it used a similar concept... And mind you, there's probably thousands of games that do this.
First it was punctuation and grammar, then linguistic coherence, and now it's tiny bits of whimsy that are falling victim to AI accusations. Good fucking grief
Like it did everything:
- this is not a Linux system (true, it was macOS) - it is not an available command - the binary is corrupted - node/js is more precise - V8 JavaScript is faster than bash (true technically??? But not in this context lol) - JavaScript is more versatile
I forgot what else we went through but there were a few more things. I indulged it because it was incredulous and funny. The prompts from my side were all questions, never instructions. I assume an instruction would've helped here, but also I don't think Opus ever did this (but on the other hand Opus wrote python scripts to format/indent, instead of just running cargo fmt, so I guess potato potato)