[HN Gopher] Using AI to teach how to code, remember you still ne...
___________________________________________________________________
Using AI to teach how to code, remember you still need to think for
yourself
Author : rntn
Score : 42 points
Date : 2024-01-27 18:44 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
| gnabgib wrote:
| Might the article's `<title>` block be better than this
| (presumably; length constrained) edit: Think for
| yourself if you want AI to teach you how to code
| vinceguidry wrote:
| A friend of mine was trying to tell me how much different Ruby 3
| was from Ruby 2, he's never even worked with Ruby, and I said
| that it's not nearly as big as the difference between Python 2
| and 3. He sent me this hilariously wrong transcript where the bot
| tried to claim that Ruby 3 changed the class keyword to something
| else. Not a single one of the bullet points was anywhere even
| close to being true.
| simonw wrote:
| Do you know which bot he was using? That's the kind of question
| I would expect to see wild differences between LLMs - ChatGPT
| 3.5 v.s. ChatGPT 4 for example I would expect to produce very
| different levels of quality.
|
| That said, it's a bad idea to try to use the output of ANY LLM
| as a primary source in this kind of conversation. Distrust and
| verify!
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| It helps if you ask the bot to note reputable people in the
| field and reference original sources for anything
| significantly outside of common knowledge. That gets you
| leads for further information and also reduces hallucination
| somewhat too.
| Zambyte wrote:
| > That said, it's a bad idea to try to use the output of ANY
| LLM as a primary source in this kind of conversation.
| Distrust and verify!
|
| People used to say the same thing about the web. It seems
| like people are unfortunately very bad at being skeptical
| right now.
| CharlesW wrote:
| I have a friend who also relishes sharing these kinds of
| antidotes, and seems to have decided that AI-augmented coding
| is a bridge too far.
|
| Personally, I worry that this is a cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-
| your-face response, and that he'll be unhirable sooner than he
| expects.
| maroonblazer wrote:
| It's also worth pointing out that if an LLM gives you code that
| works, but you can't understand _why_ it works, asking it to
| explain what each line is doing is remarkably effective.
| logicprog wrote:
| But if you don't already understand the code and the concepts,
| you have no way of knowing if it's actually giving you accurate
| information or just hallucinating or confabulating. That's my
| fundamental problem with the entire idea of using llms to Aid
| with this kind of stuff, it's not easy to check it carefully
| enough unless you already know enough about the topic that you
| could have just done what you asked it to do faster if you type
| fast enough, especially considering the amount of time you'll
| probably have to spend arguing with it and refining the prompt
| and clarifying and thinking through the logic in detail anyway.
| fknnoob wrote:
| As if I could get copy pasted code to not error without a few
| thoughts of my own.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Coding with AI has been amazing.
|
| I am a pretty 'mid' software developer generally, have been
| working as a PM for the last 3 years so have gotten rusty. Got
| laid off in December.
|
| In about 60 hours of work, I've built a MVP React webapp that is
| hosted on githubpages, uses firebase for a serverless backend,
| and integrates with OpenAI APIs to turn user requests into
| structured JSON that serves as a starting point for the users
| without having to code the complex logic manually.
|
| Just used ChatGPT4 to figure out how to get a domain working with
| my githubpages hosting (turns out I skipped a step when I read
| the docs - and DNS issues can be confusing).
|
| Each of those steps had me running into frustrating bugs that I
| could have spun my wheels on for hours - with ChatGPT4, it didn't
| always identify the fix immediately, but I was able to debug so
| much faster, usually resolving the issue in about 30 minutes.
| More than the time savings, I really appreaciate the effect it
| has on morale for me: I hate being stuck on a problem and not
| knowing what to try next. It feels like I have a senior engineer
| who I can slack a question and get a thoughtful response
| inhumanly fast at any time of day (even when coding at 2AM).
|
| ChatGPT 4 has been a lot more helpful to me that Copilot, but I
| might just not know how to get the most out of copilot yet.
| Copilot is really nice for jumping past writing boilerplate, but
| ChatGPT 4 can synthesize entire solutions that span multiple
| files, which I haven't had success getting from copilot.
|
| What's even cooler is that I had never even touched React before
| 3 weeks ago, and now feel like I'm moderately fluent in the
| general design principles. If I was doing self-directed study of
| React starting from the docs, I probably would still be playing
| with toy hello world problems, but instead I've gotten the
| project I was hoping to build to a viable prototype.
|
| One source of delight is using AI to synthesize dictionary data.
| I have a bunch of ingredients that users choose from and being
| able to "autocomplete" a solid initial draft for new dict entries
| feels like magic.
|
| ---
|
| If you want to see what I built, or are in the Seattle area and
| want to try out AI-powered natural skincare formulation, here's
| my shameless plug: https://skincremental.com/
|
| The core is all working and good enough, but probably have
| another week to get it to where I think it'll be ready to start
| doing some marketing.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Anyone have good tips for getting more out of copilot?
| Our_Benefactors wrote:
| Use a comment to drive the autocomplete on the next line,
| like:
|
| "// a function takes an array of numbers and returns the
| array with negative numbers removed "
|
| In my experience this can match GPT-4 in many cases while
| saving the roundtrip.
| bugglebeetle wrote:
| GPT-4 is amazing for fairly small scripts and projects, but even
| with its new, longer context size, its reasoning degrades pretty
| quickly as the scope of whatever you're doing increases. I
| frequently have to switch over to a new chat and pipe in the
| existing code to get it to continue working at a level that is
| useful.
|
| I've also noticed it makes a lot of mistakes with regard to
| efficiency, opting for the simplest, brute force strategies for
| coding whatever is asked. If identified and prompted, it can
| correct for these kinds of issues, but seems to have a bias
| toward them for first drafts.
| jacques_chester wrote:
| I've been grinding Leetcode lately and I've discovered that AI
| can oftentimes give a better explanation of a solution than
| Leetcode does. I can also followup questions without scanning
| through forum posts in hope someone was as confused as I was.
|
| I'm not asking LLMs to write code _for_ me in this scenario -- I
| need to get by in interviews without AI assistance. But as a
| personal tutor it is turning out to be helpful.
| scarecrw wrote:
| I work with students learning to code, some of whom use AI in
| various ways. I can definitely see AI becoming a valuable tool
| for them in the future, but most students are currently ill-
| equipped to take advantage of it.
|
| The most common error I observe from students is not providing
| sufficient information to get useful results. They'll omit what
| language or libraries they're intending to use, or restrictions
| on the set of language features they are or are not familiar
| with. Because of this, they'll get confident, often correct,
| responses, which are entirely unhelpful for the work they're
| doing.
|
| The other issue they'll run into is over- or underestimating the
| capabilities of tools like ChatGPT. The first time they run into
| a problem which it isn't immediately able to solve they often
| give up on using AI as a tool entirely.
|
| I do think AI has value for learners, primarily in an "explainer"
| role. Allowing students to take a piece of code and ask "what
| does this do" to get a plain English explanation is extremely
| powerful. It also can act as a substitute for documentation, as
| new learners are often disinclined to parse through official
| documentation, which is rarely beginner-friendly.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| I've been using AI for a LOT of work, from coding to image
| generation.
|
| Some thoughts:
|
| 1. Midjourney v6 is absolutely fantastic for creating editorial
| images and brand images. Better than A-tier. Some of the output
| you can get from it beats the top agency talent I've worked with.
| You will have to prompt multiple times and it's not magic, but
| given the cost and time of quality photography and graphic work,
| it's very cheap and efficient.
|
| 2. ALL text generation is B or C-tier at best. It's fine if you
| want filler content, but I would never trust any AI tool to
| actually write on my behalf.
|
| 3. BUT, this cookie cutter writing style is perfect for most dull
| corporate speak - press releases, corny tweets, boring videos.
| It's also perfect for customer support. I expect practically all
| corporate social media accounts, press releases, etc. to be
| written by AI.
|
| 4. Coding is good until you run into performance or security
| issues. That said, you can get a MASSIVE productivity boost. It's
| also great for prototypes and stuff that doesn't need to
| immediately scale or be heavily performant.
|
| 5. Video is a long, long way off from anything close to
| production
|
| At present, Midjourney is far ahead of the pack when it comes to
| image generation. If you haven't seen it yourself, please sign up
| for a basic subscription and check out their /explore tab. Even
| if you see it as an art feed, it's incredible work.
|
| For coding, the best I've seen is a combination of a custom GPT
| like Grimoire on the chatGPT store, plus an IDE with a built-in
| AI prompt, like Cursor.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-01-27 23:00 UTC)