[HN Gopher] A proof of concept tool to verify estimates
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A proof of concept tool to verify estimates
Author : jjgreen
Score : 77 points
Date : 2025-05-02 19:09 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (terrytao.wordpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (terrytao.wordpress.com)
| esafak wrote:
| Nice to LLMs being put to such use! I see the heavy lifting here
| is due to linear programming:
|
| https://github.com/teorth/estimates/blob/main/src/estimates....
| eh_why_not wrote:
| The ChatGPT session he links [0] shows how powerful the LLM is in
| aiding and teaching programming. A patient, resourceful,
| effective, and apparently deeply knowledgeable tutor! At least
| for beginners.
|
| [0]
| https://chatgpt.com/share/68143a97-9424-800e-b43a-ea9690485b...
| nh23423fefe wrote:
| I'm constantly shocked by the number of my coworkers who won't
| even try to use an LLM to get stuff done faster. It's like they
| want it to be bad so they don't have to improve.
| Ygg2 wrote:
| And I'm constantly shocked by number of people still shilling
| for it, despite it hallucinating constantly.
|
| Plus having used it in JetBrains IDE it makes me sad to see
| them ditching their refactoring for LLM refuctoring.
| regularjack wrote:
| The normal refactorings are still there AFAICT.
| Ygg2 wrote:
| That implies that they were there in the first place. For
| some IDEs the refactoring are essentially rename, and buy
| JetBrains AI plugin.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Then don't complain about them going away?
| Ygg2 wrote:
| I didn't complain about them going away. I complained
| about using LLMs upsell rather than implementing
| refactoring like they used to for their previous IDEs
| (e.g. IntelliJ).
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Maybe they have tried and found it lacking?
|
| I have an on again off again relationship with LLMs. I always
| walk away disappointed. Most recently for a hobby project
| around 1k lines so far, and it outputs bugs galore, makes
| poor design decisions, etc.
|
| It's ok for one off scripts, but even those it rarely one
| shots.
|
| I can only assume people who find it useful are working on
| different things than I am.
| kevmo314 wrote:
| Yeah I'm in the holding it wrong camp too. I really want
| LLMs to work, but every time I spend effort trying to get
| it to do something I end up with subtle errors or a
| conclusion that isn't actually correct despite looking
| correct.
|
| Most people tell me I'm just not that good at prompting,
| which is probably true. But if I'm learning how to prompt,
| that's basically coding with more steps. At that point it's
| faster for me to write the code directly.
|
| The one area where it actually has been successful is
| (unsurprisingly) translating code from one language to
| another. That's been a great help.
| kaoD wrote:
| I have never been _told_ I 'm bad at prompting, but
| people swear LLMs are so useful to them I ended up
| _thinking_ I must be bad at prompting.
|
| Then I decided to take on offers to help me with a couple
| problems I had and, surprise, LLMs were indeed useless
| even when being piloted by people that swear by them, _in
| the pilot 's area of expertise!_
|
| I just suspect we're indeed not bad at prompting but
| instead have different kinds of problems that LLMs are
| just not (yet?) good at.
|
| I tend to reach for LLMs when I'm (1) lazy or (2) stuck.
| They never help with (2) so it must mean I'm still as
| smart as them (yay!) They beat me at (1) though. Being
| indefatigable works in their favor.
| Scarblac wrote:
| I do the designing, then I write a comment explaining what
| happens, and the LLM then adds a few lines of code. Write
| another comment, etc.
|
| I get very similar code to what I would normally write but
| much faster and with comments.
| dimal wrote:
| Don't get them to make design decisions. They can't do it.
|
| Often, I use LLMs to write the V1 of whatever module I'm
| working on. I try to get it to do the simplest thing that
| works and that's it. Then I refactor it to be _good_. This
| is how I worked before LLMs already: do the simplest thing
| that works, even if it's sloppy and dumb, then refactor.
| The LLM just lets me skip that first step (sometimes). Over
| time, I'm building up a file of coding standards for them
| to follow, so their V1 doesn't require as much refactoring,
| but they never get it "right".
|
| Sometimes they'll go off into lalaland with stuff that's so
| over complicated that I ignore it. The key was noticing
| when it was going down some dumb rabbit hole and bailing
| out quick. They never turn back. They'll always come up
| with another dumb solution to fix the problem they never
| should have created in the first place.
| TheNewsIsHere wrote:
| My experience tracks your experience. It seems as if there
| are a few different camps when it comes to LLMs, and that's
| partly based on one's job functions and/or context that
| available LLMs simply don't handle.
|
| I cannot, for example, rely on any available LLM to do most
| of my job, because most of my job is dependent on both
| technical and business specifics. The inputs to those
| contexts are things LLMs wouldn't have consumed anywhere
| else. For example specific facts about a client's
| technology environment. Or specific facts about my business
| and its needs. An LLM can't tell me what I should charge
| for my company's services.
|
| It might be able to help someone figure out how to do that
| when starting out based on what it's consumed from Internet
| sources. That doesn't really help me though. I already know
| how to do the math. A spreadsheet or an analytical
| accounting package with my actual numbers is going to be
| faster and a better use of my time and money.
|
| There are other areas where LLMs just aren't "there yet" in
| general terms because of industry or technology specifics
| that they're not trained on, or that require some actual
| cognition and nuance an LLM trained on random Internet
| sources aren't going to have.
|
| Heck, some vendors lock their product documentation behind
| logins you can only get if you're a customer. If you're
| trying to accomplish something with those kinds of products
| or services then generally available LLMs aren't going to
| provide any kind of defensible guidance.
|
| The widely available LLMs are better suited to things that
| can easily be checked in the public square, or to help an
| expert summarize huge amounts of information, and who can
| spot confabulations/hallucinations. Or if they're trained
| on specific, well-vetted data sets for a particular use
| case.
|
| People seem to forget or not understand that LLMs really do
| not think at all. They have no cognition and don't handle
| nuance.
| chneu wrote:
| Some people just don't want to use AI and there are very
| legitimate reasons for that.
|
| Why are you so willing to teach a program how to do your job?
| Why are you so willing to give your information to a LLM that
| doesn't care about your privacy?
| zamadatix wrote:
| I agree there can be very legitimate reasons for personally
| not wanting to use AI. At the same time, I'm not sure I
| find either of those questions to be related to
| particularly convincing reasons.
|
| Teaching a program how to do your job has been part of the
| hacker mindset for many decades now, I don't think there is
| anything new to be said as to why. Anyone here reading this
| on the internet has long since decided they are fine
| preferring technical automations over preserving
| traditional ways of completing work.
|
| LLMs don't inherently imply anything about privacy
| handling, the service you select does (if you aren't just
| opting to self host in the first place). On the hosted
| service side there's anything from "free and sucks up
| everything" to "business data governance contracts about
| what data can be used how".
| daveguy wrote:
| > Anyone here reading this on the internet has long since
| decided they are fine preferring technical automations
| over preserving traditional ways of completing work.
|
| Well, that's a huge unsubstantiated leap. Also, it's not
| about "preserving traditional ways of completing work."
| It's just about recognizing that humans are much better
| at the vast majority of real world work.
| apercu wrote:
| I use LLMs often - a few times a week. Every time I gain
| confidence in a model I get burned. Sometimes verifying takes
| longer than doing the task myself, so "AI" gets a narrower
| and narrower scope in my workflow as time goes by.
| mhh__ wrote:
| A lot of people just don't have the dexterity. Doesn't mean
| they're stupid necessarily (although the two do rhyme)
| nottorp wrote:
| This comment is really sad:
|
| https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2025/05/01/a-proof-of-concept...
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