by NilMostChill 3 days ago
A Luddite farm worker can assist in all those things, the question is, can it assist in a useful manner?
Not only it can but it does.
Just as I was reading this claude implemented a drag&drop of images out of SumatraPDF.
I asked:
> implement dragging out images; if we initiate drag action and the element under cursor is an image, allow dragging out the image and dropping on other applications
then it didn't quite work:
I'm testing it by trying to drop on a web application that accepts dropped images from file system but it doesn't work for that
Here's the result: https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/commit/58d9a4...
It took me less than 15 mins, with testing.
Now you tell me:
1. Can a farm worker do that?
2. Can you improve this code in a meaningful way? If you were doing a code review, what would you ask to be changed?
3. How long would it take you to type this code?
Here's what I think: No. No. Much longer.
1. I mean, yes ? the average farm worker is probably capable of writing a sentence similar to the one you just did and sicking it a prompt.
Unless you mean without LLM assistance, then no.
2. I've no idea, i haven't touched c++ in an age, if i got back up to speed then possibly.
3. To learn how to program in c++ again, figure out best practices and then write the code? A while probably.
But then i'd have to to that anyway to be able to spot any problems in the code and know what to test.
because i'm for sure not putting code out there that i don't understand, especially when the code has been generated by a non-deterministic system prone to subtle hallucinations.
I'm not saying LLM's have no uses, they do some things fine, inflating the capabilities of a tool because of hype isn't a viable mid to long term strategy.
LLM's are poor(but improving in some ways) at consistent multiple-boundary complexity.
My issue wasn't with the statement itself, just that is was very broad, hence my reply.
LLMs can assist with all of those steps, potentially, if you use them for the things they are suited for and have a plan for maintaining quality and consistency beyond "let the LLM's review and test it for me", i'd consider that professional negligence given the current SOTA.
The assistance should be subject an accurate cost/benefit analysis before implying the assistance is worthwhile, was my point.
Just uninstalled Sumatra. Jesus that code is garbage.
Why is it using a temp file? Is there really no more elegant way to pass around pointers to images than spilling to disk?
Of course there is, but slop generators be slopping
What is it, o wise person stingy with the information.
I admire you for what you've created wrt Sumatra. It's an excellent piece of software. But, as a matter of principle, I refuse to knowingly contribute to codebases using AI to generate code, including drive-by hints, suggestions, etc.
You, or rather Claude, are not the first to solve this problem and there are examples of better solutions out there. Since you're willing to let Claude regurgitate other people's work, feel free to look it up yourself or have Claude do it for you.
The code is really bad, so I'd have a lot to say about it in a review. Couldn't do it in 15 minutes, though.