This strikes me as a very solid methodology for improving the results of all AI coding tools. I hope Anthropic, etc take this up.

Rather than converging on optimal code (Occam's Razor for both maintainability and performance) they are just spewing code all over the scene. I've noticed that myself, of course, but this technique helps to magnify and highlight the problem areas.

It makes you wonder how much training material was/is available for code optimization relative to training material for just coding to meet functional requirements. And therefore, what's the relative weight of optimizing code baked into the LLMs.

>> It reeks of cope.

haha, well said, I've got to remember that one. HN is a smelly place when it comes to AI coping.

I’ve seen comments here claiming that this site is either a bunch of coders coping about the limitations of AI and how it can’t take their job, or a bunch of startup dummies totally on the AI hype train.

Now, there’s a little room between the two—maybe the site is full of coders on a cope train, hoping that we’ll be empowered by nice little tools rather than totally replaced. And, ya know, multiple posters with multiple opinions, some contradictions are expected.

But I do find it pretty funny to see the multiple posters here describe the site they are using as suffering from multiple, contradictory, glaringly obvious blindspots.

That's an excellent job of teaching - thank you!

Let's just imagine we're critiquing cars or planes in about 1910. They're so flawed. No one can say with certainty whether or how they will improve.

Side note of interest, from Wikipedia: "Flying Machines Which Do Not Fly" is an editorial published in the New York Times on October 9, 1903. The article incorrectly predicted it would take one to ten million years for humanity to develop an operating flying machine.

Conversely, imagine we're someone talking about colonising the moon in 1969.

I think we have heated debate because most people don't explain what's their `cost function`. For someone when they talk about AI they take a binary reasoning that if something is not perfect today then it will never be perfect or will never improve. For other is just they see something is useful today and know it will get better next year and don't have expectation of getting AGI.

In your reply it's equivalent of someone expecting AGI in next decade. The same is when people talk about if AI will take software dev jobs. Some just see all the flows in AI and they know they job is secure. Some other see that they are 2x productive and potentially your team mate not needed anymore. If AI can eliminate 50% of IT jobs in ~10-20 years then thats still job replacement. When we replaced horses with cars that doesn't mean we have no horses today or that nobody ride horses.

>In your reply it's equivalent of someone expecting AGI in next decade.

This seems an extremely widespread belief among AI boosters.

If we had funded that as much as we're currently funding AI I think it would have been a plausible goal. Keep in mind we cut more than half of NASA's budget after we first landed.

I disagree.

The gap between spending multiple days somewhere and spending months somewhere isn't that big.

It was only six years to go from the first multi-person spacecraft and first spacewalk to the first space station.

>It was only six years to go from the first multi-person spacecraft and first spacewalk to the first space station.

Yeah that's my entire point, technological process doesn't have a constant rate of acceleration. Some advances are quickly made one after another and others lag and take a very long time.

How long do you think it would have taken to get a permanent moon presence if we kept up Apollo level funding indefinitely with that as the main goal? And since I only said "plausible", let's go with 80th-90th percentile best case scenario.

Even if technological progress stopped we could have launched enough parts to assemble a colony structure.

I'm not sure we would have one today. Maybe a token presence but definitely not the moon colony dreams of the 60s.

A token colony is still a colony. If you meant a specific size I wish you had been more clear upfront.

A colony typically refers to a place where people permanently live and are colonising, e.g. setting up state structures, having children, etc.

Which could be 20 permanent residents and 10 non-permanent slots. I don't think that requires too grand of a structure.

This is splitting hairs, but I was envisaging something more like the ISS but on the moon. A far cry from the 50s/60s dream of a grill and white picket fence on the moon.

It's a good idea to think of a converse situation, but this is a bad example. The constraint was not about technology but about budget, perceived benefits and political will.

What technologies existing in 1969 might have been used to create an environment with a breathable atmosphere and a self-sustaining ecosystem on the Moon?

What technologies existing today might be used for this purpose, assuming no financial or political limitations?

There's a lot of resistance to AI amongst the people in this discussion, which is probably to be expected.

A chunk of the objections indicate people trying to shoehorn in their old way of thinking and working.

I think you have to experiment and develop some new approaches to remove the friction and get the benefit.

> I think you have to experiment and develop some new approaches to remove the friction and get the benefit.

What benefit to me?

If I'm 50% more productive using AI that's great for my employer, but what do I get out of it?

I get to continue to be employed? I already had that before AI

So what do I get out of this, exactly?

You get to keep your job instead of being replaced by someone willing to use the latest tools.

Is the UX of the name any indication of the UX of the product?

n8n is a unique name that for now I think works to differentiate them. Time will tell if they keep it.

I think this was more comprehensively described by The (Eight) Laws of Software Evolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehman%27s_laws_of_software_ev...

This subject always reminds me of something someone said, possibly Professor Alain April, "software is the only system where maintenance tends to degrade it."

>"software is the only system where maintenance tends to degrade it."

Someone hasn't met my shoddy electrician/handyman

Great idea, thanks for doing this.

But - why is the most important information, the title, in such a light, hard to read, font? The title should stand out, not the comments count etc. See... Hackernews! :-)

A few people mentioned the same thing, will update accordingly. Thanks for the feedback!

A bunch of rich people are raiding a little bit of work, each, from a whole bunch of people, then walling it off so they can get richer.

I’d not have a problem with this, personally, if their models were as available as the stuff they took from others. Instead it’s take, take, take… now wait a minute, that pile of loot I stole is mine!