this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2024
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Even LLMs in the context of coding, I am no programmer - I have memory issues, and it means I can't keep the web of information in my head long enough to debug the stuff I attempt to write.
With AI assistants, I've been able to create multiple microcontroller projects that I wouldn't have even started otherwise. They are amazing assistive technologies. Many times, they're even better than language documentation themselves because they can give an example of something that almost works. So yes, even LLMs deserve the amount of hype they've been given. I've made a whole game-server management back-end for ARK servers with the help of an LLM (qwen-coder 14b).
I couldn't have done it otherwise; or I would have had to pay someone $60k; which I don't have, and which means the software never would have existed.
I've even moved onto modifying some open source Android apps for a specialized camera application. Compared to a normal programmer, sure - maybe it's not as good. But having it next to me as an inexperienced nobody allows me to write programs I wouldn't have otherwise been able to, or that would have been too daunting of a task.
Hell, even if you are a programmer and have no memory issues, it's a hell of a lot faster to have it boilerplate something for you for a given engine with certain features than to sit down and write it from scratch or try to find a boilerplate. Stack exchange usage has been going down regularly as LLMs are filling the gap.
It doesn't get you to third base or anything. But it does get you started and well-structured within the first couple minutes of code for any reasonably simple task.
Last year I worked on a synchronized Halloween projector project. I had the first week of work saved into my repo, but as Halloween approached, I wrote a lot of it on the server. After Halloween, I failed to commit it back and inadvertently wiped the box.
This year, after realizing my code was gone, I decided to try having copilot give me a head start. I had it start back over from scratch, asked it in detail for exactly what I had last year, it was all fully functional again in about 4 hours. It was clean, functional well documented code. I had no problem extending it out with my own work and picked up like I hadn't lost anything.
to be fair, you had already done the thing and learned from that process. you should give yourself more credit!