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by __loam 1115 days ago
He never asked you to explain how to use the tool. You're assuming he doesn't know how to use a tool that requires approximately 10 minutes to learn. It's completely patronizing to ignore his point and continue with "Well have you tried.." in a way that fundamentally does not address the issue he's bringing up at all. Your tips and tricks add nothing to the conversation.
1 comments

> . You're assuming he doesn't know how to use a tool that requires approximately 10 minutes to learn

That raises the question of why they used it ineffectively in the first place then. They asked it to do something, it did, but they say it misses the point that a senior engineer would spot. My point is that if you want to judge how well it operates in replacing someone you have to actually specify who it's supposed to be imitating. It's not idle speculation, as I said I did this and it worked. Asking it for an example of monkeypatching gave back a proper example, along with a warning about maintainability.

Telling it I was a junior engineer and wanted to use monkeypatching did the same thing. Asking a followup of why I should be so careful with it and what I could do instead it gives explanations about several problems and then a few other approaches. Telling it simply to be a senior and I'm a junior, and that it should come up with followup questions for me it not only explains those problems but gives me the kind of followups a junior should ask but may not know to. Exactly the kind of intuitions about what's going on that are said to be missed here.

So I think the example used is significantly weaker than it appears, and the argument hinges on what GPT4 is lacking.

Now, a very solid response to the problem posed is that if it can approximate a more senior role for discussions it can make junior engineers more effective and teach them those skills.