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by matsemann 96 days ago
Your analogy is a bit weird to me. Snowmobile is exciting for a short while, but I'm much more fond of cross country skiing. The connection with nature, the silence.

Or maybe your analogy is correct. AI is a bit as if everyone in the mountains drove around in a snowmobile, noisy and a smell of gasoline.
3 comments
cortesoft 96 days ago
The analogy makes sense. Some people love riding snowmobiles, some people love cross country skiing, and some people love both. It makes sense that some of the people who love snowmobiling think cross country skiing is boring and tedious, and some people who love cross country skiing think snow mobiles are loud and obnoxious.

I don't think people are confused why there are the different types of people who like different winter sports, but people seem shocked that opinions differ on the enjoyment of using an LLM

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qnleigh 96 days ago
I think the analogy hits home on both sides. You go faster, but you miss the meditative experience of going slow.
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heddycrow 96 days ago
My knee jerk is that there are quite a few people who can't or won't snowmobile when needed and ski when needed.

That's where the analogy starts to break a bit. You can't mode switch between skis and snowmobile, but you sure can ai assist/not pretty quickly.

One more quick one - imagine skiers showing up to the snowmobile club hating on snowmobiles and vice versa.

I, for one, have still not properly got a grip on how tech enables this sort of a analogy-breaking reality.

Effing go ski then; there's even a club for that! (rhetorical, not directed at anyone in particular) And shame on me cause I show up to the ski club on a snowmobile with skis on my back.

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qnleigh 95 days ago
Actually I think it still kinda works: - You could ski easy routes but snowmobile harder ones (not that anyone actually does this).

- Snowmobiles are loud and chew up the snow, analogous to AI flooding a repo with low-effort PRs?

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heddycrow 95 days ago
I can guess that you like this exercise and you seem to be adept at it. I can't help but think you are my kind of people in that regard. Kudos!
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pmarreck 95 days ago
I think this era has divided developers into 2 types:

1) Those who are interested in the journey

2) Those who are interested in getting to the new destination

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