this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
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Programming

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 days ago

FTA: The user considered it was the unpaid volunteer coders’ “job” to take his AI submissions seriously. He even filed a code of conduct complaint with the project against the developers. This was not upheld. So he proclaimed the project corrupt. [GitHub; Seylaw, archive]

This is an actual comment that this user left on another project: [GitLab]

As a non-programmer, I have zero understanding of the code and the analysis and fully rely on AI and even reviewed that AI analysis with a different AI to get the best possible solution (which was not good enough in this case).

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 days ago (3 children)

I am not a programmer and I think it's silly to think that AI will replace developers.

But I was working through a math problem in Moscow Puzzles with my kiddo.

We had solved it, but I wasn't sure he got it at a deep level. So I figured I'd do something in Excel or maybe just do cut outs. But I figured I'd try to find a web app that would do this better. Nothing really came up that was a good match. But then thought, let's see how bad AI programming can be. I'd fought with it over some excel functions and it's been mainly useful in pointing me in the right direction, but only occasionally getting me over the finish line.

After about 6 to 8 hours of work, a little debugging, havinf teach and quiz me occasionally, and some real frustration of pointing out that the feature previously changed and re-emeged, I eventually had something that worked.

The Shooting Range Simulator is a web-based application designed to help users solve a logic puzzle involving scoring points by placing blocks on vertical number lines.

A buddy developer friend of mine said: "I took a quick scroll through the code. Looks pretty clean, but I didn't dive in enough to really understand it. Definitely all that css BS would take me ages to do without AI."

I don't take credit for this and don't pretend that this was my work, but I know my kiddo is excited to try the tool. I hope he learns from it and we bond over a math problem.

I know that everyone is worried about this tool, but moments like those are not nothing. Personally, I'm a Luddite and think the new tools should be deployed by the people's livelihood it will effect and not the business owners.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 days ago

Personally, I’m a Luddite and think the new tools should be deployed by the people’s livelihood it will effect and not the business owners.

Thank you for correctly describing what a Luddite wants and does not want.

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[–] francois 12 points 5 days ago

Microsoft has set up copilot to make contributions for the dotnet runtime https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/pull/115762 I'm sure maintainers spends more time to review and interact with copilot than it would have to write it themselves

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 days ago

If AI was good at coding, my game would be done by now.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Can Open Source defend against copyright claims for AI contributions?

If I submit code to ReactOS that was trained on leaked Microsoft Windows code, what are the legal implications?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

what are the legal implications?

It would be so fucking nice if we could use AI to bypass copyright claims.

[–] piccolo 8 points 5 days ago

"No officer, i did not write this code. I trained AI on copyright material and it wrote the code. So im innocent"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

If I submit code to ReactOS that was trained on leaked Microsoft Windows code, what are the legal implications?

None. There is a good chance that leaked MS code found its way into training data, anyway.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 days ago (1 children)

AI is at its most useful in the early stages of a project. Imagine coming to the fucking ssh project with AI slop thinking it has anything of value to add 😂

[–] [email protected] 30 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

The early stages of a project is exactly where you should really think hard and long about what exactly you do want to achieve, what qualities you want the software to have, what are the detailed requirements, how you test them, and how the UI should look like. And from that, you derive the architecture.

AI is fucking useless at all of that.

In all complex planned activities, laying the right groundwork and foundations is essential for success. Software engineering is no different. You won't order a bricklayer apprentice to draw the plan for a new house.

And if your difficulty is in lacking detailed knowledge of a programming language, it might be - depending on the case ! - the best approach to write a first prototype in a language you know well, so that your head is free to think about the concerns listed in paragraph 1.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago (2 children)

the best approach to write a first prototype in a language you know well

Ok, writing a web browser in POSIX shell using yad now.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago

I'm going back to TurboBASIC.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

writing a web browser in POSIX shell

Not HTML but the much simpler Gemini protocol - well you could have a look at Bollux, a Gemini client written im shell, or at ereandel:

https://github.com/kr1sp1n/awesome-gemini?tab=readme-ov-file#terminal

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

AI is only good for the stage when...

AI is only good in case you want to...

Can't think of anything. Edit: yes, I really tried
Playing the Devils' advocate was easier that being AI's advocate.


I might have said it to be good in case you are pitching a project and want to show some UI stuff maybe, without having to code anything.
But you know, there are actually specialised tools for that, which UI/UX designers used, to show my what I needed to implement.
And when I am pitching UI, I just use a pencil and paper and it is so much more efficient than anything AI, because I don't need to talk to something, to make a mockup, to be used to talk to someone else. I can just draw it in front of the other guy with 0 preparation, right as it came into my mind and don't need to pay for any data center usage. And if I need to go paperless, there is Whiteboards/Blackboards/Greenboards and Inkscape.

After having banged my head trying to explain code to a new developer, so that they can hopefully start making meaningful contributions, I don't want to be banging my head on something worse than a new developer, hoping that it will output something that is logically sound.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago (1 children)

AI is good for the early stages of a project ... when it's important to create the illusion of rapid progress so that management doesn't cancel the project while there's still time to do so.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

Ahh, so an outsourced con~~man~~computer.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Its good as a glorified autocomplete.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Except that an autocomplete, with simple, lightweight and appropriate heuristics can actually make your work much easier and will not make you have to read it again and again, before you can be confident about it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago

True, and it doesn't boil the oceans and poison people's air.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago

I'll admit I did used AI for code before, but here's the thing. I already coded for years, and I usually try everything before last resort things. And I find that approach works well. I rarely needed to go to the AI route. I used it like for .11% of my coding work, and I verified it through stress testing.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Microsoft is doing this today. I can't link it because I'm on mobile. It is in dotnet. It is not going well :)

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