I learned BASIC, Pascal and x86 Assembly language by the age of 14-15. None of which I remember (nor care to). The strict instructions (aka language) we gave the compiler was not the point. Those experiences taught me how to think logically, and over time develop a taste/structure for how software should be built, as well as foot guns to avoid. I don't know how you teach that without coding, but the "coding expertise" was always a means to an end. LLMs are just another abstraction layer above programming languages, machine language, etc.

▲

larsfaye 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> I don't know how you teach that without coding

That's the neat part: you don't!

Even Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin, who's as AI pilled as they come and doesn't read code any longer, says that junior developers shouldn't even look at AI tooling for the first three years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxxxGkFIUJ0&t=1356s

	▲	GiorgioG 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Robert Martin has caused me so much frustration over the years, but he's spot on. "Young people with power tools tend to lose fingers"...I like that!

▲

alexjplant 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> LLMs are just another abstraction layer above programming languages, machine language, etc.

Programming languages are (largely) deterministic. LLMs are not. The boundary between an abstract concept and something executable sits comfortably in the mind of the programmer in non-LLM contexts. This boundary shifts when using an LLM and becomes shared between the programmer and the matrix multiplication machine.

The "layer of abstraction" analogy is therefore technically true but essentially false. "Just another" papers over how seismic of a paradigm shift all of this is.

	▲	GiorgioG 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Sure, you're right - at the end of the day, LLMs are non-deterministic code generators. I certainly wouldn't trust one for a medical device manufacturer's software. For line of business apps it's totally adequate. And to be clear, I don't love it. I'm just coming to terms with the fact that these LLMs have gotten good enough, that with enough instruction and guidance, they can generate code/features at speeds we can only dream of if we were to code them by hand.

▲

Zigurd 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In contrast with Pascal, I could see in my mind the PDP-11 instructions behind my C code. By the time I started running code on x86, there were debuggers that could step through source code, and I didn't really want to think like an i386.

▲

nemomarx 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

We don't teach kids math with access to calculators, and so on. Making students code by hand at first is a very moderate proposition

	▲	philote 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah I was taught coding in a fake programming language so it couldn't be compiled or run. It really was "by hand" coding since we had written tests.