I don't know if I'm a "good programmer", but I definitely fall on the side of the spectrum where LLMs can hold the context I can't. With current models, I can build better abstractions than they can (and certainly better tests). But my working memory seems to be about 63 bytes, which limits my ability to do a lot of interesting things. With LLMs, I have become a lot more motivated and effective. It's similar to the effect I felt when I switched to Haskell in the first place -- though obviously for very different reasons.
I'll have to join Moritz in signing off all of my contributions with "LLMs may have been used in the production of this work." I am reminded of the ubiquitous Prop 65 warnings in California. E.g. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Disneyland_Prop_65_Warning.jpg -Bryan (This message *not* generated with LLMS) On Thu, 16 Jul 2026 at 11:33, Harendra Kumar via ghc-devs < [email protected]> wrote: > > > On Wed, 15 Jul 2026 at 03:24, Wolfgang Jeltsch via ghc-devs < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> Hi, Simon (Jakobi)! >> >> > But I've always been pretty bad and extremely slow to write code. And >> > now that recent models have become so good at producing code, I was >> > relieved that I can now contribute without being so limited by my >> > code-writing skills. >> >> I definitely don’t want to be offensive, but is it a good idea to >> contribute code to a software that many are relying on if you’re “pretty >> bad” at writing code? > > > When Simon said he is "pretty bad and extremely slow to write code", he > probably did not mean that he produces bad quality code. In my experience I > have seen programmers who are very slow but produce really good quality > code and those who are really fast but produce bad code (correct code but > harder to understand and maintain). It may be directly related to one's > inherent capacity to maintain (a larger) context in their brain. Some > people can maintain a large context and juggle with it quickly while others > cannot. Some programmers who fall in the first category are quick to > analyze and understand even complex code and that is what makes them not so > good programmers because they tend to think that the code is easy to > understand and there is no need to build better abstractions. Programmers > in the latter category tend to build better abstractions because they fear > they may not be able to understand their own code later if they do not do > that. I know we cannot generalize this too much but I have seen many > examples of this in practice. > > When Simon said "I was relieved that I can now contribute without being so > limited", I can understand it this way -- now you do not need to struggle > keeping that context in mind, LLMs can assist you where you lack. LLMs are > particularly good at juggling a large context pretty quickly, but they are > not good at abstractions and that is where a good programmer comes in. You > can get the LLM to build the context and do the lower level labor job, and > take care of building better abstractions themselves. However, I understand > that LLMs can make it difficult to mentor newbies and grow them into good > programmers (and this is my biggest worry), but that is a different problem > to solve and may have a different solution. > > I may have misunderstood what Simon meant, but this is how I interpret it. > > -harendra > _______________________________________________ > ghc-devs mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] >
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