LLMs don't necessarily need to think to be useful.
Having a simple minimal working example from an API you're trying to grok is helpful, as long as it's error-free and not redundant.
However, given the availability of LLMs, how would you justify the expense of hiring junior developers fresh out of school?
Check Microsoft.com or Google.com's career pages as an example (you will also see something similar going on within mid-sized companies), do you find any jobs for entry level applicants? Are those entry level jobs offered mostly in India or Eastern Europe?
So tell me, how is the ability to think helpful for an entry level applicant, when HR departments won't hire you because you lack “2+ years of non-internship C++ experience” for an entry-level position?
My point: being able to think is of course fine, but HR departments require you to do back and front flips, speak perfect reverse Mandarin Chinese and have 2+ years of non-internship experience in C++ on top of that.
Being able to think won't justify the expense of hiring a junior dev fresh out of school in a high-income country. (At least this is my impression of the current job market.)
PS: So, I just finished school last year, and I'm still on the hunt for a job. It seems like a lot of companies in wealthy countries are holding off on hiring newbies like me. I get why they're doing it (e.g., inflation, interest rates), but it's really frustrating when you're the one affected.
I mean, how are we supposed to get experience if no one's willing to give us a shot, right? It's a tough spot to be in.
Then the LLMs (even if they cannot think), they still bring value and accelerate development (with a potentially lower headcount). Seniors will be fine without us juniors given the prevalence of LLMs and high inflation environment (which makes companies risk-averse and very picky).
The question remains, what is "value" (i.e., money) that we can use to exchange for other things that bring us "value" (i.e., money)?
Water preparation, catching fish and making fire can bring “value” in forms of nutritional energy and bodily satisfaction.
However, our Western governments require us to have permits to catch fish, make fire.
Yet, employers do not want us entry levels working at their companies.
In California, they are moving the "goalpost" with the homeless people (not few are older folk where some of them went out of luck).
So tell me, is this “consumer economy” still a thing?
I visit job search sites and select the “entry level” filter. Then, I read requirements such as “2+ years (non-internship) experience in C++”, “5 years of professional experience in the game industry”, and “excellent C++ skills”. Furthermore, there are requirements like “Fluent in speaking reverse Mandarin Chinese” and “being able to perform perfect back and front flips on command”. The latter two are, of course, exaggerations, but I couldn't help joking about them to alleviate the dire circumstances not only I find myself in, but also others in my circles.
I know individuals who attended top computer science universities, earned master's degrees, yet they still struggle to find a job. The missing element in such conversations is that recent graduates often lack the required expertise that HR departments demand. Companies or their HR departments have become extremely selective and require multiple interview rounds before considering employment. Alternatively, companies hire student workers because they are cheaper, or they outsource hiring to countries like India, Eastern Europe, or Turkey, pausing hiring for entry-level applicants in high-income countries.
However, some governments claim a “shortage of skilled labor especially in the IT sector,” while individuals with computer science degrees find themselves unemployed in these “uncertain times”. Experienced individuals may manage to stay afloat, but those without experience, such as recent graduates like myself, are deemed less valuable. This is partly due to the prevalence of Large Language Models (LLMs), which I refer to as “Google search on steroids”.
Have you heard of “bullshit jobs”? If so, I suspect that many positions are actually insignificant. As a student worker, I co-developed an audio editing application (C++17, Qt 5). To be honest, there was nothing in it that hadn't already been solved. Would you argue that a “level meter”, “equalizer”, or “JSON parser” are things that need to be reinvented despite the availability of MIT-licensed libraries?
Rather, these jobs appear to be a form of “collective busywork”. Nevertheless, the fortunate few engaged in such “busywork” earn significant sums despite not contributing much. What kind of economy is this, where one can thrive without generating actual value (e.g., innovation, non-copy paste work)?
A “consumer-oriented economy”, huh? We need consumers, yet we cannot drive up consumption, because we collectively play a game of hot potato until someone solves all the world's woes for us.
Bruh, you are me. You are literally me. You speak the same thing I speak. You wrote the same things I think. The idea about only few writing something novel and everyone else riding waves on top of it.
I am really happy that someone else also came to same conclusion. It means it's not just us! There will be many more like us who truly want to build new things.
How should we do that? Like you I also find that anything I want to build as MIT licensed software and it works. Then I wonder what do the engineers do?
Oh yes, the new graduates like us are the bottom feeder that are valueless to the companies. They demand 3yr+ for entry level. It's "entry level".
To them we are just expenses that should be cut. I am blessed to learn this really early on. Now I can quit even before starting. Kinda happy about it NGL. I am thinking of building things for myself and when these companies come after me, I would charge them in millions. Let's see how long they can play this game.
They can't speak the local language like I do since I come from fairly backwarded country. That is a huge advantage.
Make sure you are able to set pixels and create audio samples (sine function sampled over a discrete time steps).
Also make sure to store the results as PPM P3 (very simple text-based image format) and WAV.
Some inspiration form Wellons: https://nullprogram.com/blog/2017/11/03/
Then you can implement a ray tracer, a rasterizer or audio generator.
Other ideas:
- implement your simple neural network learning XOR
- implement your hash table or your version of std::unordered_map (array +
hash function + tombstones)
- arena allocator
- dynamic array or your version of std::vector
- a circular/ring buffer (that you can also use as a queue/stack)
Who knows what the future will bring (will we ever get AGI)?
Needless to say, fundamentals, that is, math (geometry, algebra, and calculus) and physics (mechanics, electromagnetism, thermodynamics).
Some basic algorithms/techniques such as backpropagation, triangle ray tracing and rasterization, and some fundamental awareness that you can compute anything given 5-6 instructions (Turing completeness). Knowing how to program in a language like Python might suffice.
Then there are skills that are essential to maintain your life, such as fire making, fishing, and water filtration. You need to get energy someway.
You forgot, fire making, water filtration (essential) and fishing (protein, fat, vitamins).
How can you do all the stuff without energy? Are you running on sunlight, or do you do nuclear fission inside your body?
Usually not. For me, it's an “autonomous search engine on steroids, i.e., its huge dataset”. (I.e., it's just another tool you use.)
Before LLMs, you would cobble a bunch of disjoint information via a search engine like Google.
Now, LLMs do this for you, and it certainly helps me to get a lot quicker with using libraries or APIs I am not familiar with (e.g., PyGame, Flask, Django).
However, you might find that code from the LLM might need some fixing (subtle bugs or redundancies) or a better use of resources.
The other issue is the LLM's dataset bias towards the most used technologies or concepts.
So you might have a hard time with an LLM trying to make Clojure/Racket code or telling the LLM to specifically do the point-in-triangle test with the wedge product only.
Hence, there is still some leeway or reason to use your thing between the ears.
You might as well ask: Are you referencing Stack Overflow or the Microsoft Developer Reference (e.g., in your developer notes/comments)?
(Which disables all default options, and checks your code according to the Secure coding standard (CERT) ruleset.)
Use Clang-Format as well.
If you use Clang, consider `-Weverything -fsanitize=address,undefined` and disable options that you do not need.
Consider using NMake or Make (or just write a simple script to automate building the stuff).
Herbert Gross' “Calculus Revisited” three-part series.
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/res-18-006-calculus-revisited-si...
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/res-18-007-calculus-revisited-mu...
https://mitocw.ups.edu.ec/resources/res-18-008-calculus-revi...
The above is more or less “engineering math”.
The below is “normal college” math:
Edward Frenkel's Multivariable Calculus lectures:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaLOVNqqD-2GcoO8CLvCb...
Dr. Valerie Hower's Linear Algebra lectures:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpcwHaLYiaEXW5fLNOlItPH4A...
Interactive Linear Algebra (online “college level” textbook):
https://textbooks.math.gatech.edu/ila/
Tutorial-like Linear Algebra (interactive online textbook):
https://immersivemath.com/ila/index.html
Sheldon Axler's Linear Algebra Done Right book:
https://linear.axler.net/
Sergei Treil's Linear Algebra Done Wrong book:
https://www.math.brown.edu/streil/papers/LADW/LADW-2014-09.p...
Linear algebra and vector calculus revamped:
— Linear and Geometric Algebra by Alan Macdonald: http://www.faculty.luther.edu/~macdonal/laga/index.html
— Vector and Geometric Calculus: http://www.faculty.luther.edu/~macdonal/vagc/index.html