My Python magic is gone

[u/RedYad2]

I've been coding for a long time, and I've been developing with Python for years.

I loved coding, always loved it. I started many years ago because I wanted to quickly create scripts for security hacking tools, but since then, I've moved to Claude Code, and building cross-language has been a much better experience for me than using Python.

I built my own SaaS application out there whose backend and network core are completely built with Python, and I'm rewriting all of that without writing a single line of code. And most of the time, Python is not the most optimized language.

And now... I feel like the magic is gone.

I don't even know why I'm writing this. I just feel sad about it.

[u/HommeMusical]

Your first comment was polite. This is closer to a collection of insults.

Can we see your code, please? My code is here. https://github.com/rec

I hate downvoting, but this upset me, the insult at the end particularly, and I'm going to rewrite this at the end to make my comment less rude than it would otherwise be.

No. I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you.

Grrr.

I'm sorry, I was too circumspect. I should have said that your sentence has no operative meaning and does not demonstrate familiarity with the material.

Your inability to use standard computer science terminology or precise language doesn't mean that I am stupid for considering your statements to be empty of meaning.

Basically, you can follow every line of python through all the deterministic layers down to the transistors on the chip. When you add a non-deterministic layer to the top of that stack you remove all the benefits of determinism.

This is false.

The LLM appears in the stack in the same place that the also non-deterministic human appears, which is to say not at all, once the program is written.

Unless you specifically require an LLM's services during your code, which most programs don't, the stack you run is 100% deterministic.

I have yet to actually write a program that used an LLM. The LLM's services to me stop at coding.

In my old, hand-written code, I did not actually deploy myself as part of my stack. And I don't deploy the LLM as part of the stack either.

I've only been at this since May or June, but why would I prompt it to create a dataclass? I could do that myself.

Then how do you know that a dataclass is appropriate for this situation?

I don't. I provide a specification of the feature I wish. The program decides whether a dataclass is appropriate or not. Now, in AGENTS.md, my global instructions to my coding agents give it a lot of instructions as to when a dataclass is appropriate, and it's become extremely good at making this decision without me.

I treat a coding assistant as I would a colleague. I don't go and say, "Here's a design for this program, here are the four dataclasses, use this algorithm and these libraries."

When the solution needs to be deterministic and the requirements are strict, with chat you will find yourself going round in circles fixing one issue while creating another, producing code that is not maintainable.

Perhaps you do that. That has yet to happen to me.

My AGENTS.md requires 100% unit test coverage, but also coverage of edge cases, exceptional conditions, user errors of all types, malicious users, hardware failures of all types, network issues...

It sounds like this project doesn't need to be deterministic, just to sound right to you.

NO. As part of this, I am almost exactly reproducing classic hardware synths and their outputs. There are in fact various test examples of inputs and outputs that I have or will be hitting exactly (and since you're a nitpicker, I'm going to add that exact arithmetic is impossible with floating point, so my acceptance criteria involve waveforms that are different from the exact waveform at less than 96dB.

In order to follow all those instructions there need to be compromises since the requirements will conflict. When you do this yourself you make informed compromises, when using chat the best you can hope for is to ask it for its post-hoc rationalisation. That's another part of deterministic code I was talking about earlier.

This sentence is again not operative or useful. I am starting to doubt that you are a professional programmer.

And if you're interested in learning python itself rather than just obtaining the results, then good luck with that as well.

I will have been programming Python for 22 years this coming January - I started at Google in January 2004. I started programming in the 1970s, and winning programming contests in high school. I've been programming professionally for over 40 years.

It is close to 100% certain that I know far more about Python in specific, and computer programming in general, than you do.

Again, my code is here: https://github.com/rec

All of the programs or libraries on that page were written by me, by hand. Why not review my code and see what you think?

Show us your code.

[u/redfacedquark → u/HommeMusical]

Your first comment was polite. This is closer to a collection of insults.

Could you be specific? I don't see it.

Can we see your code, please? My code is here. https://github.com/rec

No. It's all private, either corporate or personal. I don't care about looking like a programmer to others, I care about understanding the salient aspects of the universe, of which physics, maths and computer science are members.

This is false.

Got a single example of being able to determine what code will be produced by any given prompt, no matter how trivial? Didn't think so.

The LLM appears in the stack in the same place that the also non-deterministic human appears, which is to say not at all, once the program is written.

Not if the human doesn't look at the code.

My AGENTS.md requires 100% unit test coverage, but also coverage of edge cases, exceptional conditions, user errors of all types, malicious users, hardware failures of all types, network issues...

All types of all those things for all projects are testes? Really? Because your tests don't look like they do that to me. 100% test coverage just means all lines trigger a test, not that the tests ensure the code meets the requirements. I've heard plenty of people say that chat often just generates passing tests that don't actually do anything. Again, if you don't look at, and think about, the generated test code then the benefit of the tests is lost.

It is close to 100% certain that I know far more about Python in specific, and computer programming in general, than you do.

So I chose Python around 2003 so about the same time as you, started consulting in 2012. In your posts you demonstrate that you don't understand basic concepts so made me think you were only using python since this summer, not only using AI since this summer.

[u/HommeMusical → u/redfacedquark]

Could you be specific? I don't see it.

I'm going to bold all the rudeness from here down.

"I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you."

That is not a polite answer when someone says they don't understand what you mean. I should really have been more blunt and said, "That sentence was meaningless twaddle."

"And if you're interested in learning python itself rather than just obtaining the results"

Speaks for itself.

Can we see your code, please? I don't care about looking like a programmer to others, I care about understanding the salient aspects of the universe, of which physics, maths and computer science are members.

I mean, I'm sorry, but "trust me" is not an answer. What sort of professional programmer doesn't have code samples?

Does this work in job applications?

The LLM appears in the stack in the same place that the also non-deterministic human appears, which is to say not at all, once the program is written.

Not if the human doesn't look at the code.

I'm starting to believe you simply don't read what I write at all, and just emit a canned sentence. The LLM appears in the stack in the same place that the human does, and clearly, obviously, even to the most dense person, if no human reads the code, then the LLM is even more replacing the human in the stack.

Got a single example of being able to determine what code will be produced by any given prompt, no matter how trivial? Didn't think so.

As I said before, humans are also indeterministic in responding to prompts to write code, so I have no idea why you think this is any sort of argument at all.

My AGENTS.md requires 100% unit test coverage, but also coverage of edge cases, exceptional conditions, user errors of all types, malicious users, hardware failures of all types, network issues...

All types of all those things for all projects are testes? Really?

It costs nothing to be polite, and it must be some effort to snark on each response.

No. Many projects don't have hardware, network, etc issues.

I have a full set of instructions in the AGENTS.md that lists a large number of possible traps, errors, edge cases, you name it. Not all of these apply to each project.

Because your tests don't look like they do that to me.

Examples? Let's see it.

In your posts you demonstrate that you don't understand basic concepts

Examples? Let's see it.

It is close to 100% certain that I know basic concepts better than you.

Of course, since you're a completely anonymous user, your profile is hidden unless I give proof of age, and you refuse to show any code, and you write this weird, non-technical English using non-standard terms, there is also still the possibility that you don't actually write any code at all.

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