alt Hacker NewsForgive my ignorance, but what exactly is the vast difference? Who's doing more of what, or whatever you're implying? And how do you quantify this?
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jameshart • yesterday at 6:33 AM
The difference is (if you'll forgive me recruiting a couple of straw men for the purpose of illustrating the spectrum we are talking about here):
Hobbyist solo dev, counting tokens, hitting quotas, trying things on little projects, giving up and not seeing what the fuss is about.
vs
Corporate developer, increasingly held accountable by their boss for hitting metrics for token usage; being handed every new model as soon as it comes out; working with the tools every day on code changes that impact other developers on other teams all of whom have access to those same tools.
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The people who use AI to the maximum learn more.
A neutral hobbyist on a $20 budget will build something and immediately bump into quotas. Its not going to be an enjoyable experience.
A negatively predisposed pro who only dabbles in AI gets to the first disappointment, smiles, and thinks "yeah, about what i expected" and quits.
To learn those new tools one needs to not be stingy. Invest as much as needed into tokens, subscriptions, and maybe most importantly invest the time. Spend time building various things. Try out various models not just for coding, but as part of apps being built. For bonus points, meaningfully experiment with local models. I try to avoid discussions with sceptics who have not put at least a few months of effort into learning those tools. It's like discussing driving with my mother in law, who spent maybe 20hrs behind the wheel through her whole life (and is very, very opinionated!).