AI this, AI that - you can't go anywhere without something trying to force AI on you. Usually a company trying to get you to buy into what they've wasted billions on. So indie devs have begun fighting back with their No Gen AI Seal.
thanks for the thoughtful reply. I’m in the first boat of just wanting to make games and other small, self driven projects. I think its mostly the feeling of being excluded from participating in things like game jams and the larger game development community because I use a specific tool.
In an effort to clarify what i think is an example of something like a middle ground between no AI code gen period and as you put it “do the thinking for me” let me see if i can put it in similar terms. Instead of “do it for me” its very much so a back and forth of “i want this behavior when these conditions are met for this function and expect these types of outcomes.” Copilot then generates code referencing the rest of the codebase as reference and i then usually manually copy and paste chunks over to the working files and then compile & run from there for testing.
I definitely agree that over reliance on tools as a means of masking a real understanding of a subject is a genuine problem. And I too hope it doesnt end up having the same kind of effect algorithmic social media has had on society as a whole. But i think i do have hope that it will enable a subset of people like me who struggle with the wrote memorization aspects of computer programming but still desires the thrill of putting some pieces together and watching it work.
Yeah, totally fair. I’ll note that you’re kind of describing the typical software development process of a customer talking to the developer and developing requirements collaboratively with them, then the developer coming back with a demo, the customer refining by going “oh, that won’t work, it needs to do it this way” or “that reminds me, it also needs to do this”, and so on. But you’re closer to playing the role of the customer in this scenario, and acting like more of an editor or manager on the development side. The organizers of a game jam could make a reasonable argument that doing it this way is akin to signing up for the game jam, coming up with an idea, then having your friend who isn’t signed up for the game jam implement it for you, when the point is to do it all in person, quickly, in a fun and energetic environment. The people doing a game jam like coding, that’s the fun part for them, so someone signing up and skipping all that stuff does have a little bit of a “why are you even here then” aspect to it. Of course it depends on the degree the AI is being used, how much editorial control or tweaking you’re doing, it’s a legitimate debate and I don’t think you’re wrong to want to participate.
But like, I do like coding, I just have an incredibly hard time thinking in any language other than English because my brain is essentially defective.
Writing code entirely manually inevitably ends with me incredibly frustrated for hours because despite thinking I’ve done something correctly, and even knowing ‘no, I know this is how it’s supposed to work so why isn’t it?’ All because I’ve made a couple of typographical errors that I’m too stupid to parse out from a debugger.
And because I don’t have any friends with even a passing interest I don’t have anyone to turn to for advice there. Nor do I work in the field or went to school for it. My only human options are on the internet but replies often take hours and you have to sift through nine people calling you stupid before finding someone being nice let alone actually helping.
thanks for the thoughtful reply. I’m in the first boat of just wanting to make games and other small, self driven projects. I think its mostly the feeling of being excluded from participating in things like game jams and the larger game development community because I use a specific tool.
In an effort to clarify what i think is an example of something like a middle ground between no AI code gen period and as you put it “do the thinking for me” let me see if i can put it in similar terms. Instead of “do it for me” its very much so a back and forth of “i want this behavior when these conditions are met for this function and expect these types of outcomes.” Copilot then generates code referencing the rest of the codebase as reference and i then usually manually copy and paste chunks over to the working files and then compile & run from there for testing.
I definitely agree that over reliance on tools as a means of masking a real understanding of a subject is a genuine problem. And I too hope it doesnt end up having the same kind of effect algorithmic social media has had on society as a whole. But i think i do have hope that it will enable a subset of people like me who struggle with the wrote memorization aspects of computer programming but still desires the thrill of putting some pieces together and watching it work.
Yeah, totally fair. I’ll note that you’re kind of describing the typical software development process of a customer talking to the developer and developing requirements collaboratively with them, then the developer coming back with a demo, the customer refining by going “oh, that won’t work, it needs to do it this way” or “that reminds me, it also needs to do this”, and so on. But you’re closer to playing the role of the customer in this scenario, and acting like more of an editor or manager on the development side. The organizers of a game jam could make a reasonable argument that doing it this way is akin to signing up for the game jam, coming up with an idea, then having your friend who isn’t signed up for the game jam implement it for you, when the point is to do it all in person, quickly, in a fun and energetic environment. The people doing a game jam like coding, that’s the fun part for them, so someone signing up and skipping all that stuff does have a little bit of a “why are you even here then” aspect to it. Of course it depends on the degree the AI is being used, how much editorial control or tweaking you’re doing, it’s a legitimate debate and I don’t think you’re wrong to want to participate.
But like, I do like coding, I just have an incredibly hard time thinking in any language other than English because my brain is essentially defective.
Writing code entirely manually inevitably ends with me incredibly frustrated for hours because despite thinking I’ve done something correctly, and even knowing ‘no, I know this is how it’s supposed to work so why isn’t it?’ All because I’ve made a couple of typographical errors that I’m too stupid to parse out from a debugger.
And because I don’t have any friends with even a passing interest I don’t have anyone to turn to for advice there. Nor do I work in the field or went to school for it. My only human options are on the internet but replies often take hours and you have to sift through nine people calling you stupid before finding someone being nice let alone actually helping.