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Re:Ask HN: Can Devin genuinely replace the roles of developers? by hathym on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @05:16AM (#40208828)
Re:Ask HN: Can Devin genuinely replace the roles of developers? by drones on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @05:23AM (#40208880)
I'm a part of my university's competitive programming club, and the discovery of Devin being a fraud really upset a few club members (Many people who worked at Devin.AI were elite-level competitive programmers). It shattered the illusion that being a good competitive programmer would translate into being a good engineer overall. They were the victims of market hype.
Re:Ask HN: Can Devin genuinely replace the roles of developers? by iLoveOncall on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @05:32AM (#40208945)
> It shattered the illusion that being a good competitive programmer would translate into being a good engineer overall

There was a study by Google years back that showed the exact contrary: https://catonmat.net/programming-competitions-work-performan...

Re:Ask HN: Can Devin genuinely replace the roles of developers? by itsdrewmiller on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @08:40AM (#40210397)
Not exactly - it just means google overvalued that experience in its hiring decisions. https://erikbern.com/2020/01/13/how-to-hire-smarter-than-the... explains the phenomenon ("Berkson's Paradox") well.
Re:Ask HN: Can Devin genuinely replace the roles of developers? by iLoveOncall on Wednesday May 01, 2024 @04:16AM (#40220783)
I really don't think this is applicable here.
Re:Ask HN: Can Devin genuinely replace the roles of developers? by itsdrewmiller on Wednesday May 01, 2024 @04:17PM (#40228793)
No offense but did you read the article? It also links to this one which is about this exact claim - https://erikbern.com/2015/04/07/norvigs-claim-that-programmi....
Re:Ask HN: Can Devin genuinely replace the roles of developers? by iLoveOncall on Wednesday May 01, 2024 @06:00PM (#40230066)
Yes I did, I even read other sources about the paradox to make sure everything was clear in my mind.

The whole argument relies on the fact that "being good at programming contests" is a factor that was considered on interviews (and even given too much weight in the decision). There is absolutely no hint of that at all, and having been on the hiring side in FAANGs I can safely say this is not the case.

There is no paradox here because the study is not done on a pool of candidates that are pre-filtered based on this specific parameter, only on what it correlates (being good at LeetCode, which makes you pass the interviews).

It is funny that in the second article you linked the author says "My point here is that you can tweak these variables and end up seeing correlations with pretty much any value.", because this is exactly what he does. He manipulates the problem until it turns into a Berkson's paradox.

Re:Ask HN: Can Devin genuinely replace the roles of developers? by sujayk_33 on Thursday May 02, 2024 @06:22AM (#40234559)
It's like when a person goes too deep into CP, he just overfits in it and might just not come out of that phase, where you are given the problem and you are supposed to get the pre-defined solution.

It's not the case in real-life, the main problem is to detect the problem and then find the optimal solution. So unless you blend into it, get the test of CP, develop logic and get outside, build projects and keep moving, the field is vast, don't keep knocking same door everyday.

Re:Ask HN: Can Devin genuinely replace the roles of developers? by mrdevlar on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @05:59AM (#40209119)
Yes and they are astroturfing Devin is all over the place.

Several subreddits were overtaken by Devin bots for a few days. When the dust cleared everyone realized what had happened.

And here we are again.

Re:Ask HN: Can Devin genuinely replace the roles of developers? by ezekg on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @05:42PM (#40216720)
I still think the same thing is happening with OpenAI. It's way too hyped vs its actual utility.
Re:Ask HN: Can Devin genuinely replace the roles of developers? by technics256 on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @05:21AM (#40208864)
I have preview access to devin, and I can tell you that it's the real deal. It's making PRs to our codebase daily, and acts as a junior engineer.

It frees us up from doing menial tasks and is a great help for stuff like that.

It's not perfect, but it's a glimpse of the future that definitely needs to be noticed.

Re:Ask HN: Can Devin genuinely replace the roles of developers? by pdimitar on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @12:48PM (#40213112)
Some proof would give your comment weight.
Re:Ask HN: Can Devin genuinely replace the roles of developers? by adityamwagh on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @02:44PM (#40214616)
proof or not true.
Re:Ask HN: Can Devin genuinely replace the roles of developers? by sunnysogra on Tuesday April 30, 2024 @10:28AM (#40211292)
I will check it. Thanks for sharing the link.