The danger of glamourizing one shots
People should not be judging AI-augmented coding by “1 shots.”
If someone told you that their model did a “one shot of Minecraft” and they’re impressed by that, you need to consider how much semantic heavy lifting the word “Minecraft” is doing in that prompt.
Ask them to one shot Minecraft without using the word Minecraft.
It’s not trivial to one shot something unique, because programming is the art of making the ambiguous incredibly specific through sculpting. AI sculpting is less about vibes and more about finding the specificity you want and keeping the system stable through changes. Good SDLC practices still matter, historical context still matters, and knowing how things work matters, shout out to Grady Booch.
It’s a cool party trick to one shot Mario Brothers or space invaders, but then you’ll end up with the most mid version of both. Literally mid. You’ll get the statistical fat part of the Bell curve version of these mythical games. You’re telling the model to close its eyes and draw the face of these games from memory.
As high-level programming cedes way to the prose compiler, making your goals and specs well understood to the ambiguity loop and showing good judgment is going to matter more than ever. Consider all of your words and make sure that certain words aren’t carrying all the semantic load, hidden or otherwise.
About Scott
Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.
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