Ioper
4d ago
I can't remember this ever being a problem and I even tried lighting a lamp i had at home and tried to see if I could detect any notable smell, which there was only a very mild one.
Googling a little it seems like kerosene can have a pungent smell when burning but that the oil that is sold for indoor lamps is purposefully made to smell less.
Perhaps your relative got the wrong kind of oil or used a bad lamp where the oil didn't burn clean?
Ioper
4d ago
This also 100% applies to this forum's rule effectively banning AI. It's a bad rule overall.
While I agree in general, this forum relies on people engaging with long posts in a thread sorted by new. If long posts are easy to generate but costly in time to evaluate then this forum can't really function.
Wick based lamps are plenty bright and the only kind of lamp oil lamp I've ever used, and those are earlyish Victorian.
Ioper
4d ago
I tried it myself once but it turned out that lighting even a small room with candles is surprisingly hard.
Which is why you use oil lamps. Really easy to regulate light levels with as well.
While I'd say the only thing easy to answer is "does it compile", reading your other list I'd say I largely agree with your assesment.
LLMs can be a force multiplier for SWEs, but that doesn't mean they're good programmers. They're not programmers at all.
Looking at the points you made in your other post I'd argue that the biggest force multiplier is your first point and that this is a pretty big deal and bigger than people might first realise, especially non-engineers.
The second one is the issue I'm having with claims about LLM usability. Its kind of like dealing with mediocre Indian resources. You have break down and define the problem to such a degree that you've "almost" written the code yourself. This can still be useful and depending on your role very useful, but it isn't effectively replacing local resources either. Its not a method for solving problems but more of an advanced auto complete.
How useful is this? It depends on the situation and indivual and I'd rate it as moderately useful. Having managed developers, it also seems like something that (for some people) can feel like more of a productivity boost than it is due to time being spent differently (I'm not saying you're doing this).
Notice how he didn't say that they're good at coding? He said that they're useful for his job.
LLMs are useful for SWEs, at least for some types some of the time. There is value here but they're poor programmers and to use them effectively you have to be relatively competent.
Its also very easy to fool yourself into thinking that they're much more valuable than they really are, likely due to how eloquently and verbosely they answer queries and requests.
Have you missed the popularity of discord servers?
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