Where's Christoph?

[resonant]

@David-Healey I’ve also tested local models for audio plugin coding; right now, they don’t even come close to frontier models.

That doesn’t mean they’re entirely useless, though—they can still be quite effective for lighter tasks. They aren’t suitable for our specific line of work, at least for the time being. However, if they advance enough in the future, that could change significantly.

Furthermore, there are no local models currently on par with frontier models; and for frontier models to function as fully capable, end-to-end problem solvers, they require terabytes of RAM and GPU memory—far beyond the capacity of a standard computer.

There is also another fact that, NVIDIA is practically on the verge of dropping gamers from its customer base, as AI companies are purchasing GPUs on a much larger, more profitable scale. This suggests that, in the future, users like us might find it increasingly difficult to get our hands on custom-built PCs, as the prices for hardware—especially RAM—are trending toward extreme increases.

[dannytaurus]

@resonant Local is the future.

We'll all look back with humour at the time we had to subscribe monthly to get access to LLMs and System One models.

[dannytaurus]

@resonant said in Where's Christoph?:

When that moment arrives—when the AI ​​"tap" is turned off—the true value of skilled coders will become apparent, and HISE will stand out as an essential piece of software that must always remain available.

That's incredibly wishful thinking.

[Christoph Hart]

@dannytaurus Wishful? Maybe. Essential for not just rolling over and give up? Definitely. So that leaves just one option. I kind of decided to proceed working on HISE and focus on the thing I love which is actual coding - eg. I'm about to manually recode the vast amount of trash code that I vibeslopped into HISE a few months ago (don't worry, just non-critical stuff like the new shadow parser) because looking at it now from a small distance feels like looking at a complete random piece of code which is not the best feeling for my own codebase.

If HISE stops becoming financially viable because of user base regression then at least I've "died doing the thing I loved" instead of code-reviewing AI slop and telling the agent to stop being motivational. I'm still using AI obviously for certain parts but giving away my core dev work loop to a external "brain thingy" is a nope from me.

Local is the future.

I've tried Qwen 3.8 27B on my 3090 when it came out which is considered the pinnacle of local AI that can run on (pricey) consumer hardware and it's completely useless for audio work. It can one shot a website with a Three.js rendered ocean beautifully but it falls apart instantly in our domain. While I second the feeling of independence that a local model gives you, the difference between the AI frontier models and whatever is going on to be runnable on affordable GPUs didn't get any smaller the last year and I don't expect it to magically get to even Luna or Sonnet levels of intelligence any time soon.

[dannytaurus]

@Christoph-Hart said in Where's Christoph?:

at least I've "died doing the thing I loved"

I also fully intend to continue doing what I love, I just won't die doing it. I'll adapt and move on.

@Christoph-Hart said in Where's Christoph?:

which is considered the pinnacle of local AI

And how long ago was it that you, and most others in this forum, said the frontier models were useless for writing code? All it takes is time.

Not only is model quality improving, but speed too. Look at ChatJimmy. It's a model hardcoded into the silicon, bypassing all the bandwidth overhead of moving to/from memory. It responds almost immediately at 15,000 tokens per second. Right now it's a simpler model compared to frontier, but try out how fast it is in conversation: chatjimmy.ai

[dannytaurus]

@Christoph-Hart said in Where's Christoph?:

trash code that I vibeslopped into HISE

Out of interest, what's your definition of 'vibeslopped' here?

[Yinxi]

For me, HISE was the perfect tool for creating my first plugin projects, thanks to David’s tutorials and the help of the community. The DIY satisfaction of building something with one’s own hands along with the actual process of learning and understanding is something I never would have experienced using AI.

Some people may choose not to use AI for various reasons, and HISE will always remain an excellent gateway for those who prefer not to be overwhelmed by that technology.

I think Hise still has a bright future ahead the community might evolve, but I find it really fun to create my own plugins without having to worry about whether I could have done it faster.

The conversation seems to have revolved largely around HISE and AI, while overlooking all the other aspects that make HISE far more interesting for the user than using an LLM.

[David Healey]

@dannytaurus said in Where's Christoph?:

ChatJimmy

Very fast! These are the sort of efficiency improvements that will make AI companies profitable.

[Christoph Hart]

yup that's fast AF but it's a 8B model which is basically useless for anything more than asking basic questions. It would be interesting to know how much that hardsoldered device would cost though if they would sell it.

Out of interest, what's your definition of 'vibeslopped' here?

Well I gave it the task of implementing a HiseScript parser that runs in parallel to the actual compilation (so it doesn't touch any code that runs in a plugin or actually builds up the data model of the scripting engine) to allow better diagnostics - eg. multi-error recovery etc. which is better for a CLI agent. Coming back after months now and looking at the code it's clear that I have to rewrite everything - it implemented the features super shallow as in "what's the least amount of code that I need to add to make this work" with no concept of a architecture or anything.

Could this be a "skill issue" in the sense that I would have to use a better prompt / harness / multi-agent orchestrator, whatever? Maybe, but I find it much more enjoyable working out the code myself.

On the other hand the hise-cli app is fully vibecoded and I haven't looked at the code a single time - it's written in Typescript which I'm not very fluent in anyways. But since it's just a shallow wrapper around the Rest API in HISE, slopping away is perfectly fine for this sub project :)

[dannytaurus]

@Christoph-Hart said in Where's Christoph?:

it's a 8B model which is basically useless for anything more than asking basic questions

Again, time. And at a rate we're still not really used to for technological innovation.

I'm looking back at the technology of my 80s/90s youth the same way I would've then looked back at the Victorians.

[dannytaurus]

@Christoph-Hart said in Where's Christoph?:

Could this be a "skill issue" in the sense that I would have to use a better prompt / harness / multi-agent orchestrator, whatever?

Definitely a "skill issue" but not in an insulting way. Detailed prompts and interview sessions can pin down specs much better than 'shoot and hope' prompts. Not that I'm saying that's what you did.

Also, multi/sub-agent stuff has come on leaps and bounds in the last weeks/months.

Maybe, but I find it much more enjoyable working out the code myself.

I love that people feel this way, and will continue to for a long time. I'm just not one of them.

I would think of myself more of a product person than a developer. Coding is a means to an end for me, not the main enjoyable activity in itself. When coding becomes faster and more accessible I'm all for it. But I salute those who still want to hand write code line by line.

the hise-cli app is fully vibecoded and I haven't looked at the code a single time

Wow, I'm shocked! But also not surprised, given the circumstances.

[David Healey]

@dannytaurus I'm working on a large C++/JUCE app in Claude at the moment. And as the program has grown in complexity I'm starting to see some cracks.

Taken in individual chunks the code is pretty good, but as a whole it's messy. Lots of unnecessary repetition, some huge functions/files that need to be split up, and a general sense of spaghetti code emerging.

Overall it's saved me a ton of time. Literally something like a year of work done in about a week - I'm cheap and using the Pro Plan. I will continue to clean up the code myself, then back and forth with Claude. I find that the more examples I give it by editing its output the more it "learns" what I consider good code. But left to a none-developer I wouldn't expect the final code quality to be acceptable.

There were a few chunks of code that the various agents had repeated (with slight changes) in multiple place. I told Claude to avoid repetition, which it read as "no repetition". I corrected it that repetition can be used where it makes more sense than abstracting the code. Which it read as no abstraction unless there are at least 3 repetitions... this went on for a while. To a human it's instinctive but "teaching" an AI when repetition is the right choice and when it isn't is a funny thing.