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I'm dialing back my LLM usage

zed.dev

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Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#11

Post by x187463 »

Am I spending too much time on HN or is every post/comment section filled with this same narrative? Basically, LLMs are exciting but they produce messy code for which the dev feels no ownership. Managing a codebase written by an LLM is difficult because you have not cognitively loaded the entire thing into your head as you do with code written yourself. They're okay for one-off scripts or projects you do not intend to maintain.

This is blog post/comment section summary encountered many times per day.

The other side of it is people who seem to have 'gotten it' and can dispatch multiple agents to plan/execute/merge changes across a project and want to tell you how awesome their workflow is without actually showing any code.

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#12

Post by chasing »

LLMs save me a lot of time as a software engineer because they save me a ton of time doing either boilerplate work or mundane tasks that are relatively conceptually easy but annoying to actually have to do/type/whatever in an IDE.

But I still more-or-less have to think like a software engineer. That's not going to go away. I have to make sure the code remains clean and well-organized -- which, for example, LLMs can help with, but I have to make precision requests and (most importantly) know specifically what I mean by "clean and well-organized." And I always read through and review any generated code and often tweak the output because at the end of the day I am responsible for the code base and I need to verify quality and I need to be able to answer questions and do all of the usual soft-skill engineering stuff. Etc. Etc.

So do whatever fits your need. I think LLMs are a massive multiplier because I can focus on the actual engineering stuff and automate away a bunch of the boring shit.

But when I read stuff like:

"I lost all my trust in LLMs, so I wouldn't give them a big feature again. I'll do very small things like refactoring or a very small-scoped feature."

I feel like I'm hearing something like, "I decided to build a house! So I hired some house builders and told them to build me a house with three bedrooms and two bathrooms and they wound up building something that was not at all what I wanted! Why didn't they know I really liked high ceilings?"

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#13

Post by ramon156 »

I like Zed's way of doing stuff (Ask mode). Just ask it a question and let it go through the whole thing. I still haven't figured out how to form the question so it doesn't just rail off and start implementing code. I don't care about code, I ask it to either validate my mental model or improve it

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#14

Post by _flux »

quaintdev wrote: post #6

LLMs have limits. They are super powerful but they can't make the kind of leap humans can. For example, I asked both Claude and Gemini below problem. "I want to run webserver on Android but it does not allow binding on ports lower than 1000. What are my options?" Both responded with below solutions 1. Use reverse proxy 2. Root the phone 3. Run on higher port Even after asking them to rethink they couldn't come up wit…

TIL. I knew about the SRV reconds—which almost nobody uses I think?—but this was news to me.

I guess it's also actually supported, unlike SRV that are more like supported only by some applications? Matrix migrated from SRV to .well-known files for providing the data. (Or I maybe it supports both.)

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#15

Post by GoToRO »

quaintdev wrote: post #6

LLMs have limits. They are super powerful but they can't make the kind of leap humans can. For example, I asked both Claude and Gemini below problem. "I want to run webserver on Android but it does not allow binding on ports lower than 1000. What are my options?" Both responded with below solutions 1. Use reverse proxy 2. Root the phone 3. Run on higher port Even after asking them to rethink they couldn't come up wit…

Classic problem of "they give you the solution once you ask about it".

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#16

Post by capt_obvious_77 »

quaintdev wrote: post #6

LLMs have limits. They are super powerful but they can't make the kind of leap humans can. For example, I asked both Claude and Gemini below problem. "I want to run webserver on Android but it does not allow binding on ports lower than 1000. What are my options?" Both responded with below solutions 1. Use reverse proxy 2. Root the phone 3. Run on higher port Even after asking them to rethink they couldn't come up wit…

Off-topic, but reading your article about hosting a website on your phone inspired me a lot. Is that possible on a non-jail-broken phone? And what webserver would you suggest?

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#17

Post by fridder »

x187463 wrote: post #11

Am I spending too much time on HN or is every post/comment section filled with this same narrative? Basically, LLMs are exciting but they produce messy code for which the dev feels no ownership. Managing a codebase written by an LLM is difficult because you have not cognitively loaded the entire thing into your head as you do with code written yourself. They're okay for one-off scripts or projects you do not intend t…

Trying to wade through the hype or doom is bit of a challenge

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#18

Post by noodletheworld »

x187463 wrote: post #11

Am I spending too much time on HN or is every post/comment section filled with this same narrative? Basically, LLMs are exciting but they produce messy code for which the dev feels no ownership. Managing a codebase written by an LLM is difficult because you have not cognitively loaded the entire thing into your head as you do with code written yourself. They're okay for one-off scripts or projects you do not intend t…

> want to tell you how awesome their workflow is

Or, often, sell you something.

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#19

Post by danielbln »

quaintdev wrote: post #6

LLMs have limits. They are super powerful but they can't make the kind of leap humans can. For example, I asked both Claude and Gemini below problem. "I want to run webserver on Android but it does not allow binding on ports lower than 1000. What are my options?" Both responded with below solutions 1. Use reverse proxy 2. Root the phone 3. Run on higher port Even after asking them to rethink they couldn't come up wit…

I'm not sure I would measure LLMs on recommending a fairly obscure and rather new spec that isn't even fully supported by e.g. Chrome. That's a leap that I, a human, wouldn't have made either.

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#20

Post by totalperspectiv »

x187463 wrote: post #11

Am I spending too much time on HN or is every post/comment section filled with this same narrative? Basically, LLMs are exciting but they produce messy code for which the dev feels no ownership. Managing a codebase written by an LLM is difficult because you have not cognitively loaded the entire thing into your head as you do with code written yourself. They're okay for one-off scripts or projects you do not intend t…

I think you hit the nail on the head with the mental model part. I really like this method of thinking about programming "Programming as Theory Building" https://gist.github.com/onlurking/fc5c81d18cfce9ff81bc968a7f...

I don't mind when other programmers use AI, and use it myself. What I mind is the abdication of responsibility for the code or result. I don't think that we should be issuing a disclaimer when we use AI any more than when I used grep to do the log search. If we use it, we own the result of it as a tool and need to treat it as such. Extra important for generated code.

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