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I'm dialing back my LLM usage

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Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#121

Post by kadhirvelm »

rzz3 wrote: post #83
kadhirvelm wrote: post #48

I wonder if this is as good as LLMs can get, or if this is a transition period between LLM as an assistant, and LLM as a compiler. Where in the latter world we don’t need to care about the code because we just care about the features. We let the LLM deal with the code and we deal with the context, treating code more like a binary. In that world, I’d bet code gets the same treatment as memory management today, where o…

Why wonder if this is “as good as LLMs can get” when we saw such a huge improvement between Claude 3.7 and Claude 4, released what, a couple weeks ago? Of course it isn’t as good as LLMs can get. Give it 3 more weeks and you’ll see it get better again.

I don’t doubt LLMs will become better assistants over time, as you said every few weeks. I more mean if LLMs will cross the assistant to compiler chasm where we don’t have to think about the code anymore and can focus on just the features

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#122

Post by jauntywundrkind »

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…

There's a lot of truth here.

But also. But also, LLMs are incredibly powerful and capable tools at discovering and finding what the architecture of things is. They have amazing abilities to analyze huge code bases & to build documents and diagrams to map out the system. They can answer all manners of questions, to let us probe in.

I'm looking for good links here. I know I have run across some good stuff before. But uhh I guess this piece that I just found introduces the idea well enough. https://blog.promptlayer.com/llm-architecture-diagrams-a-pra...

And you can see an example in the ever excellent @simonw's review of prompts in copilot. At the end, they briefly look at testing, and it's a huge part of the code base. They ask Gemini for a summary and it spits out a beautiful massive document on how copilot testing works! https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/30/vscode-copilot-chat/ https://github.com/simonw/public-notes/blob/main/vs-code-cop...

Now, whether LLMs generate well architects systems is largely operator dependent. There's lots of low effort zero shot ways to give LLMs very little guidance and get out who knows what. But when I reflect on the fact that, for now, most code is legacy code, and most code is hideously under documented, most people reading code don't really have access to experts or artifacts to explain the code and it's architecture, my hope and belief is that LLMs are incredible tools to radically increase maintainability versus where we are now, that they are powerful peers in building the mental model of programming & systems.

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#124

Post by incomingpain »

Using gemini cli, I really need to try out claude code 1 day, and you ask it to make a change and it gives you the diff on what it plans to change.

You can say no, then give it more specific instructions like "keep it more simple" or "you dont need that library to be imported"

You can read the code and ensure you understand what it's doing.

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#125

Post by generalizations »

danielbln wrote: post #80
generalizations wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like a bell curve: - one big set of users who don't like it because it generates a lot of code and uses its own style of algorithms, and it's a whole lot of unfamiliar code that the user has to load up in their mind - as you said. Too much to comprehend, and quickly overwhelming. And then to either side - it unblocks users who simply couldn't have written the code on their own, who aren't even trying to load…

I'm in that last bracket. I don't really have LLMs do tasks that given enough time and scouring docs I couldn't have implemented myself. I set hard rules around architecture, components, general design patterns and then let the LLM go at it, after which review the result in multiple passes, like I would a junior's code. I could not care less about the minutiae of the actual implementation, as long as it conforms to m…

Yeah. I think the trick is, you have to have been capable of doing it yourself, given time. Same as a senior engineer, they have to be capable of doing the tasks they assign to juniors.

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#126

Post by swat535 »

totalperspectiv wrote: post #20
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…

LLMS are great at generating scaffolding and boilerplate code which then I can iterate upon. I'm not going write

describe User do ... it ".."

for the thousand time.. or write the controller files with CRUD actions..

LLMS can do these. I can then review the code, improve it and go from there.

They are also very useful for brain storming ideas, I treat it as a better google search. If I'm stuck trying to model my data, I can ask it questions and it gives me recommendations. I can then think about it and come up with an approach that makes sense.

I also noticed that LLMs really lack basic comprehension. For example, no matter how many times you provide the Schema file for it (or a part of it) , it still doesn't understand that a column doesn't exist on a model and will try to shove it in the suggested code.. very annoying.

All that being said, I have an issue with "vibe coding".. this is where the chaos happens as you blindly copy and paste everything and git push goodbye

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#127

Post by specproc »

I spent today rewriting a cloud function I'd done with the "help" of an LLM.

Looked like dog shit, but worked fine till it hit some edge cases.

Had to break the whole thing down again and pretty much start from scratch.

Ultimately not a bad day's work, and I still had it on for autocomplete on doc-strings and such, but like fuck will I be letting an agent near code I do for money again in the near future.

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#128

Post by Velorivox »

causal wrote: post #94
sarmadgulzar wrote: post #66

Can relate. I've also shifted towards generating small snippets of code using LLMs, giving them a glance, and asking to write unit tests for them. And then I review the unit tests carefully. But integrating the snippets together into the bigger system, I always do that myself. LLMs can do it sometimes but when it becomes big enough that it can't fit into the context window, then it's a real issue because now LLMs doe…

What's it called when you choose a task because it's easy, even if it's not what you need to do at all? I think that's what LLMs have activated in a lot of us: writing code used to be kinda hard, but now it's super easy, so let's just write more code. The hard parts of engineering have always been decision making, socializing, and validating ideas against cold hard reality. But writing code just got easier so let's d…

I'm not sure if there's a name for that specifically, but it seems strongly related to the streetlight effect. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#129

Post by kraftman »

jimbokun wrote: post #32

I think LLMs have made a lot of developers forget the lessons in "Simple Made Easy": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxdOUGdseq4 LLMs seem to be really good at reproducing the classic Ball of Mud, that can't really be refactored or understood. There's a lot of power in creating simple components that interact with other simple components to produce complex functionality. While each component is easy to understand and…

you can tell them what to do though right? I think a lot of variance between people that say LLMs are useless and people that say they are useful is people that learn what they are good and bad at and can predict the quality of the output based on their input.

Like, I might ask an LLM on its opinion on the best way to break something down, to see if it 'thinks' of anything i havent, and then ask it to implement that. I wouldn't ask it to do the whole thing from scratch with no input on how to structure things.

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#130

Post by jvergeldedios »

jm4 wrote: post #120
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 described it much more succinctly than most people do. It's been my exact experience as well. The LLM can develop much faster than I can build a mental model. It's very easy to get to a point where you don't know what's going on, a bunch of bugs have been introduced and you can't easily fix them or refactor because you're essentially the new guy on your own project. I find myself adjusting by committing c…

> you're essentially the new guy on your own project

Holy shit that's the best description of this phenomenon I've heard so far. The most stark version of this I've experienced is working on a side project with someone who isn't a software engineer who vibe coded a bunch of features without my input. The code looked like 6-8 different people had worked on it with no one driving architecture and I had to untangle how it all got put together.

The sweet spot for me is using it in places where I know the exact pattern I want to use to solve a problem and I can describe it in very small discrete steps. That will often take something that would have taken me an hour or two to hand code something tedious down to 5-10 minutes. I agree that there's no going back, even if all progress stopped now that's too huge of a gain to ignore it as a tool.

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