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I'm dialing back my LLM usage

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Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#171

Post by vjvjvjvjghv »

GenerocUsername wrote: post #62
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…

How is that that different than working in a large codebase with 25+ other devs. My org has 160 engineers working on our e-commerce frontend and middle tiers. I constantly dive into repos and code I have no ownership of. The gitblame shows a contractor who worked here 3 years ago frequently. Seems LLM does good in small, bad in medium, good again as small modules within big.

"How is that that different than working in a large codebase with 25+ other devs. "

It's as miserable. I hate working on large codebases with multiple contributors unless there is super strong leadership that keeps things aligned.

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#172

Post by vjvjvjvjghv »

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…

Just one thought: I wonder if storing the prompt history together with the LLM code would make it easier to understand the thought process. I have noticed that I find it a little more difficult to read LLM code vs human code (that's written by decent devs)

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#173

Post by ymyms »

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…

One of my favorite ways to use AI is to get me started on things. I tend to drag my feet when starting something new, but LLMs can whip up something quick. Then I look at what it did and usually hate it. Maybe it structured the code in way that doesn't mesh with the way I think or it completely failed to use some new/esoteric library I rely on.

That hate fuels me to just do the work myself. It's like the same trick as those engagement-bait math problems that pop up on social media with the wrong answer.

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#174

Post by DiggyJohnson »

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 it’s just we are at a point where many are coming to this realization around the same time. You did an excellent job summarizing it though.

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#175

Post by jeremyjh »

gtsop wrote: post #169
danielbln wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So is the expectation for it to suggest obvious solutions that the majority of people already know? I am fine with this, but let's be clear about what we're expecting

All it can do is predict the next token. So, yes.

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#176

Post by sunrunner »

exceptione wrote: post #157
sunrunner wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm compelled to make sure any comment mentioning Conway's Law has a reply linking the following video (and perhaps I should create a bot to do this): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IUj1EZwpJY This analysis of the real-world effects of Conway's Law seems deeply horrifying, because the implication seems to be that there's nothing you can do to keep communication efficiency and design quality high while also growing…

I think you better link to a good article instead. Good grief, what a horror . A talking head rambling on for 60 minutes. --- disclaimer: if low information density is your thing, then your mileage may vary. Video's are for documentaries, not for reading out an article in the camera.

Okay, so you didn't even bother to take a few seconds to step through the video to see if there was anything other than the talking head (I'll help you out a bit, there is).

Either way, it's a step-by-step walk through of the ideas of the original article that introduced Conway's Law and a deeper inspection into ideas about _why_ it might be that way.

If that's not enough then my apologies but I haven't yet found an equivalent article that goes through the ideas in the same way but in the kind of information-dense format that I assume would help you hit your daily macros.

Edit: Accidentally a word

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#177

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #155
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…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#179

Post by generalizations »

eikenberry wrote: post #165
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…

That last bracket is basically the same as the tech based start-up story. You build the projects fast, but you build a ton of tech debt into it that you'll be forced to deal with unless it is a short lived project. Not that this is 100% bad, but something to know going in.

Depends. I think that becomes a question of the quality of the programmer - if they were doing it all themselves, the code quality of the (necessarily much smaller) projects would still vary between programmers. Now that variation is magnified, but if you're very good at what you do, I suspect it is still possible to create those projects without the tech debt. Though at the lower end of that bracket, I'd agree you tend to end up with giant balls of mud.

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#180

Post by generalizations »

leptons wrote: post #112
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…

More often than not the "AI" generates a large block of code that doesn't work, that I still have to read and understand - and it's more difficult to understand because it doesn't work , which is a huge waste of my time. Then I just end up writing the damn code myself, which I should have done in the first place - but my boss wants me to try using the AI. The only thing the "AI" is marginally good at is as a fancy au…

What "AI" are you using
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