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Code is cheap. Show me the talk

nadh.in

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Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#41

Post by HorizonXP »

Waterluvian wrote: post #34

I think if your job is to assemble a segment of a car based on a spec using provided tools and pre-trained processes, it makes sense if you worry that giant robot arms might be installed to replace you. But if your job is to assemble a car in order to explore what modifications to make to the design, experiment with a single prototype, and determine how to program those robot arms, you’re probably not thinking about…

This is actually a really good description of the situation. But I will say, as someone that prided myself on being the second one you described, I am becoming very concerned about how much of my work was misclassified. It does feel like a lot of work I did in the second class is being automated where maybe previously it overinflated my ego.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#42

Post by z0r »

From the article:

  Historically, it would take a reasonably long period of consistent effort and many iterations of refinement for a good developer to produce 10,000 lines of quality code that not only delivered meaningful results, but was easily readable and maintainable. While the number of lines of code is not a measure of code quality—it is often the inverse—a codebase with good quality 10,000 lines of code indicated significant time, effort, focus, patience, expertise, and often, skills like project management that went into it. Human traits.

  Now, LLMs can not only one-shot generate that in seconds,
Evidence please. Ascribing many qualities to LLM code that I haven't (personally) seen at that scale. I think if you want to get an 'easily readable and maintainable' codebase of 10k lines with an LLM you need somebody to review its contributions very closely, and it probably isn't going to be generated with a 1 shot prompt.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#43

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

Okay I was writing a comment to simon (and I have elaborated some there but I wanted this to be something catchy to show how I feel and something people might discuss with too)

Both Code and talk are cheap. Show me the trust. Show me how I can trust you. Show me your authenticity. Show me your passion.

Code used to be the sign of authenticity. This is whats changing. You can no longer guarantee that large amounts of code let's say are now authentic, something which previously used to be the case (for the most part)

I have been shouting into the void many times about it but Trust seems to be the most important factor.

Essentially, I am speaking it from a consumer perspective but suppose that you write AI generated code and deploy it. Suppose you talked to AI or around it. Now I can do the same too and create a project sometimes (mostly?) more customizable to my needs for free/very-cheap.

So you have to justify why you are charging me. I do feel like that's only possible if there is something additional added to value. Trust, I trust the decision that you make and personally I trust people/decisions who feel like they take me or my ideas into account. So, essentially not ripping me off while actively helping. I don't know how to explain this but the most thing which I hate is the feeling of getting ripped off. So justifiable sustainable business who is open/transparent about the whole deal and what he gets and I get just gets my respect and my trust and quite frankly, I am not seeing many people do that but hopefully this changes.

I am curious now what you guys of HN think about this & what trust means to you in this (new?) ever-changing world.

Like y'know I feel like everything changes all the time but at the same time nothing changes at the same time too. We are still humans & we will always be humans & we are driven by our human instincts. Perhaps the community I envision is a more tight knit community online not complete mega-sellers.

Thoughts?

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#44

Post by _ea1k »

vb-8448 wrote: post #19

> Software development, as it has been done for decades, is over. I'm pretty sure the way I was doing things in 2005 was completely different compared to 2015. Same for 2015 and 2025. I'm not old enough to know how they were doing things in 1995, but I'm pretty sure there very different compared to 2005. For sure, we are going through some big changes, but there is no "as it has been done for decades".

Yeah, I remember being amazed at the immediate incremental compilation on save in Visual Age for Java many years ago. Today's neovim users have features that even the most advanced IDEs didn't have back then.

I think a lot of people in the industry forget just how much change has come from 30 years of incremental progress.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#45

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

dbtablesorrows wrote: post #31
negamax wrote: post #13

I keep on wondering how much of the AI embrace is marketing driven. Yes, it can produce value and cut corners. But it seems like self driving by 2016 Musk prediction. Which never happened. With IPO/Stock valuations closely tied to hype, I wonder if we are all witnessing a giant bubble in the making How much of this is mass financial engineering than real value. Reading a lot of nudges how everyone should have Google…

I realize many are disappointed (especially by technical churn, star-based-development JS projects on github without technical rigour). I don't trust any claim on the open web if I don't know the technical background of the person making it. However I think - Nadh, ronacher, the redis bro - these are people who can be trusted. I find Nadh's article (OP) quite balanced.

When you mention Redis bro, I think you are talking about Antirez correct?

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#46

Post by lo_zamoyski »

mobiuscog wrote: post #24
awesan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think things have changed that much in the time I've been doing it (roughly 20 years). Tools have evolved and new things were added but the core workflow of a developer has more or less stayed the same.

I don't think that's true, at least for everywhere I've worked. Agile has completely changed things, for better or for worse. Being a SWE today is nothing like 30 years ago, for me. I much preferred the earlier days as well, as it felt far more engineered and considered as opposed to much of the MVP 'productivity' of today.

MVP is not necessarily opposed to engineered and considered. It's just that many people who throw that term around have little regard for engineering, which they hide behind buzzwords like "agile".

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#48

Post by enlyth »

Waterluvian wrote: post #34

I think if your job is to assemble a segment of a car based on a spec using provided tools and pre-trained processes, it makes sense if you worry that giant robot arms might be installed to replace you. But if your job is to assemble a car in order to explore what modifications to make to the design, experiment with a single prototype, and determine how to program those robot arms, you’re probably not thinking about…

A software engineer with an LLM is still infinitely more powerful than a commoner with an LLM. The engineer can debug, guide, change approaches, and give very specific instructions if they know what needs to be done.

The commoner can only hammer the prompt repeatedly with "this doesn't work can you fix it".

So yes, our jobs are changing rapidly, but this doesn't strike me as being obsolete any time soon.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#49

Post by program_whiz »

ojr wrote: post #23

talk is even cheaper, still show me the code, people claim 10x productivity that translates to 10x of work done in a month, even with Opus 4.5 out since November 2025 I haven't seen signs of this. AI makes the level of complexity with modern systems bearable, it was getting pretty bad before and AI kinda saved us. A non-trivial React app is still a pain to write. Also creating a harness for a non-deterministic api th…

Best example of this is Claude's own terminal program. Apparently renders react at 60fps and then translates it into ANSI chars that then diff the content of the terminal and do an overwrite...

All to basically mimic what curses can do very easily.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#50

Post by api »

Uhh... how about show me both?

I think that's always been true. The ideas and reasoning process matter. So does the end product. If you produced it with an LLM and it sucks, it still sucks.

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