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Code is cheap. Show me the talk

nadh.in

121–130 of 237 posts

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#121

Code, talk, who cares. Show me the product. If it works and is useful I will incorporate it into my life. Ultimately no one cares how the sausage is made.

> Ultimately no one cares how the sausage is made.

Yeah...now that prompt injection is a fact of life and basically unsolvable - we can't really afford this luxury anymore.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#122
I would like articles like this to have a quick "who" and "what experience" is talking. I can usually tell the conclusions based on experience/skill level regardless, but it would be nice.

Also, that projects page on his website is atrocious; hate to be "that guy" but I don't trust the author's insight since "personal projects" seems to include a lot more than just his work; the first several PRs I looked at where all vibed.

I'm not interested in re-implementations of the same wheel over and over again telling me and people who know how to write real software (have been doing it since I was 12) that we are becoming unnecessary bc you can bully an extremely complex machine built on a base theory of heuristics abstracted out endlessly (perceptually) to re-invent the same specs in slightly different flavors.

> 100% human written, including emdashes. Sigh. If you can't write without emdashes, maybe you spend too much time with LLMs and not enough time reading and learning on your own. Also people can lie on the Internet, they do it all the time, and if not then I'm doing it right now.

The hubris on display is fascinating.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#123
I asked Codex to write some unit tests for Redux today. At first glance it looked fine, and I continued on. I then went back to add a test by hand, and after looking more closely at the output there were like 50 wtf worthy things scattered in there. Sure they ran, but it was bad in all sorts of ways. And this was just writing something very basic.

This has been my experience almost every time I use AI: superficially it seems fine, once I go to extend the code I realize it's a disaster and I have to clean it up.

The problem with "code is cheap" is that, it's not. GENERATING code is now cheap (while the LLMs are subsidized by endless VC dollars, anyway), but the cost of owning that code is not. Every line of code is a liability, and generating thousands of lines a day is like running up a few thousand dollars of debt on a credit card thinking you're getting free stuff and then being surprised when it gets declined.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#124

I asked Codex to write some unit tests for Redux today. At first glance it looked fine, and I continued on. I then went back to add a test by hand, and after looking more closely at the output there were like 50 wtf worthy things scattered in there. Sure they ran, but it was bad in all sorts of ways. And this was just writing something very basic. This has been my experience almost every time I use AI: superficially…

I've always said every line is a liability, its our job to limit liabilities. That has largely gone out the window these days.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#126
post #21

Regardless, knowing syntax of programming language or remember some library API, is a dead business.

I for one am quite happy to outsource this kind of simply memorisation to a machine. Maybe it's the thin end of the slippery slope? It doesn't FEEL like it is but...

Why even learn how to read when you can just yell at the computers?

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#127

I asked Codex to write some unit tests for Redux today. At first glance it looked fine, and I continued on. I then went back to add a test by hand, and after looking more closely at the output there were like 50 wtf worthy things scattered in there. Sure they ran, but it was bad in all sorts of ways. And this was just writing something very basic. This has been my experience almost every time I use AI: superficially…

Generating code was always cheap. That’s part of the reason this tech has to be forced on teams. Similar to the move to cloud, it’s the kind of cost that’s only gonna show up later - faster than the cloud move, I think. Though, in some cases it will be the correct choice.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#128

I asked Codex to write some unit tests for Redux today. At first glance it looked fine, and I continued on. I then went back to add a test by hand, and after looking more closely at the output there were like 50 wtf worthy things scattered in there. Sure they ran, but it was bad in all sorts of ways. And this was just writing something very basic. This has been my experience almost every time I use AI: superficially…

The main issue I've seen is it writing passing tests, the code being correct is a big (and often incorrect) assumption.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#129
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.

This is the fun part of whole AI-built things that a lot of people don’t want to accept - it really, really, really does not matter if the code “nice, maintainable and etc.”. Does it work? Is it somewhat extendable with AI? Are users generally happy and adoption rate is high? That’s it.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#130
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…

What you are saying may have made sense at the start of 2025 where people were still using github copilot tab auto completes(atleast I did) and was just toying with things like cursor, but unsure. Things have changed drastically now, engineers with these tools(like claude code) have become unstoppable. Atleast for me, I have been able to contribute to the codebases i was unfamiliar with, even with different tech stac…

> Things have changed drastically now, engineers with these tools(like claude code) have become unstoppable

I’ve spent the last week unwinding my coworkers slop who said the same thing.

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