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I am happier writing code by hand

abhinavomprakash.com

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Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#171

Post by cline6 »

woeirua wrote: post #5

This is no different then carpentry. Yes, all furniture can now be built by machines. Some people still choose to build it by hand. Does that make them less productive? Yes. Will they ever carve furniture by hand for a business? Probably not. Can they still enjoy the act of working with the wood? Yes. If you want to code by hand, then do it! No one's stopping you. But we shouldn't pretend that you will be able to do…

The reason this analogy falls down is that tools typically do one thing, do it extremely well, are extremely reliable. When I use a table saw, I know that it's going to cut this board into two pieces, exactly in this spot, and it'll do that exactly the same way every single time I use it.

You cannot tell AI to do just one thing, have it do it extremely well, or do it reliably.

And while there's a lot of opinions wrapped up in it all, it is very debatable whether AI is even solving a problem that exists. Was coding ever really the bottleneck?

And while the hype is huge and adoption is skyrocketing, there hasn't been a shred of evidence that it actually is increasing productivity or quality. In fact, in study after study, they continue to show that speed and quality actually go down with AI.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#172

Post by lokar »

freeopinion wrote: post #59

I think it is pretty indisputable that there is a valuable place for AI. I recently had to interact with a very horrible db schema. The best approach I came up with to solve my challenge involved modelling a table with 300 columns. Converting some sql ddl to a Rust struct was simple but tedious work. A prompt with less than 15 words guided an AI to produce the 900+ loc for me. It took a couple seconds to scan it to s…

I worry that means the bad code / schema / design never gets improved.

I've spent a lot of my career cleaning up stuff like that, I guess with AI we just stop caring?

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#173

Post by zanellato19 »

rf15 wrote: post #9

This is pointing out one factor of vibecoding that is talked about too little: that it feels good, and that this feeling often clouds people's judgment on what is actually achieved (i.e. you lost control of the code and are running more and more frictionless on hopes and dreams)

I think it feels like shit, tbh. That's my biggest problem with it. The feedback on moment to moment is longer than building by myself and the almost there but not there sucks. Also, like the article states, waiting for the LLM is so fucking boring.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#174

Post by spicyusername »

krupan wrote: post #113

The most pertinent thought in this is where the author asks, "LLMs can generate decent-ish and correct-ish looking code while I have more time to do what? doomscroll?" LLMs are not good enough for you to set and forget. You have to stay nearby babysitting it, keeping half an eye on it. That's what's so disheartening to many of us. In my career I have mentored junior engineers and seen them rapidly learn new things an…

    while I have more time to do what?
For work, I regularly have 2-4 agents going simultaneously, churning on 1-3 features, bug fixes, doc updates.

I pop between them in the "down time", or am reviewing their output, or am preparing the requirements for the next thing, or am reviewing my coworkers MRs.

Plenty to do that isn't doom scrolling.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#175

Post by Aperocky »

candiddevmike wrote: post #10
woeirua wrote: post #5

This is no different then carpentry. Yes, all furniture can now be built by machines. Some people still choose to build it by hand. Does that make them less productive? Yes. Will they ever carve furniture by hand for a business? Probably not. Can they still enjoy the act of working with the wood? Yes. If you want to code by hand, then do it! No one's stopping you. But we shouldn't pretend that you will be able to do…

> If you want to code by hand, then do it! No one's stopping you. But we shouldn't pretend that you will be able to do that professionally for much longer. If you can't code by hand professionally anymore, what are you being paid to do? Bring the specs to the LLMs? Deal with the customers so the LLMs don't have to?

Code IS spec.

Your code in $INSERT_LANGUAGE is no less of a spec to machine code than english is to $INSERT_LANGUAGE.

Spec is still needed, spec is the core problem of engineering. Too much specialization have made job titles like $INSERT_LANGUAGE engineer, which deviated too far from the core problem, and it is being rectified now.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#176

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

morshu9001 wrote: post #151
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #141

> Even if I generate a 1,000 line PR in 30 minutes I still need to understand and review it. Since I am responsible for the code I ship, this makes me the bottleneck. I am not responsible for choosing whether the code I write using a for loop or while loop. I am responsible for whether my implementation - code, architecture, user experience - meets the functional and non functional requirements. It’s been well over a…

When I got my first job long ago, I found that code review does involve arguing over things like for vs while loop, or having proper grammar in comments. Thought about quitting for a sec. Now that I have more experience and manage other SWEs, I was right, that stuff was dumb and I'm glad that nobody cares anymore. I'll spend the time reviewing but only the important things.

Unfortunately, people do care that the AI agents don’t code just like they do.

Once I got to the point where I was delegating complete implementations to seniors with just “this is a high level idea of what Becky’s department wants. You now know as much I do. If you have any business related questions go ask Becky and come back to me with a design and these are our only technical constraints”. Then two weeks later there are things I might have done differently. But it meets all of the functional and non functional requirements. I bite my toungue and move on.

His team is going to be responsable for it.

Now I don’t treat AI as a senior developer. I treat it as a mid level ticket taker. If their is going to be a feature change, I ain’t doing it any more. The coding agent is. I am just going to keep good documentation in various MD files for context.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#177

Post by tux1968 »

blks wrote: post #164
tux1968 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like you're doing a lot of work to miss the actual point. Focusing on the minutiae of the analogy is a distraction from the over arching and obvious point. It has nothing to do with how you feel , it has to do with how you will compete in a world with others who feel differently. There were carpenters who refused to use power tools, some still do. They are probably happy -- and that's great, all the power to…

I don’t think it’s correct to claim that AI generated code is just next level of abstraction. All previously mentioned levels produce deterministic results. Same input, same output. AI-generation is not deterministic. It’s not even predictable. And example of big software companies clearly show what mass adoption of AI tools will look like in terms of software quality. I dread if using AI will ever be an expectation,…

You're not wrong. But your same objection was made against compilers. That they are opaque, have differences from one to another, and can introduce bugs, they're not actually deterministic if you upgrade the compiler, etc. They separate the programmer from the code the computer eventually executes.

In any case, clinging to the fact that this technology is different in some ways, continues to ignore the many ways it's exactly the same. People continue to cling to what they know, and find ways to argue against what's new. But the writing is plainly on the wall, regardless of how much we struggle to emotionally separate ourselves from it.

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#178

Post by amjnsx »

dasil003 wrote: post #143
sgarland wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I don’t understand: why highly-paid SWEs seem to think that their salaries will remain the same (if they even still have a job) if their role is now a glorified project manager.

Architects and engineers are not construction workers. AI can build the thing but it needs to be told exactly what to build by someone who knows how software works. I’ve spent enough time working with cross-functional stakeholders to know that the vast majority of PM (whether of the product, program, or project variety), will not be capable of running AI towards any meaningful software development goal. At best they…

Agree. I’m finding quite a lot of success with AI but i’m writing detailed prompts. In turn the LLM’s are producing 99% error free massive refactors.

No one but seniors with years and years of experience is producing like that. As evidenced how much the juniors i work with struggle to do the same

Re: I am happier writing code by hand

#180

Post by meken »

I’m in a similar camp to the OP. For me, my joy doesn’t come from building - it comes from understanding. Which incidentally has actually made SWE not a great career path for me because I get bored building features, but that’s another story…

For me, LLMs have been a tremendous boon for me in terms of learning.

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