When did we ever measure the value of code by quantity, not quality? The author is misguided.
Writing code is cheap now
211–220 of 522 posts
Re: Writing code is cheap now
#212> Code has always been expensive. Producing a few hundred lines of clean, tested code takes most software developers a full day or more. Many of our engineering habits, at both the macro and micro level, are built around this core constraint. > ... > Writing good code remains significantly more expensive I think this is a bad argument. Code was expensive because you were trying to write the expensive good code in the…
I think the cost and work remains the same. What has change is efficiency. Previously people had to manually program byte after byte. Then came C and streamlined it, allowing faster development.
With python I can write a simple debugging UI server with a few lines.
There are frameworks that allow me to complete certain tasks in hours.
You do not need to program everything from scratch.
The more code, the faster everything gets, since the job is mostly done.
We are accelerating, but we still work 9 to 5 jobs.
Re: Writing code is cheap now
#213Every modern (and not so modern) software development method hinge on one thing: requirements are not known and even if known they'll change over time. From this you get the goal of "good" code which is "easy to change code". Do current LLM based agents generate code which is easy to change? My gut feeling is a no at the moment. Until they do I'd argue code generated from agents is only good for prototypes. Once you…
Irrelevant because you are not going to make new changes by hand. You will use AI for that.
Re: Writing code is cheap now
#214Every modern (and not so modern) software development method hinge on one thing: requirements are not known and even if known they'll change over time. From this you get the goal of "good" code which is "easy to change code". Do current LLM based agents generate code which is easy to change? My gut feeling is a no at the moment. Until they do I'd argue code generated from agents is only good for prototypes. Once you…
All the hype is on how fast it is to produce code. But the actual bottleneck has always been the cost of specifying intent clearly enough that the result is changeable, testable, and correct AND that you build something that brings value.
Re: Writing code is cheap now
#215Putting text into a file is cheaper than before. Everything else remains the same cost in a well designed project, rather than a vibe coded one where you just tell the LLM to "make a todo list app"
Re: Writing code is cheap now
#216Every modern (and not so modern) software development method hinge on one thing: requirements are not known and even if known they'll change over time. From this you get the goal of "good" code which is "easy to change code". Do current LLM based agents generate code which is easy to change? My gut feeling is a no at the moment. Until they do I'd argue code generated from agents is only good for prototypes. Once you…
> Once you can ask your agent to change a feature and be 100% sure they won't break other features then you don't care about how the code looks like. That bar is unreasonably high. Right now, if I ask a senior engineer to change a feature in a mature codebase, I only have perhaps 70% certainty they won't break other features. Tests help, but only so far.
But if push come to shove any other engineer can come in and debug your senior engineer code. That's why we insist on people creating easy to change code.
With auto generated code which almost no one will check or debug by hand, you want at least compiler level exactitude. Then changing "the code" is as easy as asking your code generator for new things. If people have to debug its output, then it does not help in making maintainable software unless it also generates "good" code.
Re: Writing code is cheap now
#217I think the framing is still too code-centric.
The real bottleneck isn’t writing (or even reviewing) code anymore. It’s:
1. extracting knowledge from domain experts
2. building a coherent mental model of the domain
3. making product decisions under ambiguity / tradeoffs
4. turning that into clear, testable requirements and steering the loop as reality pushes back
The workflow is shifting to:
Understand domain => Draft PRD/spec (LLM helps) => Prompt agent to implement => Evaluate against intent + constraints => Refine (requirements + tests + code) => Repeat
The “typing” part used to dominate the cost structure, so we optimized around it (architecture upfront, DRY everywhere, extreme caution). Now the expensive part is clarity of intent and orchestrating the iteration: deciding what to build next, what to cut, what to validate, what to trust, and where to add guardrails (tests, invariants, observability).
If your requirements are fuzzy, the agent will happily generate 5k lines of very confident nonsense. If your domain model + constraints are crisp, results can be shockingly good.
So the scarce skill isn’t “can you write good code?” It’s “can you interrogate reality well enough to produce a precise model—and then continuously steer the agent against that model?”
Re: Writing code is cheap now
#218> Here's what I mean by "good code": > [...] > - It’s simple and minimal - it does only what’s needed, in a way that both humans and machines can understand now and maintain in the future. But do the humans need to actually understand the code? A "yes" means the bottleneck is understanding (code review, code inspection). A "no" means you can go faster, but at some risk.
OpenAI is implying that code may no longer be human readable in some circumstances.
> The resulting code does not always match human stylistic preferences, and that’s okay. As long as the output is correct, maintainable, and legible *to future agent runs*, it meets the bar.
Re: Writing code is cheap now
#219> Code has always been expensive. Producing a few hundred lines of clean, tested code takes most software developers a full day or more. Many of our engineering habits, at both the macro and micro level, are built around this core constraint. > ... > Writing good code remains significantly more expensive I think this is a bad argument. Code was expensive because you were trying to write the expensive good code in the…
I think the cost and work remains the same. What has change is efficiency. Previously people had to manually program byte after byte. Then came C and streamlined it, allowing faster development. With python I can write a simple debugging UI server with a few lines. There are frameworks that allow me to complete certain tasks in hours. You do not need to program everything from scratch. The more code, the faster every…
C, Python, and frameworks don't generate all-new code for every task: you're taking advantage of stuff that's thoroughly tested. That simple debugging UI server is probably using some well-tested libraries, which you can reasonably trust to be bug-free (and which can be updated later to fix any bugs, without breaking your code that relies on them). With AI-generated code, this isn't the case.
Re: Writing code is cheap now
#220I like using the analogy of 'living in a small apartment' when building systems with a small team. You need to choose carefully what furniture you can fit into your apartment, and that choice depends a lot on how you live your live. Do you want a large table to host friends, or a comfortable couch to fall asleep on in front of the TV? If you get both the space will probably be cluttered.
The same applies to a small software project - you need to choose what features you can fit. And while the cost of building is part of the consideration, I'd say most of it is about the cost of maintaining features, not only in code, but also in product coherence and other incidental 'costs' like documentation and user support.
Be careful of building too many features and ending up being overwhelmed by the maintenance, or worse, diluting the product's value to a point where you loose users.