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Agentic Coding Is a Trap

larsfaye.com

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Re: Agentic Coding Is a Trap

#61

Post by mikert89 »

mock-possum wrote: post #44
mikert89 wrote: post #22

I've come to the conclusion that if AI can do it, its not hard. None of the complicated software i work on can be reliably written by ai yet

I mean that’s been my line every time someone makes impressed noises when I say I’m a programmer - it’s really not that hard, it’s really just a question of whether you like it enough to put the work in, like anything else. “Don’t you have to be a math wiz?” No dude 95% of the time whatever you’re trying to do already has a very well researched approach, a lot of times you’re just picking which pre-vetted solution to…

no i mean the opposite, some programming is actually hard

Re: Agentic Coding Is a Trap

#63

Post by tap-snap-or-nap »

jdw64 wrote: post #17

How can we solve this at a more fundamental level? I think many people already recognize the problem: -“Our ability to write code is being damaged.” -“If our ability to write code declines, our ability to recognize good code also declines.” But the problem is that the market no longer works without LLMs. Freelance rates and deadlines are now calibrated around LLM-assisted output. Even clients who write “do not vibe c…

I use AI mainly to improve the parts which I know I am pretty bad and need help and restrict it as I gain competency. Which means choosing to say no to copy pasting most things I wish to exercise my brain for and reading, understanding, processing and writing it more diligently. Treating brain like any other muscle that requires a gym, we do have cars and segways that can help us travel long distances quickly but we still require as a specie to walk and run. People with disability and underprivileged backgrounds also need these tools so it is a good option to have generally. Secondly we are human, we have made very good tools, we need to stop obsessing with being more productive in output and learn to be better, more considerate and respectful to each other and other species to make this planet generally for better world. It is the only one we got. At the same time, be more mindful about where and how we utilise our time and attention, they are very limited and the most valuable resources we can possibly possess.

Re: Agentic Coding Is a Trap

#64

Post by kelnos »

ex-aws-dude wrote: post #9

The thing is the code quality is still ultimately up to you Nothing stopping you from iterating with the agent till the code is the exact same quality that you yourself would write

IME, it's faster and less frustrating to just write the code myself, if the goal is to get code to my quality standards.

Re: Agentic Coding Is a Trap

#65

Post by ex-aws-dude »

mehagar wrote: post #4

I've been using AI tools to brainstorm approaches and sometimes generate code, but actually doing the typing myself. That way I'm less likely to forget the mechanics and programming language over time.

The thing is why would forgetting even matter if the AI can just remind you of anything that you forgot?

Re: Agentic Coding Is a Trap

#66

Post by gavmor »

bitwize wrote: post #3

This is exactly the same problem of "mechanical engineers' job is to design parts, not machine them, so we'll take training on machines out of the mech eng curriculum." Result: fresh mech eng grads do not know how to properly design parts because they have no idea how they are machined.

Should ontogeny recapitulate phylogony in the trades? Ie, should we teach historical techniques and graduate to modernity?

Re: Agentic Coding Is a Trap

#67

Post by slopinthebag »

I think ignoring all else, generating code is not a new layer of abstraction. It's the same abstraction, we just have codegen machines now. The same skills are important regardless if the person is typing in the code or if a machine is producing it.

Re: Agentic Coding Is a Trap

#70

Post by kelnos »

notepad0x90 wrote: post #50

it's a fairly new way of doing things. I predict, in the future it will be more formalized and standardized like AGILE and SCRUM and all that boring stuff. The result of that though would be establishment of development patterns that are good practices. The rule of thumb is: An agent can write it, but a human has to understand it before it gets pushed to prod. I'm still not convinced about the doom and gloom over dev…

> The rule of thumb is: An agent can write it, but a human has to understand it before it gets pushed to prod.

The article essentially claims that no, that line of thinking is false. If the agent writes all of it (or too much of it, where "too much" is still not well defined), then your ability to understand it will atrophy with time, and you will either a) never push to prod, because you can't understand it well enough, or b) push to prod anyway, and cause bugs and outages.

I think the article is correct.

> I'm still not convinced about the doom and gloom over developers being replaced.

Agreed. The agents are just not good enough to write code unsupervised, or supervised by people without senior-level skills. And frankly it's hard to imagine them getting there. Each new release of the coding tools/models is a mixed bag. Some things are better, some things are worse, and the gains are diminishing with each iteration. I am afraid that we're going to hit a ceiling at some point, at least with the transformer architecture.

> but for now we're all just reading random blog posts and see how others are faring and experimenting.

Yes, exactly, and many people are not faring well. The article cites several examples of people feeling less capable after using LLMs to write code for a while.

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