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Lessons for Agentic Coding: What should we do when code is cheap?

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Re: Lessons for Agentic Coding: What should we do when code is cheap?

#31

Post by wartywhoa23 »

user34283 wrote: post #22
boesboes wrote: post #2

Realize it's going to be 10-100x more expensive once you have no way back?

How do you reconcile these ideas with the fact that cheap open weight models are only slightly behind the state of the art? If anything, I would bet that next year you could get today’s flagship performance for significantly cheaper via an open-weights model.

Sure, but there will always be some monstrosities like Mythos that'll pwn all software written by local models in 0.01 seconds, thus forcing people/companies to use the most advanced paid models to keep up and stay unpwned for 1 second longer.

(Timeframes are hyperbolical).

Re: Lessons for Agentic Coding: What should we do when code is cheap?

#32

Post by duskdozer »

user34283 wrote: post #22
boesboes wrote: post #2

Realize it's going to be 10-100x more expensive once you have no way back?

How do you reconcile these ideas with the fact that cheap open weight models are only slightly behind the state of the art? If anything, I would bet that next year you could get today’s flagship performance for significantly cheaper via an open-weights model.

By that time, the hypebeasts will be explaining how worthless the models of today always were.

Re: Lessons for Agentic Coding: What should we do when code is cheap?

#33

Post by livinglist »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #15
boesboes wrote: post #2

Realize it's going to be 10-100x more expensive once you have no way back?

There is no moat. https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/google-we-have-no-moat...

The article is from 2023, I’m wondering if things mentioned still stand true today, can someone pls let me know.

Re: Lessons for Agentic Coding: What should we do when code is cheap?

#34

Post by mxmlnkn »

torben-friis wrote: post #6

I came here exactly to point out what I'm glad to see is 10. "Free as in puppies" is a wonderful way to put it. Every time I open linkedin I'm scared of how many big heads have taken the wrong lesson that coding almost free == free engineering. So many bait posts asking engineers why they would need to pay them any longer, or being glad they're generating millions of lines a month....this is going to end badly.

> 10. Code is cheap, but maintenance, support, and security aren’t.

I also keep circling around this point. So many software repositories in the AI space seem to follow a publish and forget pattern. If you simply can show that you have the patience to maintain a project, ideally with manual intervention instead of a fully autonomous AI, then you already have an outstanding project.

Re: Lessons for Agentic Coding: What should we do when code is cheap?

#35

Post by andai »

utopiah wrote: post #28

This is such a weird argument, beside obvious #10 which will bite back with a vengeance, because... code can't be cheaper than free! Since at least the early 80s a LOT of very important code wasn't cheap, it was free. Both free of cost (you could "just" download it and run it) but also free as freedom-respecting software. I just don't get the argument that cheap is new. Cheap is MORE expensive than free!

Re: personalized software via vibe coding

Free but you're responsible for maintaining it means it's not free. It's the same issue as maintaining your own fork. It's just an ongoing cost.

(Though as AI becomes autonomous enough to be the maintainer, that cost kind of goes away. Then it's just the cost of managing the "dev".)

Re: Lessons for Agentic Coding: What should we do when code is cheap?

#36

Post by noelwelsh »

Certain types of code are cheap. Proof of concept is cheap. Adding small features that fit within the existing architecture is cheap. Otherwise, I'm not so sure. Coding agents are fantastic at minutiae, but have no taste. They'll turn a code base into a ball of mud very quickly, given the opportunity.

Re: Lessons for Agentic Coding: What should we do when code is cheap?

#38

Post by utopiah »

andai wrote: post #35
utopiah wrote: post #28

This is such a weird argument, beside obvious #10 which will bite back with a vengeance, because... code can't be cheaper than free! Since at least the early 80s a LOT of very important code wasn't cheap, it was free. Both free of cost (you could "just" download it and run it) but also free as freedom-respecting software. I just don't get the argument that cheap is new. Cheap is MORE expensive than free!

Re: personalized software via vibe coding Free but you're responsible for maintaining it means it's not free. It's the same issue as maintaining your own fork. It's just an ongoing cost. (Though as AI becomes autonomous enough to be the maintainer, that cost kind of goes away. Then it's just the cost of managing the "dev".)

Related recent discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48005809 including distinction between your/our software

Re: Lessons for Agentic Coding: What should we do when code is cheap?

#39

Post by raincole »

livinglist wrote: post #33
FeepingCreature wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no moat. https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/google-we-have-no-moat...

The article is from 2023, I’m wondering if things mentioned still stand true today, can someone pls let me know.

It's much truer today. You can say that article is extremely insightful, as it predicted today's open weighted models scenario 2 years earlier.

Re: Lessons for Agentic Coding: What should we do when code is cheap?

#40

Post by pell »

noelwelsh wrote: post #36

Certain types of code are cheap. Proof of concept is cheap. Adding small features that fit within the existing architecture is cheap. Otherwise, I'm not so sure. Coding agents are fantastic at minutiae, but have no taste. They'll turn a code base into a ball of mud very quickly, given the opportunity.

While I agree with you that agentic coding still has quite a way to go and is not always producing the quality that I would want from it, I can say quite confidently that its baseline is way above some of the production code in many applications many people use today. It really isn’t that code before agents was primarily written with taste and beautiful structure in mind. Your average code base is a messy hell full of quick fixes that turned into all kinds of debt over the years.
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