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I'm going back to writing code by hand

blog.k10s.dev

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Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand

#221

Post by hmhhashem »

larusso wrote: post #210

I ran quite early into the same issues with my rust pet projects. Single structs with tons of Option and validation methods etc. enums for type fields combined with says optional fields in the same layer so accessor methods all return Option . I add now a long list of instructions how to work with the type system and some do’s and don’ts. I don’t see myself as a vibe coder. I actually read the damn code and instruct…

Would you be interested in sharing your findings? I'm currently experimenting with LLM-generated rust and honestly think it works quite well, however I'm looking for ways to improve the "taste" of the agent.

Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand

#222

Post by CoastalCoder »

wccrawford wrote: post #186
IanCal wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fine if it’s more enjoyable for you, that’s what’s important in personal projects most of the time. But we don’t follow the same things for dependencies, work of colleagues, external services, all the layers down to the silicon when trying to work. Why is AI suddenly different? We just have to do this by risk and reward. What’s the downside if it’s wrong, and how likely is an error to be found in testing and…

AI is different because it's a tool, and the user of the tool is responsible for the work performed. An outsourced developer isn't a "tool". They're a human being, and responsible for their actions. They're being paid, and they either act responsibly or they get replaced. A vibe coder is a human using a tool. The human is responsible for code quality, and if it's not good enough, they need to keep using the tool to m…

> An outsourced developer isn't a "tool".

I'd think that depends on the model of responsibility at play.

For example, suppose I hire a building contractor to build a house, and the electrician he subcontracts makes mistake.

From my perspective, the prime contractor is equally responsible for that mistake regardless of whether he used a subcontractor, or did the work himself but used a broken tool.

This doesn't make the electrician any less of a "person" in the deeply important ways, but it's not a distinction that's relevant to my handling of the problem.

Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand

#223

Post by fransje26 »

2ndorderthought wrote: post #204
fransje26 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that's nice. Your manager is unknowingly helping you create a form of job security for yourself, with all the technical debt and bugs being accumulated. He might not understand it, and it might not be the type of work you want to do, but someone is going to have to fix those issues. And the longer they wait, the bigger the task gets.

The question is, is it a job you actually still want once the poo pile reaches critical mass you are the only one with a shovel and the deadline is "yesterday"

That is absolutely true. Unfortunately, this ship has sailed and we are not closing Pandora's box anymore. We'll have to adapt.

But we still hold good cards in hand.

Do they want their pile of steaming slop fixed, or not? Because no amount of complaints about the deadline being "yesterday" are going to change anything about the fact that time will be needed to fix the accrued technical debt, whether they like it or not.. And if AI dug you in that deep to start with, the solution is not to dig deeper.

I suspect some companies are going to find that out the hard (costly) way.

Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand

#225

Post by 21asdffdsa12 »

i_love_retros wrote: post #203
21asdffdsa12 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the solution is the same, as when it was outsourced- and the "patch" was fix it by writing spec. Thus i conclude my TED talk with the statement: LLMs are the new outsourcing and run into the same problems.

Don't outsource either then

How about we outsource it to pakistan and they use LLMs. That way, we do what the LLM people do - many agents and stacked on top

Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand

#226

Post by stingraycharles »

pron wrote: post #192

Yep. The only people I've heard saying that generated code is fine are those who don't read it. The problem is that the mitigations offered in the article also don't work for long. When designing a system or a component we have ideas that form invariants. Sometimes the invariant is big, like a certain grand architecture, and sometimes it’s small, like the selection of a data structure. You can tell the agent what the…

> Picking among them isn’t a matter of context. It’s a matter of judgment, and the models - not the harnesses - get this judgment wrong far too often. I would say no better than random chance.

Yeah I’m currently working for several months already on a harness that wraps Claude Code and Codex etc to ensure that these types of invariants are captured and enforced (after the first few harness attempts failed), and - while it’s possible - slows down the workflow significantly and burns a lot more tokens. In addition to requiring more human involvement, of course.

I suspect this is the right direction, though, as the alternatives inevitably lead any software project to delve into a spaghetti mess maintenance nightmare.

Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand

#227

Post by 20k »

echelon wrote: post #216
20k wrote: post #151

I always find these kinds of posts interesting, to compare the velocity that people seem to get with Ai, vs what I get by just coding by hand Coincidentally I've been working on a project for about 7 months now: its a 3d MMO. Currently its playable, and people are having fun with it - it has decent (but needs work) graphics, and you can cram a few hundred people into the server easily currently. The architecture is p…

This was made in two days of vibe coding. It has flaws, but it's impressive as hell: https://tinyskies.vercel.app/ It's got a fun Zelda-inspired mechanic (I won't say which one), and you'll have to unlock abilities and parts of the world over several quests and modes to "win". It's also multiplayer.

This ran at ~1fps for me

Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand

#228

Post by spockz »

sevenzero wrote: post #213
benguild wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The only people I've heard saying that generated code is fine are those who don't read it.” Are you sure these people aren’t busy working rather than chatting? (haha) But in all seriousness it depends on what you’re doing with it. Writing a quick tool using an LLM is much easier than context changing to write it yourself. If you need the tool, that’s very valuable.

Also as a webdev, it writes basic CRUD pretty good. I am tired of having to build forms myself and the LLMs are usually really good at that. Been building a new app with lots of policies and whatnot and instructing a LLM is just much faster than doing the same repetitive shit over and over myself.

If you were tired of writing forms yourself, had you looked at https://jsonforms.io/? Just specify the the data you need, or extract it from the api spec and go. Display the form uniformly every time across your site. No need to burn AI time.

Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand

#230

Post by thunky »

jwpapi wrote: post #165

That’s the same story I had. The swindle goes like this, AI on a good codebase can build a lot of features, you think it’s faster it even seems safer and more accurate on times, especially in domains you don’t know everything about. This goes in for a while whilst the codebase gets bigger and exploration takes longer and failure rate increases. You don’t want it to be true and try harder so you only stop after it pra…

> You look at the code again and there is so much code spaghetti is an understatement it’s the Chinese wall.

I don't understand this. A large codebase should be a collection of small codebases, just like a large city is a collection of small cities. There is a map and you zoom into your local area and work within that scope. You don't need to know every detail of NYC to get a cup of coffee.

Its your responsibility to build a sane architecture that is maintainable. AI doesn't prevent you from doing that, and in fact it can help you do so if you hold the tool correctly.

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