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Cleaning up after AI rockstar developers

codingwithjesse.com

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Re: Cleaning up after AI rockstar developers

#201

Post by cbg0 »

freediddy wrote: post #121

> Sometimes there's so much technical debt that it can never be paid off. There is no such thing as technical debt in the age of AI. It's just a series of migrations that take minutes to come up with. I migrated from two disparate databases using AI and it took minutes for it to write the migration code. I had it double-write the data, and then I told the AI to write code to compare between the two databases, and I t…

> There is no such thing as technical debt in the age of AI.

Producing new technical debt quickly doesn't mean there's no more technical debt.

Re: Cleaning up after AI rockstar developers

#204

Post by samrus »

DenisM wrote: post #26
anonzzzies wrote: post #19

I like fixing code made by AIs and others (outsourcing code is similar as someone else said already). Last week we found out some client tried to vibe some departmental tool; the result is some massive crap in nextjs that needs 10GB mem to compile, has 1000s of lint errors, dev logs in git (very noisy ones) and so on. Now we have to fix it: its basically free 10k-50k euros over and over again for this type of work. V…

In some ways they are giving you a spec and UI mocks to implement.

This is a very interesting thought. We complain about having to fix some MBAs vibecpded slop, but it actually might be faster, easier, and alot less painful than getting them to try to explain their vision to us and implement what they have in mind.

Like they actually iterate on the UX alot when they are vibecoding things up, answer alot of questions that can onky be answered when you see an initial version of experience and realize something is off. Id rather they waste the clankers time with that than mine

Re: Cleaning up after AI rockstar developers

#205

Post by yesitcan »

kaydub wrote: post #151
danjc wrote: post #14

As much as it's true that a novice will generally use AI to build a sloppy mess, I've also had success unsloppifying through some careful prompting.

Yeah, v1 is sloppy, then I tell the LLM to clean it up. Every 1 prompt of building tends to require 1-5 prompts of clean up. Simple, fast, clean good code. The chasm between "Software Developer" and "Software Engineer" is getting wider. Articles like this and the comments under it give away who is an Engineer and who is just a coder.

The chasm is 1-5 prompts wide?

Re: Cleaning up after AI rockstar developers

#206

Post by imetatroll »

anonzzzies wrote: post #19

I like fixing code made by AIs and others (outsourcing code is similar as someone else said already). Last week we found out some client tried to vibe some departmental tool; the result is some massive crap in nextjs that needs 10GB mem to compile, has 1000s of lint errors, dev logs in git (very noisy ones) and so on. Now we have to fix it: its basically free 10k-50k euros over and over again for this type of work. V…

So how does one find these sorts of clients?

Re: Cleaning up after AI rockstar developers

#207

Post by anonzzzies »

rfgplk wrote: post #73
anonzzzies wrote: post #19

I like fixing code made by AIs and others (outsourcing code is similar as someone else said already). Last week we found out some client tried to vibe some departmental tool; the result is some massive crap in nextjs that needs 10GB mem to compile, has 1000s of lint errors, dev logs in git (very noisy ones) and so on. Now we have to fix it: its basically free 10k-50k euros over and over again for this type of work. V…

> the result is some massive crap in nextjs that needs 10GB mem to compile, has 1000s of lint errors, dev logs in git (very noisy ones) and so on. The anti-LLM propaganda is getting ridiculous at this point. No project "needs 10GB" to compile, unless you're working with astronomically massive repos, and _no_ LLM will _ever_ generate that. Lint errors (depending on cause) are either meaningless or a result of poor pro…

Well, this is not the first project that has this. Depending what llm/harness and how it is yielded, this happens, a lot. How often have you had Opus 4.x note; ‘485 failed tests, but those are not related to my changes so I will not dive into them’? You believe someone who does not know about tests or code or linting or compilers will push back on that? I know that’s not happening for a fact.

Re: Cleaning up after AI rockstar developers

#208

Post by Yokohiii »

edgarvaldes wrote: post #184
amphitheatre wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tl;dr: "Slow down and think about what you're doing when using an LLM." Saved you five minutes. I was expecting a lot more, or a worked example, or _something_ to that effect. 90% of the text is the author complaining and defining the problem, then a hand-wavy vague solution is presented in the penultimate paragraph. Barely relevant or useful, really.

Almost all opinion pieces are like that. They lack information density, but some readers (like me) like them that way. Otherwise, I'd only read one-line summaries.

I guess some people don't like articles that don't deliver a skill.md to solve a problem.

For me the article is about programmer culture and work ethics, it's hard to discuss with hard facts. Yet sharing this personal experience is valuable.

Re: Cleaning up after AI rockstar developers

#209

Post by anonzzzies »

imetatroll wrote: post #206
anonzzzies wrote: post #19

I like fixing code made by AIs and others (outsourcing code is similar as someone else said already). Last week we found out some client tried to vibe some departmental tool; the result is some massive crap in nextjs that needs 10GB mem to compile, has 1000s of lint errors, dev logs in git (very noisy ones) and so on. Now we have to fix it: its basically free 10k-50k euros over and over again for this type of work. V…

So how does one find these sorts of clients?

We have be in business for 30+ years; clients find us.

Re: Cleaning up after AI rockstar developers

#210

Post by elictronic »

nrmitchi wrote: post #157

> Craftsmanship will always be in our hands, it's one thing we can never outsource to a machine. I'm right there with you, but this last sentence concerned me a bit. In my most other "industries", craftsmanship is not _dead_, but it's been pushed to the wayside for (significantly) cheaper and more available alternatives. You can still get hand-made leather shoes, but very few want to pay $1000+ for them. You can stil…

"software is _unfortunately_ becoming more and more "disposable"[0], in the same way other products are"

Software has been the most disposable object in our lives since you could push a new build over the web. Builds change overnight, new versions every month with small updates. You have it backwards. Software has very little to no regulation compared to physical products and requires little to no effort to change. It has been disposable for decades at this point.

The change is large numbers of developers feel they are becoming disposable.

We will see if that is actually true if any of the AI companies can actually monetize their government cash infusions.

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