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Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

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Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#201

Post by swat535 »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #148
jader201 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But a big yes for still typing code by hand, and not leaving it to the llm. Except it has to be the code generated by your brain. > That is what will create new neurons and new connections, which is what will keep away the cognitive decline. 100% agree with this. The problem is, your employer doesn’t care whether your brain is creating new neurons and connections. They care about productivity and profit. I feel lik…

> I feel like the folks that believe we can continue to write code by hand are either in denial that LLMs will eventually (if not already) outperform handwritten code, or are in denial that employers will be ok with lower levels of productivity. Cooking a steak and then flushing it straight down the toilet outperforms all the slow and tedious business of eating and digesting it, too. Why should I use an LLM to write…

> It cannot do the job I want it to.

I mean in your case, you are not able to use LLMs effectively to build features, so you should type the code by hand.

However, upper management is excited about AI because it can push features quickly to production. Granted, they will be giant balls of slop but they don't care. As long as it works in the UI, they are happy.

If no one could get anything done with AI, there wouldn't be billions invested i n it.

Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#202

Post by mahami »

In my love(?)-hate relationship with "vibecoding", even I tried this approach. For a while it worked, though that "while" didn't last as long as the months OOP has been riding this wave. Though, the vibes have usually been off, so I wish I could keep both thinking of and writing that code which adds negligibly to shareholder value. I say "wish" because a part of me has definitely been hijacked, in much the same way as the addictive type of social media. Sometimes I feel like I need a serious intervention.

Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#203

Post by SoftTalker »

jader201 wrote: post #164
clarionbell wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like there is an unspoken assumption of long term maintainability when it comes to LLM generated software. We are still very early in this, so I don't want to make assumptions. In principle, it shouldn't be impossible to both write and maintain stable software, purely with agents. At least, I'm not aware of any actual reasons, backed by a proper theory. On the other hand. I've noticed some persistent issues wi…

I agree with everything you said. I’m simply playing devil’s advocate, because engineers can believe one thing, but until employers believe it, it doesn’t matter much. I’m also not convinced that the reality of LLMs will never catch up with what employers think they can do. It may never happen, but it very well could. Either way, I feel the days of employers being ok with handwriting code are limited.

The complexity of code is combinatorial. Code is harder to understand than it is to create. The LLMs will be creating code that they will not (nor will any human) be able to understand later, or it won't be the same understanding that was used to create it. We'll find that systems that were created with LLM code will be impossible for LLMs to contextualize, or will be cost-prohibitive to do so.

Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#204

Post by tdeck »

bandrami wrote: post #23

As an aside, back in the days of Stack Exchange I would always type out manually whatever answer I found to make sure I understood WTF I was adding to the system.

I did this too. Almost always I'd rename variables, change formatting, add or remove comments, etc..

Unfortunately this feels less easy to do with modern tools. For example, Claude Code expects to edit your actual source files, and the Claude chat is much worse at writing code.

Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#205

Post by swat535 »

clarionbell wrote: post #158
jader201 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But a big yes for still typing code by hand, and not leaving it to the llm. Except it has to be the code generated by your brain. > That is what will create new neurons and new connections, which is what will keep away the cognitive decline. 100% agree with this. The problem is, your employer doesn’t care whether your brain is creating new neurons and connections. They care about productivity and profit. I feel lik…

I feel like there is an unspoken assumption of long term maintainability when it comes to LLM generated software. We are still very early in this, so I don't want to make assumptions. In principle, it shouldn't be impossible to both write and maintain stable software, purely with agents. At least, I'm not aware of any actual reasons, backed by a proper theory. On the other hand. I've noticed some persistent issues wi…

> long term maintainability

Did business ever cared about this? Like ever?.. I've seen too many code bases with awful code by humans, now AI simply exacerbated the issue but this is nothing new in our field.

I just don't see how this is going to be a battle engineering departments can win. As long as AI is brining money to the business, they are not going to listen.

Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#208

Post by SoftTalker »

chubot wrote: post #196
iwontberude wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a moot point. In Mag7 companies internal code gets thrown away within 2 years on average because of contract negotiations, new opensource projects that obviate need for the internal codebase, license changes, layoffs, etc, etc. We don't need long term maintainability because its already on its way to the garbage bin. Frankly it's always been this way.

Its' the exact opposite ... Google, nVidia, Amazon, Apple, etc. all have a deep bench of code that is a moat. They have lots of throwaway code too, but those companies are precisely the ones that pay attention to code quality, and comprehensibility by experts A rough proxy for this would be if they say contribute to the C++ standards process, which Google Microsoft nVidia do, and basically zero "normal" companies (sa…

"Contribute" is an interesting word, since those companies are so big they can just dictate the standards they prefer. Also they are so big and have so much cash pouring in that they can afford to pay employees with nothing better to do than spend time drafting C++ standards. The average normal SaaS company is hoping they can make payroll next month.

Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#209

Post by packetlost »

WhyComboNadir wrote: post #170

Lots of reactions here, but if it works for you then that's great. For me I feel that LLMs have exploded (in a good way) my cognitive capabilities. I'm now the general of an army, rather than playing the role of a soldier. Of course that means that I lose the experience of being the lonely soldier, but it is a no-brainer tradeoff for me. Anyway, I have to go now so I can push my car to the grocery store (so I don't f…

Unfortunately coding is a perishable skill, unlike walking which is at least partially ingrained into our DNA.

Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#210

Post by mythrwy »

swat535 wrote: post #205
clarionbell wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like there is an unspoken assumption of long term maintainability when it comes to LLM generated software. We are still very early in this, so I don't want to make assumptions. In principle, it shouldn't be impossible to both write and maintain stable software, purely with agents. At least, I'm not aware of any actual reasons, backed by a proper theory. On the other hand. I've noticed some persistent issues wi…

> long term maintainability Did business ever cared about this? Like ever?.. I've seen too many code bases with awful code by humans, now AI simply exacerbated the issue but this is nothing new in our field. I just don't see how this is going to be a battle engineering departments can win. As long as AI is brining money to the business, they are not going to listen.

LLMs aren't perfect and they have problems, but often they write better code than humans. At least this human.

It seems they run into problems with larger concepts and general organization and need guidance at the moment but for a single code file they often do better then I would have.

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