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Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

ankursethi.com

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

#281

Post by gwynforthewyn »

baq wrote: post #89
ozgrakkurt wrote: post #9

You are cooked if you can’t actually write better code than llm. Try reading some books or documentation

Frontier LLMs write better code at CRUD tasks than 95% of developers today. They’ll get to 95% of most niche coding domains by December and likely all coding tasks sometime next year; 99% better at all tasks by December 2028. You may be correct now and it doesn’t matter one bit.

We’ve been hearing the drumbeat that these models are already better than $INVENT_A_NUMBER percentage of developers at $SOME_SMALL_TASK for several years. I haven’t seen that it’s actually true yet personally.

What I do see is that the frontier models can get easy stuff mostly right, but they can’t maintain a small codebase such that it behaves correctly across several mutations. When the going requires a lot of context, tests get rewritten to not do anything and features that manipulate similar data get divergent implementations. That’s fine for goofing around personally, but I see vibe coders getting their asses handed to them when they mistake that for a well maintained codebase and try to sell a product.

Please, don’t mistake an impressive technology for a miracle; there will still be people needed to make codebases healthy for a long time to come.

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

#282

Post by alex7o »

To be honest I am thinking of an entirly different situation, ask the llm to create Red tests for you. Then implement them yourself. You don't waste time writing tests but you still need to spec what you implement properly so the llm can write good tests for it

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

#284

Post by champagnepapi »

VCFundedGenYer wrote: post #283

Just write the code. This weird obsessive dependence on LLMs doing everything will ruin you as a developer and prevent you from progressing in the industry when the AI bubble/fad pops. Don't let your skills atrophy.

agreed!

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

#285

Post by GeorgeWBasic »

eudamoniac wrote: post #263
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…

It is game theory optimal to use LLMs as little as possible even if your employer wants you to use it. The less you use it, the more competitive you are in the market, and probably also in your current workplace, LLM usage metrics notwithstanding. This fact will remain true forever, even if LLMs always outperform handwritten code and all employers want you to use them. Probably what you want to do is use it a lot whe…

Interesting idea. I hope you're right: but have you tested this idea on the job market?

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

#286

Post by recursive »

munksbeer wrote: post #250
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If an LLM writes better code than you, that says more about you than anything else (either your ability to write code or your ability to evaluate LLMs). The code they write is garbage.

> The code they write is garbage. This is trolling right?

No. Sometimes they produce code that's ok in small units, but definitely not all the time.

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

#288

Post by cleverKnight »

> I fear the software industry is taking on a large amount of cognitive debt that we'll have to pay back very soon. There will come a time when we no longer understand how large parts of our digital infrastructure are put together. I might not personally be able to change the course of the entire industry, but I can at least make sure I completely understand the software I put out into the world. Anything else would be professional malpractice.

"professional malpractice" LOL. This is so dumb. I can't believe this shit is getting upvoted.

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

#289

Post by daun_gee »

tp3358 wrote: post #229
podgietaru wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think so, because it’s being used as a way to try to remedy one of the new problems brought in by agentic coding - loss of context of what code does.

But if the code base is constructed in a way which results in strong test suites (human driven), quality evals, robust documentation, and modular implementation, will the human really lose that much context? Given that those things are checked off, I am having a tough time believing a frontier model, in conjunction with a new dev on a project, can't be immediately valuable to determining what is going on in a repo.

[dead]

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

#290

Post by ErroneousBosh »

swat535 wrote: post #201
ErroneousBosh wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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

I never write code sitting at a computer. Mostly I write it in the car, when I have no distractions. I just type it in when I'm sitting at the computer.

I've been using Claude as an experiment for some "fun" projects that I'm unlikely to release, just to see how it is.

The thing is, at least for the stuff where it's getting deep into the far edges of synthesizer firmware, disk image decoding, audio generation and the like, Claude is mostly just quoting my own github repositories back to me.

So, I guess I'm doing something right then, or maybe I'm doing it wrong.

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