slop article
Software development with AI is starting to feel like cooking steak
51–60 of 439 posts
Re: Software development with AI is starting to feel like cooking steak
#52I prefer the other end of the curve (if that makes sense) where something is time consuming and hard to make at home YET you can get it incredibly cheap comparatively and in good quality in a restuarant. Ramen is the prime example of that.
Ramen may still be somewhat of a novelty where I live, and I would not call it cheap. Though now that I put that into words, a decent burger anywhere is about the same price..
> and I would not call it cheap
It is compared to the cost of making an authentic ramen broth at home at the scale of feeding 2-4 people. Pho has a similar property. I've made homemade pho broth once and it was very hard work, fairly costly, and it resulted in something that was pretty good, but not comparable in quality or price to something I could have bought in a restaurant down the street. (admittedly typically also cheaper that ramen)
Re: Software development with AI is starting to feel like cooking steak
#53I take the point, but I think the author picked a poor analogy. Cooking even an excellent steak is actually not that hard. In fact, I'd argue that it's among the easiest things to master/make at a top level quality at home. Does it require some modicum of attention and understanding? Sure. But starting with a high quality cut, owning a meat-thermometer, and knowing about reverse searing is about all it takes to relia…
I'm more of a coffee nerd than a steak aficionado but I've often made the comparison between those two. In both cases, the enthusiast considers their skill in making coffee/cooking steak to be a differentiator and they immerse themselves deeply into the process, skills, and tools. But for both coffee beans and steak the most important factor for a good end product is starting with high quality inputs. In other words, most of the work is being done by the farmers, the processors, and the quality of the raw stock (the cow or the coffee plant). Your job at the very end of that long value adding chain is to not ruin the hard work that others have put into it.
I'm not sure if this analogy holds up in the AI software metaphor that the author of the blog post is making.
Re: Software development with AI is starting to feel like cooking steak
#54I think most people on this board would agree with the thesis. However the real problem is when the owner of the restaurant looks at profit and loss statements and decides to keep less chefs on the payroll because customers are willing to pay for (just) edible steak. The reduced expectations of steak, the desire for the perfect steak, are all fading to the background because "just passing satisfactorily" is better fo…
Why is that a problem?
I love a good medium-rare prime steak, but I also used to live near a restaurant called Best Steak House, which was anything but. However, they delivered a passable steak/steak sandwich that was worth what you paid for it. And considering that they were in business for decades, probably most people felt the same way.
A great steak is an occasional luxury; a "just edible" one is an everyday meal.
Re: Software development with AI is starting to feel like cooking steak
#55I hope and believe that some great companies and teams will use LLMs to build higher quality software. We built Electron because writing UIs using native desktop frameworks is tough. Is it still tough? Surely LLMs make it easier to use and so we will end up with faster and more native feeling applications. What about having a couple of ideas of what might make a feature feel good? Well now you can make multiple proto…
You would think so. But it seems all that everyone is obsessed with is increasing the velocity of enshitification in the hopes of becoming the next papa Elon
Re: Software development with AI is starting to feel like cooking steak
#56I take the point, but I think the author picked a poor analogy. Cooking even an excellent steak is actually not that hard. In fact, I'd argue that it's among the easiest things to master/make at a top level quality at home. Does it require some modicum of attention and understanding? Sure. But starting with a high quality cut, owning a meat-thermometer, and knowing about reverse searing is about all it takes to relia…
I also don't think the analogy will age well.
It might take more than 10 years, but robots will almost certainly master cooking single pieces of meat.
It's substantially harder to reach self driving than it is to cook a "good" steak.
Sure, for probably quite a long time you'll be able to find someone who can cook a way better steak than the best robot, especially because taste is extremely subjective...
You can debate the horizon and the extent, but changes ARE coming.
Change is the only thing you can count on besides death.
Re: Software development with AI is starting to feel like cooking steak
#57Who can afford a steak today without taking out a loan?
I think a certain restaurant chain might have something to say about this
Re: Software development with AI is starting to feel like cooking steak
#58Using Claude Code is like asking questions in online forums, if anyone remember that, we still have sites like Stack overflow. The difference now is that those asking the questions are actually paying for the answers.
Re: Software development with AI is starting to feel like cooking steak
#59I take the point, but I think the author picked a poor analogy. Cooking even an excellent steak is actually not that hard. In fact, I'd argue that it's among the easiest things to master/make at a top level quality at home. Does it require some modicum of attention and understanding? Sure. But starting with a high quality cut, owning a meat-thermometer, and knowing about reverse searing is about all it takes to relia…
I was just curious asked chatgpt: How can I make a really great steak myself? What to look out for, what to do. Give me detailed instructions. I got a really good answer (including - cut, temperature and reverse searing), so I probably won't even need understanding. (Oh - and yes, I can cook - the answer mirrors what I already know). Yes, it was a very, very poor analogy, because cooking a steak is a well known and w…
AI has proved several times they can prove some complex math things that humans have been trying for decades so solve. They have not failed and have clearly done complex things humans cannot. Since humans have not done it before you cannot call it on the beaten path.
Re: Software development with AI is starting to feel like cooking steak
#60I do not appreciate when authors use the royal "we" to speak for all software engineers when admitting to low quality-control standards. I suspect that it is an attempt to broach an uncomfortable topic through vulnerable self-disclosure, but we need to be serious about admitting when there is a problem somewhere. "Bugs" are not any more cute or fuzzy or entertaining or harmless than the engine "gremlins" that haunted…
I just want to point out this is not a royal "we". It's a regular "we". Royal "we" is when you say "we" but mean a singular person, yourself. Here, the author does actually mean multiple people beyond themselves - like you pointed out, they claim to speak for all software engineers.
the wicked we