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Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

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Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#41

Post by shakna »

user43928 wrote: post #31

The article says what many here like to hear, but in my opinion the core arguments are false. > Making software debuggable, maintainable, layered, and composable – that’s still quite a trick Not really. I have been working on a mobile app for months, and I stopped even glancing at the code about two months ago. 150k LOC, around half of that in tests, and the AI still has no problem maintaining the code on my behalf.…

Prompt injection. Solved.

But accidentally breaking systems is not an issue either, obviously. Even though the system prompt asks for safety rails, and other prompts wouldn't accidentally violate that.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-10/ai-assistant-hacks-gy...

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#42

Post by yoz-y »

mortalapeman wrote: post #5

With generated code, the directory structure, interface design and general state management is usually a haphazard mess. Even with the best frontier models. But what really gets me is the model often tries to make assumptions for me that I didn't specify in the prompt. Subtle things like which error states are "oh shit we need to bail" vs "this isn't a deal breaker." Sometimes it will ask, but more often than not it…

It absolutely hates code that would crash or error in any circumstance. So it adds a ton of dubious fallbacks.

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#43

Post by aryehof »

mortalapeman wrote: post #5

With generated code, the directory structure, interface design and general state management is usually a haphazard mess. Even with the best frontier models. But what really gets me is the model often tries to make assumptions for me that I didn't specify in the prompt. Subtle things like which error states are "oh shit we need to bail" vs "this isn't a deal breaker." Sometimes it will ask, but more often than not it…

> But what really gets me is the model often tries to make assumptions for me that I didn't specify in the prompt.

This is a problem with your instructions, your specification. An LLM isn't a mind reader. It will attempt to succeed regardless of missing requirements and ambiguity.

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#45

Post by Alien1Being »

mortalapeman wrote: post #5

With generated code, the directory structure, interface design and general state management is usually a haphazard mess. Even with the best frontier models. But what really gets me is the model often tries to make assumptions for me that I didn't specify in the prompt. Subtle things like which error states are "oh shit we need to bail" vs "this isn't a deal breaker." Sometimes it will ask, but more often than not it…

Surely this is a solvable problem.

If the average, mediocre software developer can address the issue of directory structure, interface design, general state management, edge cases and subtle assumptions it should be possible to train AI systems to address these issues .

Software development is not some mystical magical activity.

I remember people making similar arguments about autonomous driving...

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#46

Post by hugodan »

Alien1Being wrote: post #38

AI generated code is like IKEA furniture. IKEA furniture embodies many elements of good cabinet making but skips many nonessential elements. And does this more consistently than cabinet makers who can be bored, incompetent, depressed, burnt out, resentful, tired, having a bad day. In the future AI code inevitably will embody most good software engineering practices. And will do this more consistently than software en…

...ah the classic middle manager analogy of code is X, where X is nothing like code at all but is being used to drive a point that is just standing on poor grounds.

keep it, we have been through "is like building a house", "like following a recipe", "like a living organism", "like $SOMETHING_WITH_COMPONENTS", etc...

we can handle your IKEA furniture, thanks you for your contribution

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#47

Post by chrisjj »

mortalapeman wrote: post #5

With generated code, the directory structure, interface design and general state management is usually a haphazard mess. Even with the best frontier models. But what really gets me is the model often tries to make assumptions for me that I didn't specify in the prompt. Subtle things like which error states are "oh shit we need to bail" vs "this isn't a deal breaker." Sometimes it will ask, but more often than not it…

> more often than not it will just make a decision and it's often the wrong one.

Let's not forget these chatbots rely on a random number generator to pick output options.

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#48

Post by amelius »

Alien1Being wrote: post #38

AI generated code is like IKEA furniture. IKEA furniture embodies many elements of good cabinet making but skips many nonessential elements. And does this more consistently than cabinet makers who can be bored, incompetent, depressed, burnt out, resentful, tired, having a bad day. In the future AI code inevitably will embody most good software engineering practices. And will do this more consistently than software en…

Having not been formally verified, almost all software today feels cheap. Maybe an AI can change that at some point.

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#50

Post by chrisjj »

anon48293 wrote: post #37
necovek wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't, which is exactly the point: we do not yet understand the fundamentals behind reasoning.

Don’t we? We can build something which has all the output associated with reasoning. I’d say we’ve figured out the fundamentals behind reasoning.

> We can build something which has all the output associated with reasoning.

Sure. A photocopier fed with a maths paper.

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