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Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

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Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#121

Post by vjvjvjvjghv »

samiv wrote: post #78
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…

What a sad analogy. IKEA furniture is mostly cheap particle board crap and it's a shame that we as a humanity have cheapened our lives to the point where IKEA is some kind of standard (and the only thing) most people can afford. Back in the day furniture was artisanal and hand made yet people were able to afford and have it. Isn't that in fact weird, supposedly our societies are richer than ever before but most peopl…

Back in the day artisans took care of horses and new have cheapened ourselves to use stinky cars. Back in the day we built computers with relays by hand, now we have cheapened ourselves to use weird semiconductors and use inefficient python code instead of highly optimized hand crafted assembly.

Maybe we should go back to hunting and gathering?

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#122

Post by ACCount37 »

ed_elliott_asc wrote: post #66
siva7 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wake up, slopinthebag. wake up..

You think LLM’s will be more than a tool?

Do you think that you can continuously train LLMs for more and more complex and more and more agentic tasks without them becoming "more than a tool"?

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#123

Post by voidhorse »

user43928 wrote: post #82
skydhash wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile people here are posting the thesis that agentic development without careful code review results in an unmaintainable application. > I theorize that this is not something they experienced in practice, because it did not happen for me. Are you currently maintaining the application? Like it's in production with paying users? You've only been on the app for 4 months. Compare that to something like Emacs that…

By that standard, we could have AGI tomorrow, and I should still not comment. No, my app is not published yet. It will probably take another month, with hopefully no complications arising out of the AppStore review process. Then, I hope the ad campaign financials work out to compete with old apps of a lower quality that already boast no less than a million reviews. I get it, you want me to make a case that can object…

But can't you see how coming out with a strong statement like "i've been doing this, it works" before your app even has a single user and before you've had to contend with any externally filed bug reports and keep the app stable as you fix those and add new features isn't very reasonable?

If anything there are clear counter example to your claim, such as the major provider agent harnesses which are all almost always fully vibe coded, and riddled with bugs and regressions that make using them painful for users. The only reason people put up with it is because competition in the space is still limited.

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#124

Post by graemep »

DanielHB wrote: post #98
samiv wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a sad analogy. IKEA furniture is mostly cheap particle board crap and it's a shame that we as a humanity have cheapened our lives to the point where IKEA is some kind of standard (and the only thing) most people can afford. Back in the day furniture was artisanal and hand made yet people were able to afford and have it. Isn't that in fact weird, supposedly our societies are richer than ever before but most peopl…

I disagree with this sentiment, IKEA furniture is much more sustainable than artisanal furniture. Most of the "back in the day" furniture came from tearing down virgin woods. Sorting + shredding-recycling + making new "cheap particle board crap" furniture takes a lot of energy, but not a lot of non-renewable resources. With increased electrification this problem is being drastically reduced and the wood is sourced fr…

> Most of the "back in the day" furniture came from tearing down virgin woods. Sorting + shredding-recycling + making new "cheap particle board crap" furniture takes a lot of energy, but not a lot of non-renewable resources.

It also lasted a lot longer. I have inherited furniture that must be around a 100 years old now and a lot that is over 50 years old and doing fine. A lot of my friends have older (even hundreds of years old in a fe cases). A lot of IKEA furniture will go in a decade or less, and they are far from the worst ­- I have chucked out furniture after three or four years. My IKEA wardrobe has deteriorated after five years.

You do not have to make better furniture by chopping down virgin woods. You can get timber from well managed forests. It is also an incentive to grow trees to maturity. You can upcycle things (the largest bit of old furniture I have got rid of went to someone who did just that). You can make better furniture by better use of recycled materials.

> particle board will be much lighter than "normal wood" furniture

It slowly buckles under load which is bad for things like bookshelves.

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#125

Post by classified »

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…

> Good enough to vastly reduce the need for fine craftsmen and women / software engineers.

By your own description: No. Maybe good enough to replace mediocre-and-worse developers, at best. You have to invest disproportionate work to coax better-than-mediocre work out of an LLM.

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#126

Post by ben_w »

quietbritishjim wrote: post #57
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…

The problem with this analogy (actually one of many) is that most people can make do with a cabinet that is literally identical to everyone else's. IKEA is great for that. If you want software that is literally identical to what someone else is using then you don't need AI. You need a license to that software! That is just the traditional software model. AI gives software that is bespoke with hundreds of decisions ma…

Depends on the business. I can easily see Generic Local Späti being fine to replace a mediocre hand-made spreadsheet of what products they've got in stock with a vibe-coded database that can OCR all the business copy of receipts from the till, while also vibe-coding a website and logo that's far less bad than the thing they got by asking their kid's schoolfriend to make both of them on the cheap in the 2015 summer holiday.

Most businesses are small. Most of the employment isn't in small businesses.

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#127

Post by LtWorf »

samiv wrote: post #78
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…

What a sad analogy. IKEA furniture is mostly cheap particle board crap and it's a shame that we as a humanity have cheapened our lives to the point where IKEA is some kind of standard (and the only thing) most people can afford. Back in the day furniture was artisanal and hand made yet people were able to afford and have it. Isn't that in fact weird, supposedly our societies are richer than ever before but most peopl…

Ikea sells quality stuff as well. Also it's good that we can now afford furniture where our ancestors would have a couple of chairs and a half broken table passed down for generations.

Personally I'm quite happy that dropping a plate on the ground isn't a terrible event.

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#128

Post by LtWorf »

graemep wrote: post #124
DanielHB wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with this sentiment, IKEA furniture is much more sustainable than artisanal furniture. Most of the "back in the day" furniture came from tearing down virgin woods. Sorting + shredding-recycling + making new "cheap particle board crap" furniture takes a lot of energy, but not a lot of non-renewable resources. With increased electrification this problem is being drastically reduced and the wood is sourced fr…

> Most of the "back in the day" furniture came from tearing down virgin woods. Sorting + shredding-recycling + making new "cheap particle board crap" furniture takes a lot of energy, but not a lot of non-renewable resources. It also lasted a lot longer. I have inherited furniture that must be around a 100 years old now and a lot that is over 50 years old and doing fine. A lot of my friends have older (even hundreds o…

You've never seen ikea furniture if you think it lasts less than a decade.

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#129

Post by LtWorf »

mattmanser wrote: post #106
DanielHB wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with this sentiment, IKEA furniture is much more sustainable than artisanal furniture. Most of the "back in the day" furniture came from tearing down virgin woods. Sorting + shredding-recycling + making new "cheap particle board crap" furniture takes a lot of energy, but not a lot of non-renewable resources. With increased electrification this problem is being drastically reduced and the wood is sourced fr…

This seems delusional to me, being older and more experienced with how long IKEA stuff actually lasts. 8 years is long for IKEA furniture, usually something has irreplaceablely broken by then. IKEA also refuse to sell you spare parts. Give me real furniture anyday.

Quite a long comment to write that you've never once seen ikea furniture.

Re: Software Engineering fundamentals matter more

#130

Post by mrkeen »

amelius wrote: post #51

But do the same SWE fundamentals apply if the one doing the programming is many times smarter than us?

It wouldn't make sense to confuse attributes of the software with attributes of the programmer.

Otherwise, one could simply declare one's IQ in a const somewhere, and have all unit tests follow the form: if the programmer's IQ is high enough, then the method under test is likely correct.

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