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AI-written code is still your code

martiansoftware.com

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Re: AI-written code is still your code

#61

Post by gps372 »

> We’ve never needed to treat understanding our own code as a separate cost from writing it, because writing it largely forced us to understand it.

Completely agree with it.

> I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what software would look like if we made keeping software understandable to humans a first-class design goal in the age of AI.

It is already understandable if you are producing only required and necessary features. Understandability can be managed by scope control and not getting carried away with being able to produce more and more features.

I believe engineering teams will be working on trying to optimize for more engineering accountability in coming years, as the reality is catching up.

Re: AI-written code is still your code

#62

Post by eterm »

lirolero wrote: post #22
eterm wrote: post #3

Yes I'm more than okay. AI has enabled a scale of personal ambition I could only previously have dreamed of. I've never been the kind of coder who could easily sit down and get their thoughts out from mind to written lines. I've seen that happen in a few gifted individuals, and AI might be frustrating them, because for them, coding was never the bottleneck, but for me, I would always get stuck in analysis paralysis,…

> I've never been the kind of coder Looks like you were never really a coder, to be honest.

It's true I've always been better at breaking things than making things, but for someone who was "never really a coder" I've had a good career doing it all the same!

Re: AI-written code is still your code

#64

Post by ryandvm »

Retr0id wrote: post #14

> It’s crystal clear that AI can be a complexity factory. > I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what software would look like if we made keeping software understandable to humans a first-class design goal in the age of AI. I agree, and I've been thinking similarly. But I don't think there's anything "new" about what understandable and well-factored code should look like. It's the same principles as ever. A lot of a…

I think the worst part is that to the bullshit artists that usually float to the top of any org chart, AI generated docs, and implementation plans, and code is superficially plausible. It's hard to find any particular thing that is wrong with all of it - just a general vibe of verbosity. I am observing entire engineering departments drowning in AI generated RFCs and TDDs and thousand plus word Jira tickets and PR reviews and feedback to the PRs. All just Claude talking to itself via various meat-based secretaries.

Meanwhile, as far as leadership is concerned, they don't really understand what is being delivered they just know there's a lot of it. So they're happy - for now.

I think a lot of shops are going to have to go through a couple years of Github-style "why the fuck is our service always down?" before they put 2 and 2 together.

Re: AI-written code is still your code

#65

Post by me2too »

It's yours if during the generation process you correctly used the tool. e.g. You designed the architecture, you reviewed the generated code, you assisted all the development, you decided the type of tests and used your brain to guide the generation.

It's not your code if you just said "implement this" and then you shipped it. It's going to backfire - and if you still think that you own that code... well you're wrong. You're a code custodian rather than a code owner.

Re: AI-written code is still your code

#66

Post by jlawrence6809 »

daveguy wrote: post #26
trvz wrote: post #8

For most people employed as programmers, inheriting code from previous people has been a thing. Also relevant: including libraries written by others in your own software. As always it comes down to finding a healthy balance.

I've inherited plenty of code bases. AI generated code is a special kind of foobar. With a code base inherited from a human you can at least be assured at least one human has understood each portion for a brief period. With agentic slop all bets are off.

Maybe I'm a bad programmer or have worked at places with terrible dev culture, but honestly I've made changes to code I didn't really understand. The changes I made seemed to accomplish the task I was aiming at, but the downstream effects were sometimes impossible for me to grok. Before vibe coding took over, using AI to help me get a handle on what a bunch of code was doing was actually one of the things that sold me on using AI.

Re: AI-written code is still your code

#67

Post by tzs »

trvz wrote: post #8

For most people employed as programmers, inheriting code from previous people has been a thing. Also relevant: including libraries written by others in your own software. As always it comes down to finding a healthy balance.

A big difference with libraries is that (hopefully) a whole lot of other people have used that same library the same way you are going to use it for the same purpose you are using it for. All the significant bugs hopefully were found by them and the library was fixed.

That usually makes it safe to use even if you have no idea how it does things inside.

With AI code there is a very good chance you are the first person to ever use that code.

Re: AI-written code is still your code

#68

Post by thefz »

Before the age of slop we are living in, there were brilliant people who designed, implemented, tested and debugged some very brilliant and enormous codebase that the average HN user would take years to understand at a bird's eye view.

So no, having access to the new fancy model does not make the average person a genius in the same way that having access to Stephen King's typewriter does not make anyone a writer of success.

Re: AI-written code is still your code

#69

Post by jodacola »

> We’ve never needed to treat understanding our own code as a separate cost from writing it, because writing it largely forced us to understand it.

Once a system gets to a certain scale, understanding it has always been a problem; it's just exacerbated in the age of LLMs. On many occasions, I've even seen folks write code they didn't understand, in the hopes that it would solve issues we were experiencing. Sometimes this code shipped. AI has just laid it bare.

I've been working for many months on exactly this problem: a tool to codify and accelerate understanding. Help with prod incidents. Architect better. Get to systematic understanding faster to save businesses valuable time (read: money). This is only getting worse in the AI age, but it has always been a problem for software at scale, and I'm thoroughly enjoying solving problems that I and my teams have had for many years.

Re: AI-written code is still your code

#70

Post by exe34 »

eterm wrote: post #38
majorbugger wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way to completely miss the point of the article.

What was the point to you? What I took away from the article is that AI adds a bunch of complexity that is making it harder, not easier to understand. And I'm saying that is true, but it's also enabling a kind of complexity and ambition in outcomes that might be a worthwhile trade-off. In the same way we accept that cars are no longer something that a mechanic can understand and repair without a laptop, because we tr…

It's useful to you. I'd say take the win and let the haters quibble. I'm good enough at coding that I can use it as part of my day job, but I hate coding for the sake of coding. For me coding is a tool for solving problems, and now AI can sometimes help me solve problems I might not have had the motivation to persue. My scale is usually "a small application that helps me do X", not "I develop photoshop singlehandedly".
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