Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

seangoedecke.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 203 posts

Re: If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

#11

Post by 000ooo000 »

shakna wrote: post #2

> bikeshedding function names ... Function names compose much of the API. The API is the structure of the codebase. This isn't some triviality you can throw aside as unimportant, it is the shape that the code has today, and limits and controls what it will have tomorrow. It's how you make things intuitive, and it is equally how you ensure people follow a correct flow and don't trap themselves into a security bug.

This blog gets posted often but the content is usually lousy. Lots of specious assertions about the nature of software development that really give off a "I totally have this figured out" vibe. I can't help but feel that anyone who feels so about this young industry that changes so rapidly and is so badly performed at so many places, is yet to summit Mt. Stupid.

Re: If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

#12

Post by sublinear »

> If you’re a nitpicky code reviewer, I think you will struggle to use AI tooling effectively. [...] Likewise, if you’re a rubber-stamp code reviewer, you’re probably going to put too much trust in the AI tooling.

So in other words, if you are good at code review you are also good enough at writing code that you will be better off writing it yourself for projects you will be responsible for maintaining long term. This is true for almost all of them if you work at a sane place or actually care about your personal projects. Writing code for you is not a chore and you can write it as fluently and quickly as anything else.

Your time "using AI" is much better spent filling in the blanks when you're unfamiliar with a certain tool or need to discover a new one. In short, you just need a few google searches a day... just like it ever was.

I will admit that modern LLMs have made life easier here. AI summaries on search engines have indeed improved to the point where I almost always get my answer and I no longer get hung up meat-parsing poorly written docs or get nerd-sniped pondering irrelevant information.

Re: If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

#13

Post by cmrdporcupine »

QuantumNoodle wrote: post #10

Code review is part of the job, but one of the least enjoyable parts. Developers like _writing_ and that gives the most job satisfaction. AI tools are helpful, but inherently increases the amount of code we have to review with more scrutiny than my colleagues because of how unpredictable - yet convincing - it can be. Why did we create tools that do the fun part and increase the non-fun part? Where are the "code-revie…

If you have a paid Copilot membership and a Github project you can request a code review from Copilot. And it doesn't do a terrible job, actually.

Re: If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

#14

Post by fhd2 »

lapcat wrote: post #9

If you are good at code review, you will also be good at not using AI agents.

This. Having had the pleasure to review the work and fix the bugs of agent jockeys (generally capable developers that fell in love with Claude Code et al), I'm rather sceptical. The code often looks as if they were on mushrooms. They cannot reason about it whatsoever, like they weren't even involved, when I know they weren't completely hands off.

I really believe there are people out there that produce good code with these things, but all I've seen so far has been tragic.

Luckily, I've witnessed a few snap out of it and care again. Literally looks to me as if they had a substance abuse problem for a couple of months.

If you take a critical look at what comes out of contemporary agentic workflows, I think the conclusion must be that it's not there. So yeah, if you're a good reviewer, you would perhaps come to that conclusion much sooner.

Re: If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

#15

Post by phito »

QuantumNoodle wrote: post #10

Code review is part of the job, but one of the least enjoyable parts. Developers like _writing_ and that gives the most job satisfaction. AI tools are helpful, but inherently increases the amount of code we have to review with more scrutiny than my colleagues because of how unpredictable - yet convincing - it can be. Why did we create tools that do the fun part and increase the non-fun part? Where are the "code-revie…

Because the goal of "AI" is not to have fun, it's to solve problems and increase productivity. I have fun programming too, but you have to realize the world isn't optimizing make things more fun.

Re: If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

#16

Post by rollulus »

I have received a few LLM produced PRs from peers from adjacent teams, in good faith but not familiar with the project, and they increasingly infuriate me. They were all garbage, but there’s a great asymmetry: it costs my peers nothing to generate them, it costs me precious time to refute them. And what can I do really? Saying “it’s irreparable garbage because the syntax might be right but it’s conceptually nonsense” but that’s not the most constructive take.

Re: If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

#17

Post by fhd2 »

phito wrote: post #15
QuantumNoodle wrote: post #10

Code review is part of the job, but one of the least enjoyable parts. Developers like _writing_ and that gives the most job satisfaction. AI tools are helpful, but inherently increases the amount of code we have to review with more scrutiny than my colleagues because of how unpredictable - yet convincing - it can be. Why did we create tools that do the fun part and increase the non-fun part? Where are the "code-revie…

Because the goal of "AI" is not to have fun, it's to solve problems and increase productivity. I have fun programming too, but you have to realize the world isn't optimizing make things more fun.

I hear you, but without any enjoyment in the process, quality and productivity go down the drain real fast.

The Ironies of Automation paper is something I mention a lot, the core thesis is that making humans review / rubber stamp automation reduces their work quality. People just aren't wired to do boring stuff well.

Re: If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

#18

Post by simonw »

QuantumNoodle wrote: post #10

Code review is part of the job, but one of the least enjoyable parts. Developers like _writing_ and that gives the most job satisfaction. AI tools are helpful, but inherently increases the amount of code we have to review with more scrutiny than my colleagues because of how unpredictable - yet convincing - it can be. Why did we create tools that do the fun part and increase the non-fun part? Where are the "code-revie…

> Where are the "code-review" agents at?

OpenAI's Codex Cloud just added a new feature for code review, and their new GPT-5-Codex model has been specifically trained for code review: https://openai.com/index/introducing-upgrades-to-codex/

Gemini and Claude both have code review features that work via GitHub Actions: https://developers.google.com/gemini-code-assist/docs/review... and https://docs.claude.com/en/docs/claude-code/github-actions

GitHub have their own version of this pattern too: https://github.blog/changelog/2025-04-04-copilot-code-review...

There are also a whole lot of dedicated code review startups like https://coderabbit.ai/ and https://www.greptile.com/ and https://www.qodo.ai/products/qodo-merge/

Re: If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

#19

Post by esperent »

rollulus wrote: post #16

I have received a few LLM produced PRs from peers from adjacent teams, in good faith but not familiar with the project, and they increasingly infuriate me. They were all garbage, but there’s a great asymmetry: it costs my peers nothing to generate them, it costs me precious time to refute them. And what can I do really? Saying “it’s irreparable garbage because the syntax might be right but it’s conceptually nonsense”…

You could use an LLM to give you advice on how to present that take in a more constructive manner.

Partially sarcastic but I do personally use LLMs to guide my communication in very limited cases:

1. It's purely business related, and

2. I'm feeling too emotionally invested (or more likely, royally pissed off) and don't trust myself to write in a professional manner, and

3. I genuinely want the message to sound cold, corporate, and unemotional

Number 3 would fit you here. These people are not being respectful to you in presenting code for review that respects your time. Why should you take the time to write back personally?

It should be noted that this accounts for maybe 5% of my business communications, and I'm careful not to let that number grow.

Re: If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

#20

Post by simonw »

glimshe wrote: post #3
shakna wrote: post #2

> bikeshedding function names ... Function names compose much of the API. The API is the structure of the codebase. This isn't some triviality you can throw aside as unimportant, it is the shape that the code has today, and limits and controls what it will have tomorrow. It's how you make things intuitive, and it is equally how you ensure people follow a correct flow and don't trap themselves into a security bug.

I think I'd actually have a use for an AI that could receive my empty public APIs (such as a C++ header file) as an input and produce a first rough implementation. Maybe this exists already, I don't know because I haven't done any serious vibe coding.

The leading models have been very good at this for over a year now. Try copying one your existing C++ header files into GPT-5 or Claude 4 or Gemini 2.5 as an experiment and see how they do.
Post reply on HN