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Software design is now cheap

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Re: Software design is now cheap

#11

Post by lelanthran »

jascha_eng wrote: post #10

This is a great take. It applies the SaaS is dead theory at a lower level (libraries are dead) but has it a much more nuanced view. Yeh even if LLMs are 10x better than today you probably still don't want to implement cryptography from scratch, but use a library. I also like the 3d printing analogy. We will see how good LLMs get, but I will say that a lot of AI coded tools today have the same feeling as 3d printed ha…

> It looks good on the surface but if you use it for something serious it does break.

That's LLMs extending C and C++ Undefined Behaviour to every project regardless of language.

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EDIT: I tried articulating it in a blog post in a sleep-deprived frenzy of writing on Sunday - https://www.lelanthran.com/chap14/content.html

Re: Software design is now cheap

#12

Post by mikert89 »

jascha_eng wrote: post #10

This is a great take. It applies the SaaS is dead theory at a lower level (libraries are dead) but has it a much more nuanced view. Yeh even if LLMs are 10x better than today you probably still don't want to implement cryptography from scratch, but use a library. I also like the 3d printing analogy. We will see how good LLMs get, but I will say that a lot of AI coded tools today have the same feeling as 3d printed ha…

The time might come when the ai just writes things like http request parsers and crypto libraries on the fly. And it will be somewhat normal

Re: Software design is now cheap

#13

Post by [deleted] »

amluto wrote: post #8

This article is lumps design and implementation together. In my experience, LLMs are really quite bad at designing anything interesting. They are sort of tolerable at implementation — they’re remarkably persistent (compared to humans, anyway), they will tirelessly use whatever framework, good or bad, you throw at them, and they will produce code that is quite painful to look at. And they’ll say that they’re architect…

[deleted]

Re: Software design is now cheap

#14

Post by kristjansson »

mikert89 wrote: post #12
jascha_eng wrote: post #10

This is a great take. It applies the SaaS is dead theory at a lower level (libraries are dead) but has it a much more nuanced view. Yeh even if LLMs are 10x better than today you probably still don't want to implement cryptography from scratch, but use a library. I also like the 3d printing analogy. We will see how good LLMs get, but I will say that a lot of AI coded tools today have the same feeling as 3d printed ha…

The time might come when the ai just writes things like http request parsers and crypto libraries on the fly. And it will be somewhat normal

Wh … why would we want that?

Re: Software design is now cheap

#15

Post by ekropotin »

amluto wrote: post #8

This article is lumps design and implementation together. In my experience, LLMs are really quite bad at designing anything interesting. They are sort of tolerable at implementation — they’re remarkably persistent (compared to humans, anyway), they will tirelessly use whatever framework, good or bad, you throw at them, and they will produce code that is quite painful to look at. And they’ll say that they’re architect…

>LLMs are really quite bad at designing anything interesting

Let’s be honest, how many devs are actually creating something interesting/unique at their work?

Most of the time, our job is just picking the right combination of well-known patterns to make the best possible trade-offs while fulfilling the requirements.

Re: Software design is now cheap

#17

Post by majormajor »

mikert89 wrote: post #12
jascha_eng wrote: post #10

This is a great take. It applies the SaaS is dead theory at a lower level (libraries are dead) but has it a much more nuanced view. Yeh even if LLMs are 10x better than today you probably still don't want to implement cryptography from scratch, but use a library. I also like the 3d printing analogy. We will see how good LLMs get, but I will say that a lot of AI coded tools today have the same feeling as 3d printed ha…

The time might come when the ai just writes things like http request parsers and crypto libraries on the fly. And it will be somewhat normal

This seems like today's version of "I could write Facebook in a weekend."

What are the incentives for doing that? What are the incentives for everyone else to move?

So if proven things exist for basics, what's the incentive to not use them? If everyone decides they're too heavy, they could make and publish new libraries and tools would pick those up. And since they're old, the feature-set is probably more nuanced than you expect. YAGNI is a motto for doing less to avoid creating code debt, but writing more net new code to avoid using a stable and proven library doesn't fit that.

Re: Software design is now cheap

#18

Post by mikert89 »

kristjansson wrote: post #14
mikert89 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The time might come when the ai just writes things like http request parsers and crypto libraries on the fly. And it will be somewhat normal

Wh … why would we want that?

It’ll just spit the code out. I vibe coded some with cookie handling the other day that worked. Should I have done it? Nope. But the ai did it and I allowed it

The concept of using a library for everything will become outdated

Re: Software design is now cheap

#19

Post by mikert89 »

majormajor wrote: post #17
mikert89 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The time might come when the ai just writes things like http request parsers and crypto libraries on the fly. And it will be somewhat normal

This seems like today's version of "I could write Facebook in a weekend." What are the incentives for doing that? What are the incentives for everyone else to move? So if proven things exist for basics, what's the incentive to not use them? If everyone decides they're too heavy, they could make and publish new libraries and tools would pick those up. And since they're old, the feature-set is probably more nuanced tha…

Importing a library for everything will become a dated concept. Similar to the idea that object relational mappers might go away if the ai can just write ultra complicated hyper efficient sql for every query

Re: Software design is now cheap

#20

Post by majormajor »

mikert89 wrote: post #19
majormajor wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like today's version of "I could write Facebook in a weekend." What are the incentives for doing that? What are the incentives for everyone else to move? So if proven things exist for basics, what's the incentive to not use them? If everyone decides they're too heavy, they could make and publish new libraries and tools would pick those up. And since they're old, the feature-set is probably more nuanced tha…

Importing a library for everything will become a dated concept. Similar to the idea that object relational mappers might go away if the ai can just write ultra complicated hyper efficient sql for every query

ORMs have largely been fading away for a while because there are real wins of not using them.

Hyper-optimized HTTP request/response parsing? Yawn. Far less interesting.

AFAICT, the advantages of keeping context tight and focused have not gone away. So there would neeed to be pretty interesting advantages to not just doing the easy thing.

Build times too. I kinda doubt you're setting up strictly-modularized and tightly-controlled bazel builds for all your stuff to avoid extra recompilation... so why are we overcomplicating the easy stuff? Just because "it will probably function just as well"?

"leftpad"-level library inanity? Sure, even less need than before (there was never much). Substantial libraries? What's the point?

Hell, some of the most-used heavily-AI-coded software is going the opposite direction and jumping through hoops to keep using web libraries for UI even though they're terminal apps.

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