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Lines of code got a better publicist

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Re: Lines of code got a better publicist

#11

Post by jkrems »

sunaurus wrote: post #6

I'm constantly thinking about that Microsoft guy who posted something like "we want 1 million LoC per engineer per month", which basically read as satire to most engineers I talked to, except apparently it was not satire at all, and indeed seemed to reflect the position of many CEOs etc when it comes to LLM code generation. I do think that over the past few months, it feels like the hype around producing unmaintainab…

> I'm constantly thinking about that Microsoft guy who posted something like "we want 1 million LoC per engineer per month", which basically read as satire to most engineers I talked to

Did those engineers not actually read the complete tweet? Because it wasn't about "engineers should write 1M LOC per month of product code" it was "we want to scale automated porting of code to safe languages so that 1 engineer managing 1M LOC of automated conversion can work". Which doesn't seem like satire at all..? It just means "develop mostly reliable AI-driven refactoring tools with good guard rails". Which seems quite sensible, actually?

Re: Lines of code got a better publicist

#12

Post by Cthulhu_ »

Trasmatta wrote: post #8

> I think every engineer should be using AI daily. Why?

Please read the full paragraph for the answer instead of cherry picking a quote for a knee-jerk reaction:

> Be curious, try the new tools, test the latest models. To not do so is silly. > [...] > you could delay adopting “the cloud” for a couple of years and survive. With AI you might get a few months. The way we work has already changed, and it’s not changing back as far as I can tell.

Re: Lines of code got a better publicist

#13

Post by SlinkyOnStairs »

jkrems wrote: post #11
sunaurus wrote: post #6

I'm constantly thinking about that Microsoft guy who posted something like "we want 1 million LoC per engineer per month", which basically read as satire to most engineers I talked to, except apparently it was not satire at all, and indeed seemed to reflect the position of many CEOs etc when it comes to LLM code generation. I do think that over the past few months, it feels like the hype around producing unmaintainab…

> I'm constantly thinking about that Microsoft guy who posted something like "we want 1 million LoC per engineer per month", which basically read as satire to most engineers I talked to Did those engineers not actually read the complete tweet? Because it wasn't about "engineers should write 1M LOC per month of product code" it was "we want to scale automated porting of code to safe languages so that 1 engineer managi…

Minor correction: LinkedIn, not twitter. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/galenh_principal-software-eng...

> Because it wasn't about "engineers should write 1M LOC per month of product code" it was "we want to scale automated porting of code to safe languages so that 1 engineer managing 1M LOC of automated conversion can work"

These are one and the same. Whether it's ported code or not doesn't change that. The framing device also doesn't matter, because it's the exact "Oh it's our goal" shtick that executives use in the former's case.

"It's just a measure" doesn't cut it in a world where every single AI measure immediately gets turned into a target by executives greedy for efficiencies that don't exist.

EDIT:

Right, I forgot. This is HN where everyone is a galaxybrain and "Port a million lines of code per month" is a totally reasonable goal for a single individual.

Re: Lines of code got a better publicist

#14

Post by drooby »

Writing. Code. Is. No. Longer. The. Bottleneck.

Deciding what to build. Reviewing Code. And testing code. Are the new bottleneck.

So of course we don't see massive productivity gains. Because these parts of the SCLC were always bottlenecked but their capacity matched the throughout. We fired all the dedicated QAs years ago. Sr+ engineers that do all the code review are limited.

Teams have not re-organized to match the new code-input velocity.

Engineers don't want to do QA because it's "beneath them".. and most engineers don't like performing or are not Sr enough to do extensive or high quality code review.

Re: Lines of code got a better publicist

#16

Post by gwerbin »

drooby wrote: post #14

Writing. Code. Is. No. Longer. The. Bottleneck. Deciding what to build. Reviewing Code. And testing code. Are the new bottleneck. So of course we don't see massive productivity gains. Because these parts of the SCLC were always bottlenecked but their capacity matched the throughout. We fired all the dedicated QAs years ago. Sr+ engineers that do all the code review are limited. Teams have not re-organized to match th…

Was writing code ever the bottleneck for anyone other than raw juniors and non-programmers?

Re: Lines of code got a better publicist

#17

Post by raincole »

jkrems wrote: post #11
sunaurus wrote: post #6

I'm constantly thinking about that Microsoft guy who posted something like "we want 1 million LoC per engineer per month", which basically read as satire to most engineers I talked to, except apparently it was not satire at all, and indeed seemed to reflect the position of many CEOs etc when it comes to LLM code generation. I do think that over the past few months, it feels like the hype around producing unmaintainab…

> I'm constantly thinking about that Microsoft guy who posted something like "we want 1 million LoC per engineer per month", which basically read as satire to most engineers I talked to Did those engineers not actually read the complete tweet? Because it wasn't about "engineers should write 1M LOC per month of product code" it was "we want to scale automated porting of code to safe languages so that 1 engineer managi…

> "we want to scale automated porting of code to safe languages so that 1 engineer managing 1M LOC of automated conversion can work". Which doesn't seem like satire at all..?

Because many programmers don't believe that'd work. See the reaction to Bun's porting to rust. (I bet Bun will work and prove those programmers wrong, but that's another story.)

Re: Lines of code got a better publicist

#18

Post by wongarsu »

SlinkyOnStairs wrote: post #13
jkrems wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm constantly thinking about that Microsoft guy who posted something like "we want 1 million LoC per engineer per month", which basically read as satire to most engineers I talked to Did those engineers not actually read the complete tweet? Because it wasn't about "engineers should write 1M LOC per month of product code" it was "we want to scale automated porting of code to safe languages so that 1 engineer managi…

Minor correction: LinkedIn, not twitter. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/galenh_principal-software-eng... > Because it wasn't about "engineers should write 1M LOC per month of product code" it was "we want to scale automated porting of code to safe languages so that 1 engineer managing 1M LOC of automated conversion can work" These are one and the same. Whether it's ported code or not doesn't change that. The framing…

I can easily game writing 1M LOC per month by having the LLM write code in more verbose ways, with useless indirections and abstractions thrown in for good measure. I could even ask claude to write code that does nothing but just takes up line.

In contrast, converting 1M LOC of code per month is a much more solid measure, as long as you measure LOC of the source, not the new code. Sure, in the short term you can pick the easy/verbose things to port, but it's hard to do sustainably. A 5M LOC code base would still be expected to be ported in 5 engineer months.

Granted, you can still rush the work, not test properly, neglect good planning and engineering. Ported lines of code should not be the only measure (just like with any other measure). But it's a much less problematic measure than coding 1M LOC

Re: Lines of code got a better publicist

#19

Post by marcosdumay »

Weird baseless push for AI on the end, with no reasoning, no goal, no claim of gain. "Just go and use AI, people, developers must adopt new things."

It's not the first article I've read recently that is an ad for AI after a short context pretending to criticize it, with nothing connecting them.

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