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AI can code, but it can't build software

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Re: AI can code, but it can't build software

#101

Post by raddan »

latentsea wrote: post #96
prmph wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LLMs are remarkably good at writing code. Just this past weekend, I've designed and written code (in Typescript) that I don't think LLMs can even come close to writing in years. I have a subscription to a frontier LLM, but lately I find myself using like 25% of the time. At a certain level the software architecture problems I'm solving, drawing upon decades of understanding about maintainable, performant, and verif…

I think C# is really going to shine in the LLM coding era. You can write Roslyn Analyzers to fail the build on arbitrary conditions after inspecting the AST. LLMs are great at helping you write these too. If you get a solid architecture well defined you can then use these as guardrails to constrain development to only happen in the manner you intend. You can then get LLMs to implement features and guarantee the code…

Can you expand a little? What you’re suggesting sounds a bit like program verification, or at least program analysis. But what properties are you checking?

I have written many program analyses (though never any for C#; I’ll have to check it out), and my experience is that they are quite challenging to write. Many are research-level CS, so well outside the skill set of your average vibe coder. I’m wondering if you have some insight about LLM generated code that has not occurred to me…

Re: AI can code, but it can't build software

#102

Post by seanmcdirmid »

latentsea wrote: post #96
prmph wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LLMs are remarkably good at writing code. Just this past weekend, I've designed and written code (in Typescript) that I don't think LLMs can even come close to writing in years. I have a subscription to a frontier LLM, but lately I find myself using like 25% of the time. At a certain level the software architecture problems I'm solving, drawing upon decades of understanding about maintainable, performant, and verif…

I think C# is really going to shine in the LLM coding era. You can write Roslyn Analyzers to fail the build on arbitrary conditions after inspecting the AST. LLMs are great at helping you write these too. If you get a solid architecture well defined you can then use these as guardrails to constrain development to only happen in the manner you intend. You can then get LLMs to implement features and guarantee the code…

Library authors don’t really provide custom analyzers. heck, the best we can hope for are some regex based linting rules, anything that involves local data flow analysis is very rare, and anything inter procedural is non-existent. Program analysis is a dark hole, you are better off just making stronger type systems, but then type inference starts to bite you if you want to support it (and you will given how annoying type annotations are to write, unless you go with something simple like a purely structural type system so you can use Hindley Milner).

Re: AI can code, but it can't build software

#103

Post by jongjong »

I still can't believe my own eyes that when I show an LLM my codebase and I tell it what functionality I want to add in reasonable detail, it can produce perfect looking code that I could have written myself.

I would say that AI is better at coding than most developers. If I had the option to choose between a junior developer to assist me or Claude Code, I would choose Claude Code. That's a massive achievement. Cannot be understated.

It's a dream come true for someone with a focus on architecture like myself. The coding aspect was dragging me down. LLMs work beautifully with vanilla JavaScript. The combined ability to generate code quickly and then quickly test (no transpilation/bundling step) gives me fast iteration times. Add that to the fact that I have a minimalist coding style. I get really good bang for my bucks/tokens.

The situation is unfortunate for junior developers. That said, I don't think it necessarily means that juniors should abandon the profession; they just need to refocus their attention towards the things that AI cannot do well like spotting contradictions and making decisions. Many developers are currently not great at this; maybe that's the reason why LLMs (which are trained on average code) are not good at it either. Juniors have to think more critically than ever before; on the plus side, they are freed to think about things at a higher level of abstraction.

My observation is that LLMs are so far good news for neurodivergent developers. Bad news for developers who are overly mimetic in their thinking style and interests. You want to be different from the average developer whose code the LLM was trained on.

Re: AI can code, but it can't build software

#104

Post by Aperocky »

prmph wrote: post #27
simonw wrote: post #4

This is a good headline. LLMs are remarkably good at writing code. Writing code isn't the same thing as delivering working software. A human expert needs to identify the need for software, decide what the software should do, figure out what's feasible to deliver, build the first version (AI can help a bunch here), evaluate what they've built, show it to users, talk to them about whether it's fit for purpose, iterate…

> LLMs are remarkably good at writing code. Just this past weekend, I've designed and written code (in Typescript) that I don't think LLMs can even come close to writing in years. I have a subscription to a frontier LLM, but lately I find myself using like 25% of the time. At a certain level the software architecture problems I'm solving, drawing upon decades of understanding about maintainable, performant, and verif…

I found that mastering LLM is no less complex than getting to learning a new language, probably between python and C++ in terms of mastery.

The learning curve is very different - with other languages, the learning curve is often upfront, with LLM, it seems linear/even rear loaded, maybe because I've not gotten to the other side.

I've been able to make LLM do more and more, some of it is undoubtly due to the improvement in model, but most of it is probably paradigm and changes in my approach. At the beginning, I run into all of the same complaints that I have eventually found workarounds to many.

Re: AI can code, but it can't build software

#106

Post by jongjong »

>> hey, I have this vibe-coded app, would you like to make it production-ready

This makes me cringe because it's a lot harder to get LLMs to generate good code when you start with a crappy codebase. If you start with a good codebase, it's like the codebase is coding itself. The former approach trying to get the LLM to write clean code is akin to mental torture, the second approach is highly pleasant.

Re: AI can code, but it can't build software

#108

Post by martin1027 »

airstrike wrote: post #30
prmph wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LLMs are remarkably good at writing code. Just this past weekend, I've designed and written code (in Typescript) that I don't think LLMs can even come close to writing in years. I have a subscription to a frontier LLM, but lately I find myself using like 25% of the time. At a certain level the software architecture problems I'm solving, drawing upon decades of understanding about maintainable, performant, and verif…

I find LLMs most helpful when I already have half of the answer written and need them to fill in the blanks. "Take X and Y I've written before, some documentation for Z, an example W from that repo, now smash them together and build the thing I need"

This is so true. I've had the same experience.

Re: AI can code, but it can't build software

#110

Post by ra0x3 »

nsonha wrote: post #109

So are software engineers. Many can, but there is nothing in the definition of the "engineer" (software or otherwise) concept imply that they can build things.

I have rarely in my 11+ years of professionally writing software, met someone who could _really_ "write code", but couldn't build software. Anecdotal obviously. But I'd say the opposite tends to be the case IMO - those who tend to really know "the code", also tend to know how to effectively build software (relatively speaking).

It kinda makes sense - "knowing how to code" in modern tech largely means "knowing how to build software" - not write single modules in some language - because those single modules on their own are largely useless outside the context of "software".

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