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I'm dialing back my LLM usage

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Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#131

Post by mythrwy »

mentos wrote: post #97
x187463 wrote: post #11

Am I spending too much time on HN or is every post/comment section filled with this same narrative? Basically, LLMs are exciting but they produce messy code for which the dev feels no ownership. Managing a codebase written by an LLM is difficult because you have not cognitively loaded the entire thing into your head as you do with code written yourself. They're okay for one-off scripts or projects you do not intend t…

I’m currently using Cursor to complete something that would have taken me about a full year in a month. But I’m in no rush to invite an army of people to compete with me just yet. I’ll be back when I’m sipping coladas on a beach to tell you what I did.

We all will be sipping coladas on the beach at that point. You can just walk over to the next cabana and tell us.

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#132

Post by extr »

emilecantin wrote: post #55
chasing wrote: post #12

LLMs save me a lot of time as a software engineer because they save me a ton of time doing either boilerplate work or mundane tasks that are relatively conceptually easy but annoying to actually have to do/type/whatever in an IDE. But I still more-or-less have to think like a software engineer. That's not going to go away. I have to make sure the code remains clean and well-organized -- which, for example, LLMs can h…

I'm in a similar boat. I've only started using it more very recently, and it's really helping my "white-page syndrome" when I'm starting a new feature. I still have to fix a bunch of stuff, but I think it's easier for me to fix, tweak and refactor existing code than it is to write a new file from scratch. Often times there's a lot of repetition in the app I'm working on, and there's a lot of it that's already been ab…

This is the killer app for LLMs for me. I used to get super bogged down in the details of what I was trying to do, I would go a whole afternoon and while I would have started on the feature - I wouldn't have much to show for it in terms of working functionality. LLMs just provide a direction to go in and "get something up" before having to think through every little edge case and abstraction. Later once I have a a better idea of what I want, I go in and refactor by hand. But at least "it works" temporarily, and I find refactoring more enjoyable than writing fresh code anyway, primarily due to that "white page" effect you mention.

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#133

Post by mythrwy »

PleasureBot wrote: post #96
ookblah wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

honestly my theory is part of it is people who are very caught up in the "craft" part of it and now hate these LLMs for producing shit that pretty much works but isn't like this "perfect specimen" of coding architecture that they now have to pour over. honestly, the vast majority of basically CRUD apps out there we are inflating our skills a bit too much here. even if the code is junk you can adapt your mindset to ac…

The fundamental limitation of LLMs writing code is that reading and understanding code is harder and slower than writing it. With other engineers that I work with there is an established level of trust where I do not need to deep dive into every PR. With LLMs it is like I am constantly doing code reviews for someone with whom I have zero trust. This is fundamentally a slow process, especially if you need to maintain…

Volume of PRs LLMs enable add to the burden.

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#134

Post by thoughtpeddler »

smeeth wrote: post #117
criddell wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your steroids comparison made me think of Cal Newport's recent blog post[1] where he argues that AI is making us lazy. He quotes some researchers who hooked people up to EEG machines then had them work. The people working without AI assistance incurred more brain "strain" and that's probably a good thing. But even he doesn't think AI shouldn't be used. Go ahead and use it for stuff like email but don't use it for you…

It's worth noting this is the exact argument people used against adopting electric calculators.

Calculators are a very narrow form of intelligence as compared to the general-purpose intelligence that LLMs are. The muscle/steroid analogy from this same discussion thread is apt here. Calculators enhanced and replaced just one 'muscle', so the argument against them would be like "ya but do we really need this one muscle anymore?", whereas with LLMs the argument is "do we really even need a body at all anymore?" (if extrapolated out several more years into the future).

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#136

Post by obirunda »

The dichotomy between the people who are "orchestrating" agents to build software and the people experiencing this less than ideal outcomes from LLMs is fascinating.

I don't think LLM for coding productivity is all hype but I think for the people who "see the magic" there are many illusions here similar to those who fall prey to an MLM pitch.

You can see all the claims aren't necessarily unfounded, but the lack of guaranteed reproducibility leaves the door open for many caveats in favor of belief for the believer and cynicism for everybody else.

For the believers if it's not working for one person, it's a skill issue related to providing the best prompt, the right rules, the perfect context and so forth. At what point is this a roundabout way of doing it yourself anyway?

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#137

Post by tptacek »

OtherShrezzing wrote: post #64
alonsonic wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's very polarized. That being said, people have shown a lot of code produced by LLMs so I don't understand the dismissive argument you make at the end. Below is a link to a great article by Simon Willison explaining an LLM assisted workflow and the resulting coded tools. [0] https://simonwillison.net/2025/Mar/11/using-llms-for-code/ [1] https://github.com/simonw/tools

While I greatly appreciate all of Simon Willson's publishing, these tools don't meet the criteria of the OP's comment in my opinion. Willson's tools archive all do useful, but ultimately small tasks which mostly fit the "They're okay for one-off scripts or projects you do not intend to maintain" caveat from OP. Meanwhile, it's not uncommon to see people on HN saying they're orchestrating multiple major feature implem…

Many big systems are comprised of tools that do a good job at solving small tasks, carefully joined. That LLMs are not especially good at that joinery just means that's a part of the building process that stays manual.

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#138

Post by [deleted] »

quaintdev wrote: post #6

LLMs have limits. They are super powerful but they can't make the kind of leap humans can. For example, I asked both Claude and Gemini below problem. "I want to run webserver on Android but it does not allow binding on ports lower than 1000. What are my options?" Both responded with below solutions 1. Use reverse proxy 2. Root the phone 3. Run on higher port Even after asking them to rethink they couldn't come up wit…

[deleted]

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#139

Post by ai-christianson »

WD-42 wrote: post #75
ai-christianson wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The other side of it is people who seem to have 'gotten it' and can dispatch multiple agents to plan/execute/merge changes across a project and want to tell you how awesome their workflow is without actually showing any code. This is a great read on the situation. Do you think these people are just making it up/generating baseless hype?

I think people are rightly hesitant to share code that has their name on it but for which they know nothing about. I have seen a few of these full blown llm coded projects and every one of them has has some giant red flashing warning at the top of the README about the project being llm generated. So I think it’s probably a mix of avoiding embarrassment and self preservation.

Interesting, to me it's still very much a human in the loop process and the person whose name is on the commit is ultimately responsible for what they commit.

Re: I'm dialing back my LLM usage

#140

Post by breckenedge »

globular-toast wrote: post #79
jimbokun wrote: post #32

I think LLMs have made a lot of developers forget the lessons in "Simple Made Easy": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxdOUGdseq4 LLMs seem to be really good at reproducing the classic Ball of Mud, that can't really be refactored or understood. There's a lot of power in creating simple components that interact with other simple components to produce complex functionality. While each component is easy to understand and…

> I suppose once LLMs get really good at that skill, will be when we really won't need developers any more. I don't really get this argument. So when LLMs become "perfect" software developers are we just going to have them running 24/7 shitting out every conceivable piece of software ever? What would anyone do with that? Or do you expect every doctor, electrician, sales assistant, hairdresser, train driver etc. to st…

> Or do you expect every doctor, electrician, sales assistant, hairdresser, train driver etc. to start developing their own software on top of their existing job?

I started my software career by automating my job, then automating other people’s jobs. Eventually someone decided it would be easier to just hire me as a software engineer.

I just met with an architect for adding a deck onto my house (need plans for code compliance). He said he was using AI to write programs that he could use with design software. He demoed how he was using AI to convert his static renders into walkthrough movies.

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