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

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

#141

Post by adastra22 »

Demiurge wrote: post #79
jmull wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unit tests are using the same system to write your invariants twice For unit tests, the parts of the system that are the same are not under test, while the parts that are different are under test. The problem with using AI to review AI is that what you're checking is the same as what you're checking it with. Checking the output of one LLM with another brand probably helps, but they may also have a lot of similariti…

What if you use a different AI model? Sometimes just a different seed generates a different result. I notice there is a benefit to seeing and contrasting the different answers. The improvement is gradual, it’s not a binary.

You don't need to use a different model, generally. In my experience a fresh context window is all you need, the vast majority of the time.

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

#142

Post by jmcodes »

kiitos wrote: post #127
jmcodes wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm weird but I don't actually enjoy the act of _writing_ code. I enjoy problem solving and creating something. I enjoy decomposing systems and putting them back together in a better state, but actually manually typing out code isn't something I enjoy. When I use an LLM to code I feel like I can go from idea to something I can work with in much less time than I would have normally. Our codebase is more type-saf…

the time spent literally typing code into an editor is never the bottleneck in any competently-run project if the act of writing code is something you consider a burden rather than a joy then my friend you are in the wrong profession

Been doing it for ten years still love the profession as much if not more than when I started, but the joy of software development for me was always in seeing my idea come to life, in exploring all the clever ways people had solved so many problems, in trying to become as good at the craft as they were, and in sharing those solutions and ideas with like-minded peers.

I care deeply about the code quality that goes into the projects I work on because I end up having to maintain it, review it, or fix it when it goes south, and honestly it just feels wrong to me to see bad code.

But literally typing out the characters that make up the code? I could care less. I've done that already. I can do it in my sleep, there's no challenge.

At this stage in my career I'm looking for ways to take the experience I have and upskill my teams using it.

I'd be crazy not to try and leverage LLMs as much as possible. That includes spending the time to write good CLAUDE.md files, set up custom agents that work with our codebase and patterns, it also includes taking the time to explain the why behind those choices to the team so they understand them, calling out bad PRs that "work" but are AI slop and teaching them how to get better results out of these things.

Idk man the profession is pretty big and creating software is still just as fun as when I was doing it character by character in notepad. I just don't care to type more than I need to when I can focus on problem solving and building.

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

#143

Post by yeasku »

ben_w wrote: post #126
bluefirebrand wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From an economics POV, that's the correct test Maybe we could stop filtering everything through this bullshit economics race to the bottom then

You can campaign for your government to set any legal minimum for quality that you want, but it's essentially nonsensical to expect people not to optimise for cheapest given whatever those constraints are.

Apple, Oracle or Nvidia did not get there following your way of thinking

A race to the bottom leaves you like Boeing or Intel.

Late stage capitalism is not a must.

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

#144

Post by Terr_ »

rsynnott wrote: post #23

This idea that you can get good results from a bad process as long as you have good quality control seems… dubious, to say the least. “Sure, it’ll produce endless broken nonsense, but as long as someone is checking, it’s fine.” This, generally, doesn’t really work. You see people _try_ it in industry a bit; have a process which produces a high rate of failures, catch them in QA, rework (the US car industry used to be…

> but as long as someone is checking

I predict many disastrous "AI" failures because the designers somehow believed that "some humans capable of constant vigilant attention to detail" was an easy thing they could have.

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

#145

Post by EdwardDiego »

Manfred wrote: post #48
rsynnott wrote: post #23

This idea that you can get good results from a bad process as long as you have good quality control seems… dubious, to say the least. “Sure, it’ll produce endless broken nonsense, but as long as someone is checking, it’s fine.” This, generally, doesn’t really work. You see people _try_ it in industry a bit; have a process which produces a high rate of failures, catch them in QA, rework (the US car industry used to be…

Reviewing code from less experienced or unmotivated people is also very taxing, both in a cognitive and emotional sense. It will never approach a really good level of quality because you just give up after 4 rounds of reviews on the same feature.

Except humans learn from your PR comments and in other interactions with more experienced people, and so inexperienced devs become experienced devs eventually. LLMs are not so trainable.

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

#146

Post by kimixa »

wg002 wrote: post #110
sougou wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I oversaw this work, and I'm open to feedback on how things can be improved. There are some factors that make this particular situation different: This was an LLM assisted translation of the C parser from Postgres, not something from the ground up. For work of this magnitude, you cannot review line by line. The only thing we could do was to establish a process to ensure correctness. We did control the process careful…

"We intend to do more bulk copies and bulk translations like this from other projects" Supabase’s playbook is to replicate existing products and open source projects, release them under open source, and monetize the adoption. They’ve repeated this approach across multiple offerings. With AI, the replication process becomes even faster, though it risks producing low-quality imitations that alienate the broader communi…

And I'm not sure about their ability to release said code under a different license either.

Postgres has a pretty permissive license, but that doesn't mean you can just ignore it.

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

#147

Post by marklubi »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #27
rsynnott wrote: post #23

This idea that you can get good results from a bad process as long as you have good quality control seems… dubious, to say the least. “Sure, it’ll produce endless broken nonsense, but as long as someone is checking, it’s fine.” This, generally, doesn’t really work. You see people _try_ it in industry a bit; have a process which produces a high rate of failures, catch them in QA, rework (the US car industry used to be…

That depends. If the engineer, doing the implementation is top-shelf, you can get very good results from a “flawed” process (in quotes, because it’s not actually “bad.” It’s just a process that depends on the engineer being that particular one). Silicon Valley is obsessed with process over people, manifesting “magical thinking” that a “perfect” process eliminates the need for good people. I have found the truth to be…

Said a little more crass/simply: A people hire A people. B people hire C people.

The first is phenomenal until someone makes a mistake and brings in a manager or supervisor from the C category that talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk.

If you accidentally end up in one that turns out to be the later. It's maddening trying to get anything accomplished if the task involves anyone else.

Hire slow, fire fast.

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

#148

Post by bluefirebrand »

esperent wrote: post #101
walleeee wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should you take the time to write back personally? Because it's 3 sentences, if you want to be way more polite and verbose than necessary. "I will close PRs if they appear to be largely LLM-generated. I am always happy to review something with care and attention if it shows the same qualities. Thanks!" The idea is to get your coworkers to stop sending you AI slop, send them AI slop in retaliation?

> if they appear to be largely LLM-generated And then what if the person denies it?

Run it up the chain

They're either lying about using AI, or they're incompetent enough to produce AI quality (read: Garbage) code, either way the company should let them go

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

#149

Post by scuff3d »

coffeefirst wrote: post #98
fhd2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yeah. I'm not even anti-LM. Little things—research, "write TS types for this object", search my codebase, go figure out exactly what line in the Django rest framework is causing this weird behavior, —are working great and saving me an hour here and 15m there. It's really obvious when people lean on it, because they don't act like a beginner (trying things that might not work) or just being sloppy (where there's a log…

It's also nice for handling some little tasks that otherwise would have been just annoying enough for me to not do it. Small 5 or 6 line functions that I would have had to fiddle with for far longer to get right.

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

#150

Post by scuff3d »

brap wrote: post #34

My process is basically 1. Give it requirements 2. Tell it to ask me clarifying questions 3. When no more questions, ask it to explain the requirements back to me in a formal PRD 4. I criticize it 5. Tell it to come up with 2 alternative high level designs 6. I pick one and criticize it 7. Tell it to come up with 2 alternative detailed TODO lists 8. I pick one and criticize it 9. Tell it to come up with 2 alternative…

Yeah, sounds like it would have been far quicker to use the AI to give you a general overview of approaches/libraries/language features/etc, and then done the work yourself.
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