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AI is forcing us to write good code

bits.logic.inc

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Re: AI is forcing us to write good code

#161

Post by Drakim »

zarzavat wrote: post #121
mrtksn wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's literally the case of Apple requiring signing the binary to run on the platforms they provide, Apple doesn't have say on other platforms. It is a very similar situation with local governments. Also, people complain all the time about rules and regulations for making stuff. Especially in EU, you can't just create products however you like and let people decide if it is safe to use, you are required to make your p…

...but the EU is one of the entities forcing Apple to allow other stores. It turns out that Apple is not, in fact, the government.

That's not a very compelling counterexample, when you consider how often countries with governments force other countries with government to do as they want, often with nothing but economic or soft power.

Re: AI is forcing us to write good code

#162

Post by christophilus »

ruszki wrote: post #147
notimetorelax wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re right. What I like doing in those cases is to review very closely the tests and the assertions. Frequently it’s even faster than looking at the SUT itself.

I heard this “review very closely” thing many times, and rarely means review very closely. Maybe 5% of developers really do this ever, and I probably overestimate it. When people send here AI generated code, it’s quite obvious that they don’t review code properly. There are videos when people recorded how we should use LLMs, and they clearly don’t do this.

Yeah. This is me. I try, but I always miss something. The sheer volume and occasional stupidity makes it difficult. Spot checking only gets you so far. Often, the code is excellent except in one or two truly awful spots where it does something crazy.

Re: AI is forcing us to write good code

#164

Post by [deleted] »

jaynetics wrote: post #154
eru wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we let humans write both business logic code and tests often enough, too. Btw, you can get a lot further in your tests, if you move away from examples, and towards properties.

Can you give an example (pun not intended) of testing with properties?

[deleted]

Re: AI is forcing us to write good code

#165

Post by PunchyHamster »

mrtksn wrote: post #100
pgroves wrote: post #44

This is sort of why I think software development might be the only real application of LLMs outside of entertainment. We can build ourselves tight little feedback loops that other domains can't. I somewhat frequently agree on a plan with an LLM and a few minutes or hours later find out it doesn't work and then the LLM is like "that's why we shouldn't have done it like that!". Imagine building a house from scratch and…

> Imagine building a house from scratch Thats why those Engineering fields have strict rules, often require formal education and someone can even end up in prison if screws up badly enough. Software is so much easier and safer, till very recently anonymous engineering was the norm and people are very annoyed with Apple pushing for signing off the resulting product. Highly paid software engineers across the board must…

Software developers being paid well is result of demand, not be cause it's very hard.

Skill and strictness required is only vaguely related to pay, if there is enough people for the job it won't pay amazing, regardless on how hard it is.

> Software is so much easier and safer, till very recently anonymous engineering was the norm and people are very annoyed with Apple pushing for signing off the resulting product.

that has nothing to do with engineering quality, that is just to make it harder to go around their ecosystem (and skip paying the shop fee). With additional benefit of signed package being harder to attack. You can still deliver absolute slop, but the slop will be from you, not the middleman that captured the delivery process

Re: AI is forcing us to write good code

#166

Post by PunchyHamster »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #49
jaredcwhite wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% test coverage, for most projects of modest size, is extremely bad advice.

Pre-agents, 100% agree. Now, it's not a bad idea, the cost to do it isn't terrible, though there's diminishing returns as you get >90-95%.

You just end up writing needless tests trying to trigger or mock error state from a 3rd party library that's never actually returning error, just the lib had a rule of "every call returns error code" in case something changes and it's needed.

Re: AI is forcing us to write good code

#167

Post by ogogmad »

skywhopper wrote: post #156
ogogmad wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is sort of why I think software development might be the only real application of LLMs outside of entertainment. Wow. What about also, I don't know, self-teaching*? In general, you have to be very arrogant to say that you've experienced all the "real" applications. * - For instance, today and yesterday, I've been using LLMs to teach myself about RLC circuits and "inerters".

It’s somewhat delusional and potentially dangerous to assume that chatting with an LLM about a specific topic is self-teaching beyond the most surface-level understanding of a topic. No doubt you can learn some true things, but you’ll also learn some blatant falsehoods and a lot of incorrect theory. And you won’t know which is which. One of the most important factors in actually learning something is humility. Unfort…

> It’s somewhat delusional and potentially dangerous to assume that chatting with an LLM about a specific topic is self-teaching beyond the most surface-level understanding of a topic

It's delusional and very arrogant of you to confidently asserts anything without proof: A topic like RLC circuits has got a body of rigorous theorems and proofs underlying it*, and nothing stops you from piecing it together using an LLM.

* - See "Positive-Real Functions", "Schwarz-Pick Theorem", "Schur Class". These are things I've been mulling over.

Re: AI is forcing us to write good code

#168

Post by ogogmad »

stackghost wrote: post #127
ogogmad wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is sort of why I think software development might be the only real application of LLMs outside of entertainment. Wow. What about also, I don't know, self-teaching*? In general, you have to be very arrogant to say that you've experienced all the "real" applications. * - For instance, today and yesterday, I've been using LLMs to teach myself about RLC circuits and "inerters".

Why would you think that a machine known to cheerfully and confidently assert complete bullshit is suitable to learn from?

Because you can independently check anything it tells you. You understand there can be independent sources of validation?

Re: AI is forcing us to write good code

#169

Post by marcosdumay »

zahlman wrote: post #96
marcosdumay wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs don't make bad tests any less harmful. Nor they write good tests for the stuff people mostly can't write good tests for.

Okay, but is aiming for 100% coverage really why the bad tests are bad?

Aiming for 100% coverage is almost certain to cause bad tests, yes.

But not all bad tests come from a goal of 100% coverage.

Re: AI is forcing us to write good code

#170

Post by eru »

jaynetics wrote: post #154
eru wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we let humans write both business logic code and tests often enough, too. Btw, you can get a lot further in your tests, if you move away from examples, and towards properties.

Can you give an example (pun not intended) of testing with properties?

https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/series/property-based-test... is an entertaining intro.

https://hypothesis.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ are the docs for one of the best property based testing libraries available in any language.

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