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Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

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Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#191

Post by belter »

Sammi wrote: post #79
dizhn wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Many bugs were of a new kind (to me), the code would look like it does the right thing but actually not work at all, or just be much more broken than code with that level of "polish" would normally be. This reminded me of a quarter million dollar software project one of my employers had contracted to a team in a different country. On the face of it - especially if you go and check by the spec sheet - everything w…

I'm expecting to see so much more poor quality software being made. We're going to be swimming in an ocean of bad software. Good experienced devs will be able to make better software, but so many inexperienced devs will be regurgitating so much more lousy software at a pace never seen before, it's going to be overwhelming. Or as the original commenter described, they're already being overwhelmed.

Please, somebody make the Is MongoDB webscale? video for LLMs...

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#192

Post by pragmatic »

Yes but no.

It’s decisions.

Ninety five percent is all the decisions made from every person involved.

The fastest delivery I ever encountered were situations where the stakeholders were intimately familiar with the problem and made quick decisions. Only then did speed of coding affect delivery.

In large organizations, PMs are rarely POs. Every decision needs to be run up the flagpole and through committee with CYAs and delays at every step.

Decision makers are outsourcing this to LLMs now which is scary as they are supposed to be the SME.

It’s the same old same old where the generals make decisions but the sergeants (NCOs) really run the army. That’s where I feel leads/principles/staff really make out break the product. They are the fulcrum dealing with LLM from above and below.

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#193

Post by breppp »

pydry wrote: post #172
pjmlp wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As participant in many kinds of similar projects, lets put it this way, the crew already knows that the ship has a few holes while at the harbour, but captain decides for sailing anyway. Eventually you will find yourself on deep waters, with the ship lower than it should be, routinely taking out buckets of water, whishing for the nearest island, only to repair ship with whatever is on that island, and keep sailing to…

This almost seems to be a weird artefact of capitalism. Ive worked on several projects which at some point became obviously doomed to almost everybody in the trenches but management/investors/owners kept believing. Perception of reality did not permeate the class divide. I wish I could make $$$ off this insight somehow but im not sure it's possible.

Create a revolutionary movement, take over the state and steal the money of the lower classes

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#194

Post by belter »

b112 wrote: post #150
Sammi wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm expecting to see so much more poor quality software being made. We're going to be swimming in an ocean of bad software. Good experienced devs will be able to make better software, but so many inexperienced devs will be regurgitating so much more lousy software at a pace never seen before, it's going to be overwhelming. Or as the original commenter described, they're already being overwhelmed.

I'm waiting for someone to use an LLM to handle all AWS deployment, without review, and eventual bankrupcy as the result. Even better if the accountants are using LLMs. Or even better, hardware prototyping using LLMs with EEs barely knowing what they are doing. So far, most software dumbassery with LLMs can at least be fixed. Fixing board layouts, or chip designs, not as easy.

AWS itself is currently polluting their online documentation with GenAI generated snippets...I can only imagine what horrors lurk on their internal code base. In a move similar to the movie War Games, maybe humans are now out of the loop, and before a final commit LLMs are deciding....

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#195

Post by aleph_minus_one »

thisoneisreal wrote: post #39
andrelaszlo wrote: post #22

My most recent example of this is mentoring young, ambitious, but inexperienced interns. Not only did they produce about the same amount of code in a day that they used to produce in a week (or two), several other things made my work harder than before: - During review, they hadn't thought as deeply about their code so my comments seemed to often go over their heads. Instead of a discussion I'd get something like "go…

I think this is going to look a lot like the same problem in education, where the answer is that we will have to spend less time consuming written artifacts as a form of evaluation. I think effective code reviews will become more continuous and require much more checking in, asking for explanations as the starting point instead of "I read all of your code and give feedback." That just won't be sustainable given the r…

> asking for explanations as the starting point instead of "I read all of your code and give feedback." That just won't be sustainable given the rate at which text can now be output.

I claim that this approach is sustainable.

The idea behind the "I read all of your code and give feedback." methodology is that the writer really put a lot of deep effort into making sure that the code is of great quality - and then he is expecting feedback, which is often valuable. As long as you can with some effort find out by yourself how improvements could be done, don't bother asking for someone else's time/

The problem is thus that the writers of "vibe-generated code" hardly ever put such a deep effort into the code. Thus the code is simply not worth asking feedback for.

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#196

Post by m_mueller »

raincole wrote: post #169
whatevsmate wrote: post #120

Wow a lot of the stories people are writing here are super depressing. If a junior developer is delivering you a pile of code that doesn’t work, hasn’t been manually tested and verified by them, hasn’t been carefully pared down to its essential parts, and doesn’t communicate anything about itself either through code style, comments or docs … then you are already working with an LLM ; it just so happens to be hosted i…

People think juniors submitting LLM-generated code to seniors to review is a sign of how bad LLM is. I see it as a sign of how bad juniors are, and the need of seniors interacting with LLM directly without the middlemen.

The main problem in this environment is IMO: how does a junior become a senior, or even a bad junior become a good junior. People aren't learning fundamentals anymore beyond what's taught, and all the rest of 'trade knowledge' is now never experienced, people just trust that the LLM has absorbed it sufficiently. Engineering is all about trade-offs. Failing to understand why from 10 possible ways of achieving something, 4 are valid contenders and possible 1-2 are best in the current scenario, and even the questions to ask to get to that answer, is what makes a senior.

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#197

Post by injidup »

LLMs are surprisingly good at writing test cases—something many developers either skip or struggle with. If you structure your workflow around TDD (Test-Driven Development), the LLM can generate and continuously rerun those tests as it iterates on the code. This creates a powerful closed-loop system where the spec (your unit tests) and the implementation evolve together.

Multimodal LLMs take it even further. I've given Claude 4 a screenshot and simply said, “There’s too much white space.” It correctly identified the issue and generated CSS fixes. That kind of feedback loop could easily become a regression test for visual/UI consistency.

This isn’t just about automating code generation—it’s about augmenting the entire development cycle, from specs to testing to visual QA.

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#198

Post by gyesxnuibh »

oytis wrote: post #181
Sammi wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm expecting to see so much more poor quality software being made. We're going to be swimming in an ocean of bad software. Good experienced devs will be able to make better software, but so many inexperienced devs will be regurgitating so much more lousy software at a pace never seen before, it's going to be overwhelming. Or as the original commenter described, they're already being overwhelmed.

There are ways to fight it though. Look at Linux kernel for instance - they have been overwhelmed with poor contributions long before LLMs. The answer is to maintain standards that put as much burden on the contributor as possible, and normalizing unapologetic "no" from reviewers.

Does that work as well with non-strangers who are your coworker? I'm not sure.

Also if you're organizationally changing the culture to force people to put more effort in writing the code, why are you even organizationally using LLMs...?

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#199

Post by pragmatic »

calrain wrote: post #155

I've always enjoyed software design, for me the coding was the bottleneck and it was frustrating as I had to roll through different approaches when I so clearly knew the outcome that I wanted. Using Claude Code to first write specs, then break it down into cards, build glossaries, design blueprints, and finally write code, is just a perfect fit for someone like me. I know the fundamentals of programming, but since 19…

Agreed LLMs are fantastic autocomplete for experts.

Often giving 90% of what you need.

But those junior devs…

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#200

Post by pjc50 »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #131
dizhn wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Many bugs were of a new kind (to me), the code would look like it does the right thing but actually not work at all, or just be much more broken than code with that level of "polish" would normally be. This reminded me of a quarter million dollar software project one of my employers had contracted to a team in a different country. On the face of it - especially if you go and check by the spec sheet - everything w…

This sounds like a tale of failed 'waterfall model' software development. Was it not possible to sees the quality issues before the project was finished?

The trick with waterfall is that discovering issues is deferred until the very last phases of test and user acceptance, at which point it's too late to do anything.
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