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Code is cheap. Show me the talk

nadh.in

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Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#191

Post by doug_durham »

acedTrex wrote: post #124
overgard wrote: post #123

I asked Codex to write some unit tests for Redux today. At first glance it looked fine, and I continued on. I then went back to add a test by hand, and after looking more closely at the output there were like 50 wtf worthy things scattered in there. Sure they ran, but it was bad in all sorts of ways. And this was just writing something very basic. This has been my experience almost every time I use AI: superficially…

I've always said every line is a liability, its our job to limit liabilities. That has largely gone out the window these days.

A better formulation is "every feature is a liability". Taking it to the line of code level is too prescriptive. Occasionally writing more verbose code is preferable if it makes it easier to understand.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#192

Post by doug_durham »

jaredcwhite wrote: post #146

Just because a bunch of people tell you the practice of performing the art form of producing software via handwriting code is over doesn't mean it's over. This form of hyperbole is intended to overwhelm your reason, get you to forget your own expertise, and trick you into engaging with the topic in a fearful manner (literally FOMO). Don't fall for this cheap stunt.

There will always be a niche for any form of expression. However technologies change practice. It is your responsibility to be able to solve problems that balance performance, cost, schedule, and quality. Use the right tool for the job.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#193

Post by tokioyoyo »

esafak wrote: post #188
tokioyoyo wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the fun part of whole AI-built things that a lot of people don’t want to accept - it really, really, really does not matter if the code “nice, maintainable and etc.”. Does it work? Is it somewhat extendable with AI? Are users generally happy and adoption rate is high? That’s it.

In this case, no, it does not work. CC is full of reported rendering issues, including some that affect me.

Remember 8 years ago how vibe coding was awful? Like i never used it in prod apps. Now i'm a daily CC user, and every few months models are getting better, some problems are being solved, the other ones still being worked on and so on.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#194

Post by phi-go »

doug_durham wrote: post #191
acedTrex wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always said every line is a liability, its our job to limit liabilities. That has largely gone out the window these days.

A better formulation is "every feature is a liability". Taking it to the line of code level is too prescriptive. Occasionally writing more verbose code is preferable if it makes it easier to understand.

This sounds wrong, features have to be the value of your code. The required maintenance and slow down to build more features (technical debt) are the liability, which is how I understood the relationship to "lines of code" anyway.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#195

Post by athrowaway3z »

> there is no universal measure of what makes a codebase good or great.

We practically found one thought. The measure is: how well can an AI operate in/with your codebase.

I regularly find myself wondering if skeptics throwing around their empirical failure are obscuring their bad code/docs/setup.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#196

Post by ares623 »

chr15m wrote: post #141
acedTrex wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always said every line is a liability, its our job to limit liabilities. That has largely gone out the window these days.

> every line is a liability, its our job to limit liabilities. Hard agree!

But more code from AI means stocks go up. Stocks are assets. If you generate enough code the assets will outnumber the liabilities. It’s accounting 101. /s

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#197

Post by cstejerean »

overgard wrote: post #172
cheema33 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how you do things if you are new to this game. Get two other, different, LLMs to thoroughly review the code. If you don’t have an automated way to do all of this, you will struggle and eventually put yourself out of a job. If you do use this approach, you will get code that is better than what most software devs put out. And that gives you a good base to work with if you need to add polish to it.

I actually have used other LLMs to review the code, in the past (not today, but in the past). It's fine, but it doesn't tend to catch things like "this technically works but it's loading a footgun." For example, the redux test I was mentioning in my original post, the tests were reusing a single global store variable. It technically worked, the tests ran, and since these were the first tests I introduced in the code…

how long ago was this past? A review with latest models should absolutely catch the issue you describe, in my experience.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#198

Post by TeMPOraL »

phi-go wrote: post #194
doug_durham wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better formulation is "every feature is a liability". Taking it to the line of code level is too prescriptive. Occasionally writing more verbose code is preferable if it makes it easier to understand.

This sounds wrong, features have to be the value of your code. The required maintenance and slow down to build more features (technical debt) are the liability, which is how I understood the relationship to "lines of code" anyway.

Wrong or not, the industry embraced it.

I can sort of understand it if I squint: every feature is a maintenance burden, and a risk of looking bad in front of users when you break or remove it, even if those users didn't use this feature. It's really a burden to be avoided when the point of your product is to grow its user base, not to actually be useful. Which explains why even Fischer-Price toys look more feature-ful and ergonomic than most new software products.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#199

Post by charcircuit »

summerlight wrote: post #161
cheema33 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how you do things if you are new to this game. Get two other, different, LLMs to thoroughly review the code. If you don’t have an automated way to do all of this, you will struggle and eventually put yourself out of a job. If you do use this approach, you will get code that is better than what most software devs put out. And that gives you a good base to work with if you need to add polish to it.

The quality of generated code does not matter. The problem is when it breaks 2 AM and you're burning thousands of dollars every minutes. You don't own the code that you don't understand, but unfortunately that does not mean you don't own the responsibility as well. Good luck on writing the postmortem, your boss will have lots of question for you.

AI can help you understand code faster than without AI. It allows me to investigate problems that I have little context in and be able to write fixes effectively.

Re: Code is cheap. Show me the talk

#200

Post by chrisvalleybay »

bambax wrote: post #59

> Code was always a means to an end. Unlike poetry or prose, end users don’t read or care about code. Yes and no. Code is not art, but software is art. What is art, then? Not something that's "beautiful", as beauty is of course mostly subjective. Not even something that works well. I think art is a thing that was made with great care. It doesn't matter if some piece of software was vibe-coded in part or in full, if i…

The best definition of art I've read is the one from "What is Art?" by Tolstoy. I haven't read it myself, but came across it in a Van Neistat video recently.

Tolstoy argued that art is essentially the transmission of feeling from the artist to the audience. He claimed that when an artist experiences an emotion and then, through their work, evokes that same emotion in others, that is art.

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