After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain • Hacker News Board

Re: After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain

#201

Post by lawn » Fri, May 16, 2025, 7:58 PM UTC

VMG wrote: post #123

meander_water wrote: post #65

The thing most LLM maximalists don't realize is that the bottleneck for most people is not code generation, it's code understanding. You may have doubled the speed at which you created something, but you need to pay double that time back in code review, testing and building a mental model of the codebase in your head. And you _need_ to do this if you want to have any chance of maintaining the codebase (i.e. bugfixes,…

This is not true. It may be bad practice, but consider that the median developer does not care at all about the internals of the dependencies that they are using. They care about the interface and about whether they work or not. They usually do not care about the implementation. Code generated by LLM is not that different than pulling in a random npm package or rust crate. We all understand the downsides, but there i…

> Code generated by LLM is not that different than pulling in a random npm package or rust crate.

Yes, LLM code is significantly worse than even a random package as it very often doesn't even compile.

Re: After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain

#202

Post by rowanseymour » Fri, May 16, 2025, 9:46 PM UTC

I like having copilot suggest things < ~500 chars. I've discovered new patterns of doing things in go and Python and I've saved on a bit of typing. It really is just a better auto-complete for me. But anything longer than that and the cost of me spotting and fixing the problems in what it's suggesting starts to outweigh the benefit (unless I'm trying to write something super boilerplate).

Re: After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain

#203

Post by josefrichter » Fri, May 16, 2025, 10:07 PM UTC

Well yes, right now you really need to understand and closely supervise what the LLM is generating. On the other hand, every couple of weeks there’s a new model, that is noticeably better than everything before it. So any strong conclusions may be outdated by the end of the week.

Re: After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain

#204

Post by CuriouslyC » Fri, May 16, 2025, 11:55 PM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #186

Workaccount2 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Google's AlphaEvolve is any indication, they already have LLM's writing faster algorithms than humans have discovered.[1] [1] https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/alphaevolve-a-gemini-p...

I'm not thinking algorithms. Let's say someone write a new web framework. If there is no code samples available, I don't think whatever is going to be in the documentation will be enough data, then the LLMs doesn't have the training data and won't be able to utilize it. Would you ever be able to tell e.g. CoPilot: I need a web framework with these specs, go create that framework for me. The later have Claude actually…

You can just collect the docs and stuff them in context with a few code examples that can be hand coded if needed, or you can separately get the LLM to try and code samples from the docs and keep the ones that work and look idiomatic.

Re: After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain

#205

Post by [deleted] » Sat, May 17, 2025, 2:38 AM UTC

mritchie712 wrote: post #37

jclardy wrote: post #8

I don't get the whole "all-in" mentality around LLMs. I'm an iOS dev by trade, I continue to do that as I always have. The difference now is I'll use an LLM to quickly generate a one-off view based on a design. This isn't a core view of an app, the core functionality, or really anything of importance. It's a view that promotes a new feature, or how to install widgets, or random things. This would normally take me 30-…

How useful the various tools will be depends on the person and the problem. Take two hypothetical people working on different problems and consider if, for example, Cursor would be useful. IF you're a: * 10 year python dev * work almost entirely on a very large, complex python code base * have a pycharm IDE fine tuned over many years to work perfectly on that code base * have very low tolerance for bugs (stable produ…

[deleted]

Re: After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain

#206

Post by pianopatrick » Sat, May 17, 2025, 3:12 AM UTC

rossdavidh wrote: post #114

Hypothesis: the actual long-term impact of LLM's on coding will be that more different languages get used, because it reduces the "ugh I don't want to have to learn all that" psychological obstacle that prevents programmers experienced in one language from learning another. We should be using different languages for different tasks, but the push has always been to try to get One Language To Rule Them All. Ten years a…

I have a hypothesis that at some point someone will do a study of "which language do LLMs work best with?" and we will find out some languages and frameworks are better for LLMs than others. If we stick with LLMs for a while we may even develop languages and frameworks specifically to be easy for LLMs to generate code with. And then people will architect their software to use the approach that is easy for LLMs

Re: After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain

#207

Post by andrekandre » Sat, May 17, 2025, 4:06 AM UTC

diggan wrote: post #66

emseetech wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed but the 1 year JS dev should know they're making a deal with the devil in terms of building their skillset long term.

I basically learned programming by ExpertSexchange, Google (and Altavista...), SourceForge and eventually StackOverflow + GitHub. Many people with more experience than me at the time always told me I was making a deal with the devil since I searched so much, didn't read manuals and asked so many questions instead of thinking for myself. ~15 years later, I don't think I'm worse off than my peers who stayed away from a…

  > ExpertSexchange

maybe should have added a space somewhere in there?

Re: After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain

#208

Post by andrekandre » Sat, May 17, 2025, 4:09 AM UTC

stevepotter wrote: post #53

jclardy wrote: post #8

I don't get the whole "all-in" mentality around LLMs. I'm an iOS dev by trade, I continue to do that as I always have. The difference now is I'll use an LLM to quickly generate a one-off view based on a design. This isn't a core view of an app, the core functionality, or really anything of importance. It's a view that promotes a new feature, or how to install widgets, or random things. This would normally take me 30-…

I do a variety of things, including iOS and web. Like you mentioned, LLM results between the two are very different. I can't trust LLM output to even compile, much less work. Just last night, it told me to use an API called `CMVideoFormatDescriptionGetCameraIntrinsicMatrix`. That API is very interesting because it doesn't exist. It also did a great job of digging some deep holes when dealing with some tricky Swift 6…

  > `CMVideoFormatDescriptionGetCameraIntrinsicMatrix`. That API is very interesting because it doesn't exist.

same experience, and its been not great for juniors around me cause they have no idea why its not compiling or that the thing it wrote doesn't even exist...

Re: After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain

#209

Post by motorest » Sat, May 17, 2025, 4:34 AM UTC

ljm wrote: post #160

voidhorse wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amen. Seriously. They're tools. Sometimes they work wonderfully. Sometimes, not so much. But I have DEFINITELY found value. And I've been building stuff for over 15 years as well. Yes, but these lax expectation s are what I don't understand. What other tools in software sometimes work and sometimes don't that you find remotely acceptable? Sure all tools have bugs, but if your compiler had the same failure rate and…

People are way too quick to defend LLMs here, because it's exactly on point. In an era where an LLM can hallucinate (present you a defect) with 100% conviction, and vibe coders can ship code of completely unknown quality with 100% conviction, the bar by definition has to have been set lower. Someone with experience will still bring something more than just LLM-written code to the table, and that bar will stay where i…

> In an era where an LLM can hallucinate (present you a defect) with 100% conviction, (...)

I think you're trying very hard to find anything at all to criticize LLMs and those who use them, but all you manage to come up with is outlandish, "grasping at straws" arguments.

Yes, it's conceivable that LLMs can hallucinate. How often do they do, though? In my experience, not that much. In the rare cases they do, it's easy to spot and another iteration costs you a couple of seconds to get around it.

So, what are you complaining about, actually? Are you complaining about LLMs or just letting the world know how competent are you at using LLMs?

> Someone with experience will still bring something more than just LLM-written code to the table, and that bar will stay where it is.

Someone with experience leverages LLMs to do the drudge work, and bump up their productivity.

I'm not sure you fully grasp the implications. You're rehashing the kind of short-sighted comments that in the past brought comically-clueless assertions such as "the kids don't know assembly, so how can they write good programs". In the process, you are failing to understand the fact that the way software is written has already changed completely. The job of a developer is no longer typing code away and googling for code references. Now we can refactor and rewrite entire modules, iterate over the design, try a few alternative approaches, pin alternatives against each other, and pick up the one we prefer to post a PR. And then go to lunch. With these tools, some of your "experienced" developers turn out to be not that great, whereas "inexperienced" ones outperform them easily. How do you deal with that?

Re: After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain

#210

Post by motorest » Sat, May 17, 2025, 4:43 AM UTC

infecto wrote: post #63

mritchie712 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How useful the various tools will be depends on the person and the problem. Take two hypothetical people working on different problems and consider if, for example, Cursor would be useful. IF you're a: * 10 year python dev * work almost entirely on a very large, complex python code base * have a pycharm IDE fine tuned over many years to work perfectly on that code base * have very low tolerance for bugs (stable produ…

These all-or-nothing takes on LLMs are getting tiresome. I get the point you’re trying to make, LLMs can be a force multiplier for less experienced devs, but the sweeping generalizations don’t hold up. If you’re okay with a higher tolerance for bugs or loose guardrails, sure, LLMs can feel magical. But that doesn’t mean they’re less valuable to experienced developers. I’ve been writing Python and Java professionally…

> I get the point you’re trying to make, LLMs can be a force multiplier for less experienced devs, but the sweeping generalizations don’t hold up. If you’re okay with a higher tolerance for bugs or loose guardrails, sure, LLMs can feel magical. But that doesn’t mean they’re less valuable to experienced developers.

I think you're trying very hard to pin LLMs as a tool for inexperienced developers. There's a hint of paternalism in them.

Back in the real world, LLMs are a tool that excels at generating and updating code based on their context and following your prompts. If you realize this fact, you'll understand that there's nothing in the description that makes them helpful exclusively to "inexperienced" developers. Do experience developers need to refactor code or write new software? Do you believe veteran software engineers are barred from writing proofs of concept? Is the job of pushing architecture changes a junior developer gig?

What exactly do you think an experienced developer does?

> What frustrates me is how polarized these conversations are. There are valid insights on both sides, but too many posts frame their take as gospel. The reality is more nuanced: LLMs are a tool, not a revolution, and their value depends on how you integrate them into your workflow, regardless of experience level.

I completely disagree: LLMs have a revolutionary impact on how software engineers do their job. Your workflows changed overnight. You can create new things faster, you can iterate faster, you can even rewrite whole applications and services in another tech stacks and frameworks in a few days. Things like TDD will become of critical importance as automates test suites are now a critical factor in providing feedback to LLMs. Things are no longer the way they were. At least to those who bothered learning.