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How to effectively write quality code with AI

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Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#201

Post by Nasrudith »

mejutoco wrote: post #187
the_duke wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because many developers are used to working like this. With AI, the correct approach is to think more like a software architect. Learning to plan things out in your head upfront without to figure things out while coding requires a mindset shift, but is important to work effectively with the new tools. To some this comes naturally, for others it is very hard.

> Learning to plan things out in your head I dont think any complex plan should be planned in your head. But drawing diagrams, sketching components, listing pros and cons, 100%. Not jumping directly into coding might look more like jumping into spec writing a poc

Maintaining a 'mental RAM Cache' is a powerful tool to understanding the system as a whole on a deep and intuitive level, even if you can only 'render' sections at a time. The bigger it is the more you can keep track of to be able to foresee interactions between distant pieces.

It shouldn't be your only source of a plan as you'd likely wind up dropping something, but figuring out how to jiggle things around before getting it 'on paper' is something I've found helpful.

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#202

Post by Thanemate »

frankc wrote: post #36
jeppester wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's also how I feel. I think you have every right to doubt those telling us that they run 5 agents to generate a new SAAS-product while they are sipping latté in a bar. To work like that I believe you'll have to let go of really digging into the code, which in my experience is needed if want good quality. Yet I think coding agents can be quite a useful help for some of the trivial, but time consuming chores. For i…

I think we really need to have a serious think of what is "good quality" in the age of coding agents. A lot of the effort we put into maintaining quality has to do with maintainability, readability etc. But is it relevant if the code isn't for humans? What is good for a human is not what is good for an AI necessarily (not to say there is no overlap). I think there are clearly measurable things we can agree still appl…

>But is it relevant if the code isn't for humans?

The implications to your statement seems to me that is: "you'll never have to directly care about it yourself, so why do you care about it?". Unless you were talking about the codebase in a user-application relationship which in this case feel free to ignore the rest of my post.

I don't believe that the code will become an implementation detail, ever. When all you do is ship an MVP to demonstrate what you're building then no one cares, before or after LLM assistance. But any codebase that lives more than a year and serves real users while generating revenue deserves to have engineers who knows what's happening beyond authoring markdown instructions to multiple agents.

Your claim seems to push us towards a territory where externalizing out thought processes to a third party is the best possible outcome for all parties, because the models will only get better and stay just as affordable.

I will respond to that by pointing out that, models that will ultimately be flawless in code generation will worth a fortune in terms of adding value, and any corporation that will win the arms race will be actually killing themselves by not raising the cost of access to their services by a metric ton. This is because there will be few LLM providers that actually worth it by then, and because oligopoly is a thing.

So no. I don't expect that we'll ever reach a point where the average person will be "speaking forth" software the same way they post on Reddit, without paying cancer treatment levels of money.

But even if it's actually affordable... Why would I ever want to use your app instead of just asking an LLM to make me one from scratch? No one seems to think about that.

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#203

Post by dadandang »

p1esk wrote: post #151
CTDOCodebases wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder over the long term how programmers are going to maintain the proficiency to read and edit the code that the LLM produces.

I don’t read or edit the code my claude code agent produces. That’s its job now. My job is to organize the process and get things done.

simonw alert!!!

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#205

Post by falloutx »

pickleRick243 wrote: post #146
falloutx wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its only revolutionary if you think engineers were slow before or software was not being delivered fast enough. Its revolutionary for some people sure, but everyone is in a different situation, so one man's trash can be other man's treasure. Most people are treading both paths as automation threatens their livelihood and work they loved, also still not able to understand why would people pay to companies that are act…

Do you have this same understanding for all the people whose livelihoods are threatened (or already extinct) due to the work of engineers?

Yes, but who did we automate out of a job by building crappy software? Accountants are more threatened by AI than any of the software we created before, same with Lawyers, teachers. We didnt automate any physical labourers out of a job too.

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#206

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

shinycode wrote: post #183
gspr wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear you. And maybe you're right. Maybe I'm deluding myself, but: when I look at my skilled colleagues who vibecode, I can't understand how this is sustainable. They're smart people, but they've clearly turned off. They can't answer non-trivial questions about the details of the stuff they (vibe-)delivered without asking the LLM that wrote it. Whoever uses the code downstream aren't gonna stand (or pay!) for this l…

The difference with a purely still photograph is that code is a functional encoding of an intention. Code of an LLM could be perfect and still not encode the perfect intention of the product. I’ve seen that in many occasions. Many people don’t understand what code really is about and think they have a printer toy now and we don’t have to use pencils. That’s not at all the same thing. Code is intention, logic, specifi…

> Code is intention, logic, specific use case all at once. With a non deterministic system and vague prompting there will be misinterpreted intentions from LLM because the model makes decisions to move forward. The problem is the scale of it, we’re not talking about 1000 loc. In a month you can generate millions of loc, in a year hundreds of millions of loc.

People are also non deterministic. When I delegate work to team of five or six mid level developers or God forbid outsourced developers, I’m going to have to check and review their work too.

It’s been over a decade that my vision/responsibility could be carried out by just my own two hands and be done on time within 40 hours a week - until LLMs

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#207

Post by orwin »

bornfreddy wrote: post #83
orwin wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the opposite. I've never read and re-read code more than i do today. The new hires generate 50 more code than they use to, and you _have_ to check it or have compounding production issues (been there, done that). And the errors can now be anywhere, when before you more or less knew what the person writing code is thinking and can understand why some errors are made. LLMs errors could hide _anywhere_, so you ha…

Isn't that a losing proposition? Or do you get 50 times the value out of it too? In my experience the more verbose the code is, the less thought out it is. Lots of changes? Cool, now polish some more and come back when it's below 100 lines change, excluding tests and docs. I don't dare touch it before.

I agree, but i'm shouting at the cloud. Stuff needs to be done, it seems to work at first, so either i just abandon quality and let things rot, or i read everything and underline each time the code smell.

I too use AI, but mostly to generate scripts (the most usefull use of AI is 100-200 line scripts imho), test _cases_ (i write the test itself, the data inside is generated) and HTML/CSS/JS shenanigans (the logic i code, the presentation i'm inferior to any random guy on the internet, so i might as well use an AI). I also use it for stuff that never end in repository, for exploration/proof of concept and outside of scope tests (i like to understand how stuff work, that helps), or to summarize Powerpoint presentations so i can do actual work during 60-person "meetings" and still get the point.

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#209

Post by mrklol »

OptionOfT wrote: post #2

I wonder at the end of this if it's the still worth the risk? A lot of how I form my thoughts is driven by writing code, and seeing it on screen, running into its limitations. Maybe it's the kind of work I'm doing, or maybe I just suck, but the code to me is a forcing mechanism into ironing out the details, and I don't get that when I'm writing a specification.

I am similar but I think we just have to adjust. Learn and improve writings specs with all the details.

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#210

Post by p1esk »

shinycode wrote: post #182
p1esk wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t read or edit the code my claude code agent produces. That’s its job now. My job is to organize the process and get things done.

In this case why can’t other agents just automate your job completely ? They are capable of that. What do you bring in the process of still doing manual organization ?

I still have to tell it what to do, and often how to do it. I manage its external memory and guidelines, and review implementation plans. I’m still heavily involved in software design and test coverage.

AI is not capable yet of automating my job completely – I anticipate this will happen within two years, maybe even this year (I’m an ML researcher).

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