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Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

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Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#221

Post by andrelaszlo »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #132
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…

Why isn't your first question, "how did you test this?"

You're right, I am starting to develop that habit.

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#222

Post by acedTrex »

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…

The standard competency markers we use to judge code have been hijacked. The new world is very low trust and very painful.

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#223

Post by acedTrex »

jedimastert wrote: post #189
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…

> - 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 "good catch, I'll fix that" (also reminiscent of an LLM). Would you mind drilling down into this a bit more? I might be dealing with a similar problem and would appreciate if you have any insight

Basically the juniors just ask the LLM for an explanation of what the problem is and then fix what the LLM interprets your review to be talking about.

The way that you solve this is that you pull your junior into a call and work them through your comments one by one verbally, expecting them to comprehend the issues every time.

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#224

Post by sarchertech »

oytis wrote: post #207
gyesxnuibh wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...?

> Does that work as well with non-strangers who are your coworker? Yeah, OK, I guess you have to be a bit less unapologetic than Linux kernel maintainers in this case, but you can still shift the culture towards more careful PRs I think. > why are you even organizationally using LLMs Many people believe LLMs make coders more productive, and given the rapid progress of gen AI it's probably not wise to just dismiss thi…

I don’t want to just dismiss the productivity increase. I feel 100% more productive on throw away POCs and maybe 20% more productive on large important code bases.

But when I actually sit down and think it through, I’ve wasted multiple days chasing down subtle bugs that I never would have introduced myself. It could very well be that there’s no productivity gain for me at all. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the numbers showed that was the case.

But let’s say I am actually getting 20%. If this technology dramatically increases the output of juniors and mid level technical tornadoes that’s going to easily erase that 20% gain.

I’ve seen codebases that were dominated my mid level technical tornadoes and juniors, no amount of guardrails could ever fix them.

Until we are at the point where no human has to interact with code (and I’m skeptical we will ever get there short of AGI) we need automated objective guardrails for “this code is readable and maintainable”, and I’m 99.999% certain that is just impossible.

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#225

Post by rambambram »

oytis wrote: post #64
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 guess answering "you obviously didn't write it, please redo" is not an option, because then you are the dinosaur hindering company's march towards the AI future?

Haha, good one.

You might make this easier by saying you just checked their code with your own AI system and then say it returned "you obviously didn't write it, please redo".

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#226

Post by LunicLynx »

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.

Did anyone say react in the windows start menu?

Folks, we already have bad software. Everywhere.

And nobody cares.

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#227

Post by pclowes »

I have not found LLMs to be most beneficial in straight writing code especially in complex large scale systems. However, I have found them extremely useful at the aspects the author claims they make more difficult: understanding, testing, and trusting that code.

An LLM is an extremely useful search engine. Given access to plenty of CLI tools asking it questions about an unfamiliar code base is extremely helpful. It can read and summarize much faster than I can. I don't trust its exact understanding but I do trust it to give me a high level understanding of an architecture, call out dependencies, summarize APIs, and give me an idea of what parts of the code base are new/old etc.

Additionally, having LLMs write tests after setting up the rough testing structure and giving it a few examples massively decreases the amount of time it takes to prove my understanding of the code through the tests thereby increasing my confidence/trust in it.

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#228

Post by djeastm »

mgaunard wrote: post #12

Right, we all know this. LLMs write a lot of bad code that cannot be realistically reviewed. I've even had code submitted to me by juniors which didn't make any sense. When I ask them why they did that, they say they don't know, the LLM did it. What this new trend is doing is generating a lot of noise and overhead on maintenance. The only way forward, if embracing LLMs, is to use LLMs also for the reviewing and maint…

>When I ask them why they did that, they say they don't know, the LLM did it.

I can't imagine a professional software developer in a position of authority leaving that statement unchallenged and uncorrected.

If a person doesn't stand behind the code they write, they shouldn't be employed. Full stop.

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#229

Post by Aeolun »

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.

Honestly, I expect LLM’s or the combination of algorithms that make them usable (Claude Code), to get better fast enough that we’ll never reach that phase. All the good devs know what the current problem with LLM assisted coding are, and a lot of them are working to mitigate and/or fix those problems.

Re: Writing Code Was Never the Bottleneck

#230

Post by cloverich »

NiloCK wrote: post #211

Writing code was never the only bottleneck, and I'm sure there is personal variation, but for me personally it has always been the dominant bottleneck. My backspace and delete keys loom larger than the rest of my keyboard combined. Plodding through with meager fingers, I could always find fault faster than I could produce functionality. It was a constant, ego-depleting struggle to set aside encountered misgivings for…

It's interesting to think about, but LLMs are perhaps not impacting everyone, even at the same level, the same ways. I'm similarly more productive, and for a different reason. I've always struggled with task persistence when the task is easy and monotonous.... or something. Easy jobs, books, code, that still took a while to do, always took the longest, focus was impossible. Hard tasks, books, classes, etc, i always did the best at. nearly failed school from the easiest course; highest marks in the hardest ones. I've never gotten over this.

That's now melted away. For the first time my mind feels free to think. Everything is moving almost as fast as i am thinking, Im far less bogged down in the slow parts, which the llm can do. I spend so much more time thinking, designing, architecting, etc. Distracting thoughts now turn into completed quality of life features, done on the side. I guess it rewards add, the real kind, in a way that the regular world understandably punishes.

And it must free up mental space for me because i find i can now review others prs more quickly as well. I don't use llm for this, and don't have a great explanation for what is happening here.

Anyways im not sure this is the same issue as yours, and so its interesting to think about what kinds of minds it's freeing, and what kinds its of less use to.

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