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I'm going back to writing code by hand
241–250 of 656 posts
Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand
#242I ran quite early into the same issues with my rust pet projects. Single structs with tons of Option and validation methods etc. enums for type fields combined with says optional fields in the same layer so accessor methods all return Option . I add now a long list of instructions how to work with the type system and some do’s and don’ts. I don’t see myself as a vibe coder. I actually read the damn code and instruct…
Would you be interested in sharing your findings? I'm currently experimenting with LLM-generated rust and honestly think it works quite well, however I'm looking for ways to improve the "taste" of the agent.
I pushed a gist
https://gist.github.com/Larusso/82c9aa8effb3031d149d3b5a1b96...
Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
This was made in two days of vibe coding. It has flaws, but it's impressive as hell: https://tinyskies.vercel.app/ It's got a fun Zelda-inspired mechanic (I won't say which one), and you'll have to unlock abilities and parts of the world over several quests and modes to "win". It's also multiplayer.
This ran at ~1fps for me
Runs smoothly for me in Zen (FF) on Linux.
Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand
#244That’s the same story I had. The swindle goes like this, AI on a good codebase can build a lot of features, you think it’s faster it even seems safer and more accurate on times, especially in domains you don’t know everything about. This goes in for a while whilst the codebase gets bigger and exploration takes longer and failure rate increases. You don’t want it to be true and try harder so you only stop after it pra…
I find it interesting that this outcome is a surprise. I don't want this to sound smug, I'm genuinely curious what the initial expectations are and where they come from. They seem to be different for LLMs, because would anyone be surprised if they handed summary feature descriptions to some random "developer" you've ever only met online, and got back an absolute dung pile of half-broken implementation? For some reaso…
LLMs do deliver "miracles", in certain cases, if you've experienced it and have been blown away by their output (one shot functional app from a well manufactured prompt, new feature added flawlessly on a complicated existing codebase, etc.), it can be tempting to reajust your expectations and think this will work consistently and at a much larger scale.
They can assimilate 100s of thousands of tokens of context in few seconds/minutes and do exceptional pattern matching beyond what any human can do, that's a main factor in why it looks like "miracles" to us. When a model actually solves a long standing issue that was never addressed due to a lack of funding/time/knowledge, it does feel miraculous and when you are exposed to this a couple of times it's easy to give them more trust, just like you would trust someone who provided you a helping hand a couple of times more than at total stranger.
Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
The question is, is it a job you actually still want once the poo pile reaches critical mass you are the only one with a shovel and the deadline is "yesterday"
That is absolutely true. Unfortunately, this ship has sailed and we are not closing Pandora's box anymore. We'll have to adapt. But we still hold good cards in hand. Do they want their pile of steaming slop fixed, or not? Because no amount of complaints about the deadline being "yesterday" are going to change anything about the fact that time will be needed to fix the accrued technical debt, whether they like it or n…
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Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand
#246Feels like it can be solved wirh even more AI: adverserial models reviewing and testing work performed by main model.
Actually I am curikus to try somwthing like that myself. Is there an existing orchestrating engine (or single agent) which can spawn multiple subagents and keep passing their feedback/output between each other until all of them agree that assignment overall is complete?
Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also as a webdev, it writes basic CRUD pretty good. I am tired of having to build forms myself and the LLMs are usually really good at that. Been building a new app with lots of policies and whatnot and instructing a LLM is just much faster than doing the same repetitive shit over and over myself.
If you were tired of writing forms yourself, had you looked at https://jsonforms.io/ ? Just specify the the data you need, or extract it from the api spec and go. Display the form uniformly every time across your site. No need to burn AI time.
I typically avoid any most abstractions or third party dependencies. Yea it could be neat, but I still need a lot of custom logic here and there.
Same reason I avoid stuff like GraphQL.
A little update: upon viewing the page on phone, for me the "comitter" field in the demo is going out of bounds... Really not speaking for their product.
Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand
#248Yep. The only people I've heard saying that generated code is fine are those who don't read it. The problem is that the mitigations offered in the article also don't work for long. When designing a system or a component we have ideas that form invariants. Sometimes the invariant is big, like a certain grand architecture, and sometimes it’s small, like the selection of a data structure. You can tell the agent what the…
> The only people I've heard saying that generated code is fine are those who don't read it. Well, that is problematic. I have to either assume you are disinterested or lying and neither is great for any discourse.
Yeah, their statement just isn't true. With enough instruction, I've been able to get great output from models. I think that's the key: with detailed, pointed instructions, the output will match.
Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
That workflow just sounds exhausting to me. Would I always need to consider how much of a blast radius my AI-generated code might have? Sounds like there’s so much extra management going into these micro decisions that it ultimately defeats the purpose of generating code altogether. I could see value in using it during the prototyping phase, but wouldn’t like to work like you described for a serious project for end u…
And you have discovered the job of managers! There has always been a lot of hate for managers. Wonder if the robots hate us just as much? (I often feel a weird guilt when I tell an agent to do something I know I am going to throw away but will serve as an interesting exploration...I know if I did that to a human they would be pissed...)
> I know if I did that to a human they would be pissed
You call it a hackathon. You tell the human to stay up the whole night. In exchange for the extra hours worked you provide some pizza.
Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand
#250That’s the same story I had. The swindle goes like this, AI on a good codebase can build a lot of features, you think it’s faster it even seems safer and more accurate on times, especially in domains you don’t know everything about. This goes in for a while whilst the codebase gets bigger and exploration takes longer and failure rate increases. You don’t want it to be true and try harder so you only stop after it pra…
> You look at the code again and there is so much code spaghetti is an understatement it’s the Chinese wall. I don't understand this. A large codebase should be a collection of small codebases, just like a large city is a collection of small cities. There is a map and you zoom into your local area and work within that scope. You don't need to know every detail of NYC to get a cup of coffee. Its your responsibility to…
No but the speed up of AI is giving up control, and then you notice these issues too late.