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Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

antirez.com

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Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#281

Post by zjzkshz »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #275
phicoh wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I see is not so much in how you generate the code. It is about how to maintain the code. If you check in the AI generated code unchanged then do you start changing that code by hand later? Do you trust that in the future AI can fix bugs in your code. Or do you clean up the AI generated code first?

Is it really much different from maintaining code that other people wrote and that you merged?

Yes, this is (partly) why developer salaries are so high. I can trust my coworkers in ways not possible with AI.

There is no process solution for low performers (as of today).

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#282

Post by jebarker »

martin-t wrote: post #120
embedding-shape wrote: post #95

> But what was the fire inside you, when you coded till night to see your project working? It was building. I feel like this is not the same for everyone. For some people, the "fire" is literally about "I control a computer", for others "I'm solving a problem for others", and yet for others "I made something that made others smile/cry/feel emotions" and so on. I think there is a section of programmer who actually do…

> programmer who actually do like the actual typing It's not about the typing, it's about the understanding. LLM coding is like reading a math textbook without trying to solve any of the problems. You get an overview, you get a sense of what it's about and most importantly you get a false sense of understanding. But if you try to actually solve the problems, you engage completely different parts of your brain. It's a…

> LLM coding is like reading a math textbook without trying to solve any of the problems.

Most math textbooks provide the solutions too. So you could choose to just read those and move on and you’d have achieved much less. The same is true with coding. Just because LLMs are available doesn’t mean you have to use them for all coding, especially when the goal is to learn foundational knowledge. I still believe there’s a need for humans to learn much of the same foundational knowledge as before LLMs otherwise we’ll end up with a world of technology that is totally inscrutable. Those who choose to just vibe code everything will make themselves irrelevant quickly.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#283

Post by YetAnotherNick »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #275
phicoh wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I see is not so much in how you generate the code. It is about how to maintain the code. If you check in the AI generated code unchanged then do you start changing that code by hand later? Do you trust that in the future AI can fix bugs in your code. Or do you clean up the AI generated code first?

Is it really much different from maintaining code that other people wrote and that you merged?

Yes. Firstly AI forgets why it wrote certain code and with humans at least you can ask them when reviewing. Secondly current gen AI(at least Claude) kind of wants to finish the thing instead of thinking of bigger picture. Human programmers code little differently that they hate a single line fix in random file to fix something else in different part of the code.

I think the second is part of RL training to optimize for self contained task like swe bench.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#284

Post by barrkel »

omnicognate wrote: post #238
embedding-shape wrote: post #95

> But what was the fire inside you, when you coded till night to see your project working? It was building. I feel like this is not the same for everyone. For some people, the "fire" is literally about "I control a computer", for others "I'm solving a problem for others", and yet for others "I made something that made others smile/cry/feel emotions" and so on. I think there is a section of programmer who actually do…

> do like the actual typing of letters, numbers and special characters into a computer and from the first line of the article: > I love writing software, line by line. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't write programs "line by line" and typing isn't programming. I work out code in the abstract away from the keyboard before typing it out, and it's not the typing part that is the bottleneck. Last time I…

I'm like you. I get on famously with Claude Code with Opus 4.5 2025.11 update.

Give it a first pass from a spec. Since you know how it should be shaped you can give an initial steer, but focus on features first, and build with testability.

Then refactor, with examples in prompts, until it lines up. You already have the tests, the AI can ensure it doesn't break anything.

Beat it up more and you're done.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#285

Post by jt2190 »

phicoh wrote: post #198
embedding-shape wrote: post #95

> But what was the fire inside you, when you coded till night to see your project working? It was building. I feel like this is not the same for everyone. For some people, the "fire" is literally about "I control a computer", for others "I'm solving a problem for others", and yet for others "I made something that made others smile/cry/feel emotions" and so on. I think there is a section of programmer who actually do…

The problem I see is not so much in how you generate the code. It is about how to maintain the code. If you check in the AI generated code unchanged then do you start changing that code by hand later? Do you trust that in the future AI can fix bugs in your code. Or do you clean up the AI generated code first?

LLMs remove the familiarity of “I wrote this and deeply understand this”. In other words, everything is “legacy code” now ;-)

For those who are less experienced with the constant surprises that legacy code bases can provide, LLMs are deeply unsettling.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#286

Post by zjzkshz »

embedding-shape wrote: post #95

> But what was the fire inside you, when you coded till night to see your project working? It was building. I feel like this is not the same for everyone. For some people, the "fire" is literally about "I control a computer", for others "I'm solving a problem for others", and yet for others "I made something that made others smile/cry/feel emotions" and so on. I think there is a section of programmer who actually do…

> I think there is a section of programmer who actually do like the actual typing of letters

Do people actually spend a significant time typing? After I moved beyond the novice stage it’s been an inconsequential amount of time. What it still serves is a thorough review of every single line in a way that is essentially equivalent to what a good PR review looks like.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#288

Post by hxugufjfjf »

phicoh wrote: post #198
embedding-shape wrote: post #95

> But what was the fire inside you, when you coded till night to see your project working? It was building. I feel like this is not the same for everyone. For some people, the "fire" is literally about "I control a computer", for others "I'm solving a problem for others", and yet for others "I made something that made others smile/cry/feel emotions" and so on. I think there is a section of programmer who actually do…

The problem I see is not so much in how you generate the code. It is about how to maintain the code. If you check in the AI generated code unchanged then do you start changing that code by hand later? Do you trust that in the future AI can fix bugs in your code. Or do you clean up the AI generated code first?

I have AI agents write, perform code review, improve and iterate upon the code. I trust that an agent with capabilities to write working code can also improve it. I use Claude skills for this and keep improving the skills based on both AI and human code reviews for the same type of code.

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#289

Post by fireflash38 »

chii wrote: post #269
phicoh wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I see is not so much in how you generate the code. It is about how to maintain the code. If you check in the AI generated code unchanged then do you start changing that code by hand later? Do you trust that in the future AI can fix bugs in your code. Or do you clean up the AI generated code first?

Would it not be a new paradigm, where the generated code from AI is segregated and treated like a binary blob? You don't change it (beyond perhaps some cosmetic, or superficial changes that the AI missed). You keep the prompt(s), and maintain that instead. And for new changes you want added, the prompts are either modified, or appended to.

Sounds like a nondeterministic nightmare

Re: Don't fall into the anti-AI hype

#290

Post by gherkinnn »

falloutx wrote: post #174
edg5000 wrote: post #98

> state of the art LLMs are able to complete large subtasks or medium size projects alone, almost unassisted, given a good set of hints about what the end result should be No. I agree with the author, but it's hyperbolic of him to phrase it like this. If you have solid domain knowledge, you'll steer the model with detailed specs. It will carry those out competently and multiply your productivity. However, the quality…

If this only works for people with like 10+ years of domain experience, doesnt that make this an Anti-AI article? Whole vibe coding sells on the promise that it works and it works for every tom and their mom.

This conflates two things.

One is LLMs writing code. Not everything and not for everyone. But they are useful for most of the code being written. It is useful.

What it does not do (yet, if ever) is bridging the gap from "idea" to a working solution. This is precisely where all the low-code ideas of the past decades fell apart. Translating an idea in to formal rules is very, very hard.

Think of all of the "just add a button there"-type comments we've all suffered.

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