How I write software with LLMs • Hacker News Board

Re: How I write software with LLMs

#291

Post by raw_anon_1111 » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:40 PM UTC

throwaw12 wrote: post #259

petcat wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As human developers, I think we're struggling with "letting go" of the code. The code we write (or agents write) is really just an intermediate representation (IR) of the solution. For instance, GCC will inline functions, unroll loops, and myriad other optimizations that we don't care about (and actually want!). But when we review the ASM that GCC generates we are not concerned with the "spaghetti" and the "high coup…

Valid points. But crucial part of not "letting go" of the code is because we are responsible for that code at the moment. If, in the future, LLM providers will take ownership of our on-calls for the code they have produced, I would write "AUTO-REVIEW-ACCEPTER" bot to accept everything and deploy it to production. If, company requires me to own something, then I should be aware about what's that thing and understand i…

In the past ten years as a team lead/architect/person who was responsible for outsourced implementations (ie Salesforce/Workday integrations, etc), I’ve been responsible for a lot of code I didn’t write. What sense would it have made for me to review the code of the web front end of the web developer for best practices when I haven’t written a web app since 2002?

Re: How I write software with LLMs

#292

Post by mikkupikku » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:43 PM UTC

ruszki wrote: post #257

petcat wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you tell a human junior developer just "fix this" then they will spend a week on a wild-goose chase with nothing to show for it. At least the LLM will only take 5 minutes to tell you they don't know what to do.

Do they? I’ve never got a response that something was impossible, or stupid. LLMs are happy to verify that a noop does nothing, if they don’t know how to fix something. They rather make something useless than really tackle a problem, if they can make tests green that way, or they can claim that something “works”. And’ve I never asked Claude Code something which is really impossible, or even really difficult.

Claude code will happily tell me my ideas are stupid, but I think that's because I nest my ideas in between other alternative ideas and ask for an evaluation of all of them. This effectively combats the sycophantic tendencies.

Still, sometimes claude will tell me off even when I don't give it alternatives. Last night I told it to use luasocket from an mpv userscript to connect to a zeromq Unix socket (and also implement zmq in pure lua) connected to an ffmpeg zmq filter to change filter parameters on the fly. Claude code all but called me stupid and told me to just reload the filter graph through normal mpv means when I make a change. Which was a good call, but I told it to do the thing anyway and it ended up working well, so what does it really know... Anyway, I like that it pushes back, but agrees to commit when I insist.

Re: How I write software with LLMs

#293

Post by datsci_est_2015 » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:44 PM UTC

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #246

datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also developer UX, common antipatterns, etc This “the only thing that matters about code is whether it meets requirements” is such a tired take and I can’t imagine anyone seriously spouting it has has had to maintain real software.

The developer UX are the markdown files if no developer ever looks at the code. Whether you are tired of it or not, absolutely no one in your value you chain - your customers who give your company money or your management chain cares about your code beyond does it meet the functional and non functional requirements - they never did. And of course whether it was done on time and on budget

As a consumer of goods, I care quite a bit about many of the “hows” of those goods just as much as the “whats”.

My home, which I own, for example, is very much a “what” that keeps me warm and dry. But the “how” of it was constructed is the difference between (1) me cursing the amateur and careless decision making of builders and (2) quietly sipping a cocktail on the beach, free of a care in the world.

“How” doesn’t matter until it matters, like when you put too much weight onto that piece of particle board IKEA furniture.

Re: How I write software with LLMs

#294

Post by gonzo41 » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:45 PM UTC

miguelgrinberg wrote: post #151

> One thing I’ve noticed is that different people get wildly different results with LLMs, so I suspect there’s some element of how you’re talking to them that affects the results. It's always easier to blame the prompt and convince yourself that you have some sort of talent in how you talk to LLMs that other's don't. In my experience the differences are mostly in how the code produced by the LLM is reviewed. Develope…

Its exactly the same as 10 years ago and being able to google and search well for odd support bugs. Junior people think it's easy and they don't see the massive skill in framing questions and filtering.

Re: How I write software with LLMs

#295

Post by AIorNot » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:49 PM UTC

datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #266

make_it_sure wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you are overestimating the skill of code review. Some people have very specific ways of writing code and solving problems which are not aligned what LLMs wrote, but doesn't mean it's wrong. I know senior developers that are very radical on some nonsense patterns they think are much better than others. If they see code that don't follow them, they say it's trash. Even so, you can guide the LLM to write the code as you…

> you are overestimating the skill of code review. “You are overestimating the skill of [reading, comprehending, and critically assessing code of a non-guaranteed quality]” is an absurd statement if you properly expand out what “code review” means. I don’t care if you code review the CSS file for the Bojangles online menu web page, but you better be code reviewing the firmware for my dad’s pacemaker. This whole back…

By far most of the code LLMs write is for crappy crud apps and webapps not pacemakers and rockets

We can capture enough reliability on what LLMs produce there by guided integration tests and UX tests along with code review and using other LLMs to review along with other strategies to prvent semantic and code drift

Do you know how much crap wordpress ,drupal and Joomla sites I have seen?

Just that work can be automated away

But Ive also worked in high end and mission critical delivery and more formal verification etc - that’s just moving the goalposts on what AI can do- it will get there eventually

Last year you all here were arguing AI Couldn’t code - now everyone has moved the goalposts to formal high end and mission critical ops- yes when money matters we humans are still needed of course - no one denying that- its the utility of the sole human developer against the onslaught of machine aided coding

This profession is changing rapidly- people are stuck in denial

Re: How I write software with LLMs

#296

Post by jaredklewis » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:50 PM UTC

codemog wrote: post #43

jaredklewis wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what's the evidence What’s the evidence for anything software engineers use? Tests, type checkers, syntax highlighting, IDEs, code review, pair programming, and so on. In my experience, evidence for the efficacy of software engineering practices falls into two categories: - the intuitions of developers, based in their experiences. - scientific studies, which are unconvincing. Some are unconvincing because they atte…

My friend, there’s tons of evidence of all that stuff you talked about in hundreds of papers on arxiv. But you dismiss it entirely in your second bullet point, so I’m not entirely sure what you expect.

I’ve read dozens of them and find them unconvincing for the reasons outlined. If you want a more specific critique, link a paper.

I personally like and use tests, formal verification, and so on. But the evidence for these methods are weak.

edit: To be clear, I am not ragging on the researchers. I think it's just kind of an inherently messy field with pretty much endless variables to control for and not a lot of good quantifiable metrics to rely on.

Re: How I write software with LLMs

#297

Post by danbruc » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:53 PM UTC

mbesto wrote: post #285

danbruc wrote: post #139

I randomly clicked and scrolled through the source code of Stavrobot - The largest thing I’ve built lately is an alternative to OpenClaw that focuses on security. [1] and that is not great code. I have not used any AI to write code yet but considered trying it out - is this the kind of code I should expect? Or maybe the other way around, has someone an example of some non-trivial code - in size and complexity - writt…

> and that is not great code When you say "is not great code" can you elaborate? Does the code work or not?

I don't know, I would assume it works but I would not expect it to be free of bugs. But that is the baseline for code, being correct - up to some bugs - is the absolute minimum requirement, code quality starts from there - is it efficient, is it secure, is it understandable, is it maintainable, ...

Re: How I write software with LLMs

#298

Post by raw_anon_1111 » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:53 PM UTC

mikeocool wrote: post #263

petcat wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As human developers, I think we're struggling with "letting go" of the code. The code we write (or agents write) is really just an intermediate representation (IR) of the solution. For instance, GCC will inline functions, unroll loops, and myriad other optimizations that we don't care about (and actually want!). But when we review the ASM that GCC generates we are not concerned with the "spaghetti" and the "high coup…

When requirements change, a compiler has the benefit of not having to go back and edit the binary it produced. Maybe we should treat LLM generated code similarly —- just generate everything fresh from the spec anytime there’a a change, though personally I haven’t had much success with that yet.

It very much does have to modify the binary it produced to create new code. The entire Linux kernel has an unstable ABI where you have to recompile your code to link to system libraries.

Re: How I write software with LLMs

#299

Post by raw_anon_1111 » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 1:55 PM UTC

datsci_est_2015 wrote: post #293

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The developer UX are the markdown files if no developer ever looks at the code. Whether you are tired of it or not, absolutely no one in your value you chain - your customers who give your company money or your management chain cares about your code beyond does it meet the functional and non functional requirements - they never did. And of course whether it was done on time and on budget

As a consumer of goods, I care quite a bit about many of the “hows” of those goods just as much as the “whats”. My home, which I own, for example, is very much a “what” that keeps me warm and dry. But the “how” of it was constructed is the difference between (1) me cursing the amateur and careless decision making of builders and (2) quietly sipping a cocktail on the beach, free of a care in the world. “How” doesn’t m…

Do you know how every nail was put into your house? Does the general contractor?

Re: How I write software with LLMs

#300

Post by soulofmischief » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 2:00 PM UTC

awakeasleep wrote: post #230

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have 30 years of experience delivering code and 10 years of leading architecture. My argument is the only thing that matters is does the entire implementation - code + architecture (your database, networking, your runtime that determines scaling, etc) meet the functional and none functional requirements. Functional = does it meet the business requirements and UX and non functional = scalability, security, performan…

Explain how fragility of implementation, like spaghetti code, high coupling low cohesion fit into your world view?

I would like to introduce you to the concepts of interfaces and memory safety.

Well-designed interfaces enforce decoupling where it matters most. And believe it or not, you can do review passes after an LLM writes code, to catch bugs, security issues, bad architecture, reduce complexity, etc.