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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

#31

Post by dasil003 »

einpoklum wrote: post #5

That sounds like the advice of someone who doesn't actually write high-quality code. Perhaps a better title would be "how to get something better than pure slop when letting a chatbot code for you" - and then it's not bad advice I suppose. I would still avoid such code if I can help it at all.

This take is pretty uncharitable. I write high quality code, but also there's a bunch of code that could be useful, but that I don't write because it's not worth the effort. AI unlocks a lot of value in that way. And if there's one thing my 25 years as a software engineer has taught me is that while code quality and especially system architecture matter a lot, being super precious about every line of code really does not.

Don't get me wrong, I do think AI coding is pretty dangerous for those without the right expertise to harness it with the right guardrails, and I'm really worried about what it will mean for open source and SWE hiring, but I do think refusing to use AI at this point is a bit like the assembly programmer saying they'll never learn C.

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#32

Post by bigfishrunning »

notpachet wrote: post #24
Akranazon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, you are really missing out of the biggest revolution of my life. This is the opinion of someone who has not tried to use Claude Code, in a brand new project with full permissions enabled, and with a model from the last 3 months.

> in a brand new project Must be nice. Claude and Codex are still a waste of my time in complex legacy codebases.

Brand new projects have a way of turning into legacy codebases

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#33

Post by hed »

doug_durham wrote: post #23
agumonkey wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second this. This* is the matter against which we form understanding. This here is the work at hand, our own notes, discussions we have with people, the silent walk where our brain kinda process errors and ideas .. it's always been like this since i was a kid, playing with construction toys. I never ever wanted somebody to play while I wait to evaluate if it fits my desires. Desires that often come from playing. Ou…

I'll push it back against this a little bit. I find any type of deliberative thinking to be a forcing function. I've recently been experimenting with writing very detailed specifications and prompts for an LLM to process. I find that as I go through the details, thoughts will occur to me. Things I hadn't thought about in the design will come to me. This is very much the same phenomenon when I was writing the code by…

I think it's analogous to writing and refining an outline for a paper. If you keep going, you eventually end up at an outline where you can concatenate what are basically sentences together to form paragraphs. This is sort of where you are now, if you spec well you'll get decent results.

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#34

Post by blmarket »

Some pattern I found from my hobby project.

1. Keep things small and review everything AI written, or 2. Keep things bloated and let AI do whatever it wants within the designated interface.

Initially I drew this line for API service / UI components, but it later expanded to other domains. e.g. For my hobby rust project I try to keep "trait"s to be single responsible, never overlap, easy to understand etc etc. but I never look at AI generated "impl"s as long as it passes some sensible tests and conforming the traits.

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#36

Post by frankc »

jeppester wrote: post #8
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.

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 apply around bugs, security etc, but I think there are also going to be some things we need to just let go of.

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#37

Post by agumonkey »

doug_durham wrote: post #23
agumonkey wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second this. This* is the matter against which we form understanding. This here is the work at hand, our own notes, discussions we have with people, the silent walk where our brain kinda process errors and ideas .. it's always been like this since i was a kid, playing with construction toys. I never ever wanted somebody to play while I wait to evaluate if it fits my desires. Desires that often come from playing. Ou…

I'll push it back against this a little bit. I find any type of deliberative thinking to be a forcing function. I've recently been experimenting with writing very detailed specifications and prompts for an LLM to process. I find that as I go through the details, thoughts will occur to me. Things I hadn't thought about in the design will come to me. This is very much the same phenomenon when I was writing the code by…

I agree, I felt this a bit. The LLM can be a modeling peer in a way. But the phase where it goes to validate / implement is also key to my brain. I need to feel the details.

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#38

Post by bwestergard »

blmarket wrote: post #34

Some pattern I found from my hobby project. 1. Keep things small and review everything AI written, or 2. Keep things bloated and let AI do whatever it wants within the designated interface. Initially I drew this line for API service / UI components, but it later expanded to other domains. e.g. For my hobby rust project I try to keep "trait"s to be single responsible, never overlap, easy to understand etc etc. but I n…

Do you think Rust will end up getting a boost from LLM adoption?

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#39

Post by krashidov »

> Use strict linting and formatting rules to ensure code quality and consistency. This will help you and your AI to find issues early.

I've always advocated for using a linter and consistent formatting. But now I'm not so sure. What's the point? If nobody is going to bother reading the code anymore I feel like linting does not matter. I think in 10 years a software application will be very obfuscated implementation code with thousands of very solidly documented test cases and, much like compiled code, how the underlying implementation code looks or is organized won't really matter

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#40

Post by rustyhancock »

blmarket wrote: post #34

Some pattern I found from my hobby project. 1. Keep things small and review everything AI written, or 2. Keep things bloated and let AI do whatever it wants within the designated interface. Initially I drew this line for API service / UI components, but it later expanded to other domains. e.g. For my hobby rust project I try to keep "trait"s to be single responsible, never overlap, easy to understand etc etc. but I n…

I'm finding Rust is perfect for me with LLMs.

I find rust generally easier to reason about, but can't stand writing it.

The compiler works well with LLMs plenty of good tooling and LSPs.

If I'm happy with the shape of the code and I usually write the function signatures/ Module APIs. And the compiler is happy with it compiling. Usually the errors if any are logical ones I should catch in reviews.

So I focus on function, compiler focuses on correctness and LLM just does the actual writing.

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