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I'm going back to writing code by hand

blog.k10s.dev

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Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand

#301

Post by bluGill »

gf000 wrote: post #258
thunky wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I don't think that's a useful mental model for software in general. There are software that works like this (e.g. a website's unrelated pages and their logic), but in general composing simple functions can result in vastly non-proportional complexity. (The usual example is having a simple loop, and a simple conditional, where you can easily encode Goldbach or Collatz) E.g. you write a runtime with a garbage collector…

The GC shouldn't care about all the code it is collecting. I collects garbage, it doesn't care if the garbage is a intermediate value from your tax calculations, or the the previous state image from your UI - either way it is garbage and it is gone. Now in a few cases details of garbage collection matter by enough that it is worth something more invasive for some reason, but the vast majority of code shouldn't care about the other areas.

When on a tiny project it doesn't matter. However when you have millions of lines of code you have to trust that your code works in isolation without knowing the details.

Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand

#302

Post by IceDane »

This doesn't make any sense to me.

The problem with this dev's approach is not AI, it's their use of it. They didn't ensure that the architecture made sense. They didn't look at the code and get a "feel" for it. They didn't do the whole build stuff, step back, refactor, rinse and repeat dance. The need for that hasn't gone away; if anything, it's even more important now. Because you can spit out code 100x faster than you could before, your tech debt compounds 100x faster. The earlier you refactor, the less work it is.

I usually give the agent a solid idea of what I want, often down to the API interfaces. Then every now and then, I'll go through the code and ensure that everything makes sense, and that I'm not just spitting out code that works, but building a codebase that scales.

Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand

#303

Post by jstummbillig »

raincole wrote: post #290
djeastm wrote: post #275

When it was Copilot tab-completing lines, people would say, "yea, but you still have to make sure you're the one writing the whole functions". Then when it was completing functions, people would say, "yeah, but you still have to make sure you're the one writing the logic around the functions" Then when it was completing the logic around the functions, people would say, "yeah, but you still have to make sure you're th…

The "people" in your hypothetical story have been wrong the whole time. The correct attitude is: When AI can complete lines, you still have to read and understand the code. When AI can complete whole functions, you still have to read and understand the code. When AI can complete features and tickets, you still have to read and understand the code.

Not at all. Code is not important, intent is. The leader of a product/company does not have to read code. It doesn't matter if it is generated by humans or non-humans. It simply needs to be correct enough to be usable and then steerable towards better outcomes. Understanding of code never existed from the business perspective.

Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand

#304

Post by throwaway173738 »

jstummbillig wrote: post #303
raincole wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "people" in your hypothetical story have been wrong the whole time. The correct attitude is: When AI can complete lines, you still have to read and understand the code. When AI can complete whole functions, you still have to read and understand the code. When AI can complete features and tickets, you still have to read and understand the code.

Not at all. Code is not important, intent is. The leader of a product/company does not have to read code. It doesn't matter if it is generated by humans or non-humans. It simply needs to be correct enough to be usable and then steerable towards better outcomes. Understanding of code never existed from the business perspective.

It does in safety critical industries. You can get grilled by regulators about your source code. And lawyers will use it as evidence in court.

Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand

#305

Post by user34283 »

djeastm wrote: post #275

When it was Copilot tab-completing lines, people would say, "yea, but you still have to make sure you're the one writing the whole functions". Then when it was completing functions, people would say, "yeah, but you still have to make sure you're the one writing the logic around the functions" Then when it was completing the logic around the functions, people would say, "yeah, but you still have to make sure you're th…

I felt the same with:

"it takes too much effort to get the output production ready"

turning into

"maybe long term the maintenance will be more expensive"

I give it three months until people realize that you rarely need to review every single line and fully understand the code, like so many comments are claiming.

Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand

#306

Post by herdcall »

raincole wrote: post #290
djeastm wrote: post #275

When it was Copilot tab-completing lines, people would say, "yea, but you still have to make sure you're the one writing the whole functions". Then when it was completing functions, people would say, "yeah, but you still have to make sure you're the one writing the logic around the functions" Then when it was completing the logic around the functions, people would say, "yeah, but you still have to make sure you're th…

The "people" in your hypothetical story have been wrong the whole time. The correct attitude is: When AI can complete lines, you still have to read and understand the code. When AI can complete whole functions, you still have to read and understand the code. When AI can complete features and tickets, you still have to read and understand the code.

I'm no longer sure you have to, actually. I mean, we do trust the assembly that compilers produce without having to read it, don't we? We're rapidly getting to that stage with LLMs, IMO.

Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand

#307

Post by throwaway173738 »

lukan wrote: post #291
pron wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't quite work, and precisely for the reason I mentioned: You can definitely tell the AI to follow some strategy, but at some point the strategy will need to change, and the AI won't tell you that (even if you tell it to). Unless you read the code every time you won't know if the AI is following the strategy and producing good results or following it and producing bad results because the strategy has to chan…

How do you define "bad code"? If I instruct the AI to make small modules where I can verify they work, have tests and no side effects - then it is good enough code for me. It works, is readable and can be extended - and will turn into bad code if this is not done with care.

The concept of a small module is an architecture invariant. You’re making that decision, not the LLM. And you’ve made that decision because the machine is not good at certain things. You’re doing that because you can’t trust the LLM to make that decision on its own.

Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand

#308

Post by pron »

lukan wrote: post #291
pron wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't quite work, and precisely for the reason I mentioned: You can definitely tell the AI to follow some strategy, but at some point the strategy will need to change, and the AI won't tell you that (even if you tell it to). Unless you read the code every time you won't know if the AI is following the strategy and producing good results or following it and producing bad results because the strategy has to chan…

How do you define "bad code"? If I instruct the AI to make small modules where I can verify they work, have tests and no side effects - then it is good enough code for me. It works, is readable and can be extended - and will turn into bad code if this is not done with care.

Sure, if you carefully review the agent's output, including tests, you can get good results. If you don't carefully review the output, you obviously have no idea if it's good enough for you. The only way to find out is that 30 changes down the line the agent won't be able to change one thing without breaking another, but by then the codebase will be too far gone to fix.

Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand

#309

Post by bigfishrunning »

herdcall wrote: post #306
raincole wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "people" in your hypothetical story have been wrong the whole time. The correct attitude is: When AI can complete lines, you still have to read and understand the code. When AI can complete whole functions, you still have to read and understand the code. When AI can complete features and tickets, you still have to read and understand the code.

I'm no longer sure you have to, actually. I mean, we do trust the assembly that compilers produce without having to read it, don't we? We're rapidly getting to that stage with LLMs, IMO.

The assembly is a deterministic transform of the input logic, and if it doesn't match then it's a bug in the compiler. If an LLM-based code generator doesn't match what you asked for, that's OK, just pull the slot-machine handle again. that's the difference.

Re: I'm going back to writing code by hand

#310

Post by sevenzero »

topaz0 wrote: post #266
sevenzero wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sounds like you're just fine depending on an extremely imprecise abstraction (natural language) and an extremely opaque third party (anthropic).

I can also just do it myself though lmao its not like I dont look at what it is producing

The recommended tool cant even produce mobile friendly, like why would I ever use it?

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