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AI can code, but it can't build software

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Re: AI can code, but it can't build software

#41

Post by krackers »

bloppe wrote: post #29
hamasho wrote: post #22

The problem with vibe coding is it demoralizes experienced software engineers. I'm developing a MVP with vibes and Claude Code and Codex output work in many cases for this relatively new project. But the quality of code is bad. There is already duplicated or unused logic, a lot of code is unnecessarily complex (especially React and JSX). And there's little PR reviews so that "we can keep velocity". I'm paying much le…

> I'm paying much less attention for quality now. After all, why bother when AI produce working code? I hear this so much. It's almost like people think code quality is unrelated to how well the product works. As though you can have 1 without the other. If your code quality is bad, your product will be bad. It may be good enough for a demo right now, but that doesn't mean it really "works".

Because there's a notion that if any bugs are discovered later on, they can just "be fixed". And generally unless you're the one fixing the bugs, it's hard to understand the asymmetry in effort here. No one also ever got any credit for bug-fixes compared to adding features.

Re: AI can code, but it can't build software

#42

Post by bloppe »

roxolotl wrote: post #13
simonw wrote: post #4

This is a good headline. LLMs are remarkably good at writing code. Writing code isn't the same thing as delivering working software. A human expert needs to identify the need for software, decide what the software should do, figure out what's feasible to deliver, build the first version (AI can help a bunch here), evaluate what they've built, show it to users, talk to them about whether it's fit for purpose, iterate…

One of the interesting corollaries of the title is that this can also be true of humans. Being able to code is not the same as being a software engineer. It never has been.

At least you can teach a human to become a software engineer.

Re: AI can code, but it can't build software

#44

Post by CjHuber »

prmph wrote: post #27
simonw wrote: post #4

This is a good headline. LLMs are remarkably good at writing code. Writing code isn't the same thing as delivering working software. A human expert needs to identify the need for software, decide what the software should do, figure out what's feasible to deliver, build the first version (AI can help a bunch here), evaluate what they've built, show it to users, talk to them about whether it's fit for purpose, iterate…

> LLMs are remarkably good at writing code. Just this past weekend, I've designed and written code (in Typescript) that I don't think LLMs can even come close to writing in years. I have a subscription to a frontier LLM, but lately I find myself using like 25% of the time. At a certain level the software architecture problems I'm solving, drawing upon decades of understanding about maintainable, performant, and verif…

Can you maybe give an example you’ve encountered of an algorithm or a data structure that LLMs cannot handle well?

In my experience implementing algorithms from a good comprehensive description and keeping track of data models is where they shine the most.

Re: AI can code, but it can't build software

#45

Post by avgDev »

veegee wrote: post #33
prmph wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LLMs are remarkably good at writing code. Just this past weekend, I've designed and written code (in Typescript) that I don't think LLMs can even come close to writing in years. I have a subscription to a frontier LLM, but lately I find myself using like 25% of the time. At a certain level the software architecture problems I'm solving, drawing upon decades of understanding about maintainable, performant, and verif…

[flagged]

This is an unhinged comment. You should take a deep breath and get off the internet. You sound extremely immature calling someone on HN "script kiddie".

Re: AI can code, but it can't build software

#46

Post by wutwutwat »

veegee wrote: post #33
prmph wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LLMs are remarkably good at writing code. Just this past weekend, I've designed and written code (in Typescript) that I don't think LLMs can even come close to writing in years. I have a subscription to a frontier LLM, but lately I find myself using like 25% of the time. At a certain level the software architecture problems I'm solving, drawing upon decades of understanding about maintainable, performant, and verif…

[flagged]

What do you plan to do after your software career is over?

Re: AI can code, but it can't build software

#47

Post by [deleted] »

simonw wrote: post #4

This is a good headline. LLMs are remarkably good at writing code. Writing code isn't the same thing as delivering working software. A human expert needs to identify the need for software, decide what the software should do, figure out what's feasible to deliver, build the first version (AI can help a bunch here), evaluate what they've built, show it to users, talk to them about whether it's fit for purpose, iterate…

[deleted]

Re: AI can code, but it can't build software

#48

Post by Bukhmanizer »

simonw wrote: post #4

This is a good headline. LLMs are remarkably good at writing code. Writing code isn't the same thing as delivering working software. A human expert needs to identify the need for software, decide what the software should do, figure out what's feasible to deliver, build the first version (AI can help a bunch here), evaluate what they've built, show it to users, talk to them about whether it's fit for purpose, iterate…

> the big question is if experienced product management types can pick up enough coding technical literacy to work like this without programmers

I have a strong opinion that AI will boost the importance of people with “special knowledge” more than anyone else regardless of role. So engineers with deep knowledge of a system or PMs with deep knowledge of a domain.

Re: AI can code, but it can't build software

#50

Post by DougWebb »

crazygringo wrote: post #38
prmph wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LLMs are remarkably good at writing code. Just this past weekend, I've designed and written code (in Typescript) that I don't think LLMs can even come close to writing in years. I have a subscription to a frontier LLM, but lately I find myself using like 25% of the time. At a certain level the software architecture problems I'm solving, drawing upon decades of understanding about maintainable, performant, and verif…

> The people saying LLM can code are hard for me to understand. Just today, I spent an hour documenting a function that performs a set of complex scientific simulations. Defined the function input structure, the outputs, and put a bunch of references in the body to function calls it would use. I then spent 15 minutes explaining to the free version of ChatGPT what the function needs to do both in scientific terms and…

> Just today, I spent an hour documenting a function that performs a set of complex scientific simulations. Defined the function input structure, the outputs, and put a bunch of references in the body to function calls it would use.

So that's... math. A very well defined problem, defined very well. Any decent programmer should be able to produce working software from that, and it's great that ChatGPT was able to help you get it done much faster than you could have done it yourself. That's also the kind of project that's very well suited for unit testing, because again: math. Functions with well defined inputs, outputs, and no side-effects.

Only a tiny subset of software development projects are like that though.

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