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Write less code, be more responsible

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Re: Write less code, be more responsible

#51

Post by rwmj »

20k wrote: post #11
agentultra wrote: post #2

I’m working as a single solo developer of a tiny video game. I’m writing it in C with raylib. No coding assistants, no agents, not even a language server. I only work on it for a few hours during the week. And it’s progressing at a reasonable pace that I’m happy with. I got cross-compilation from Linux to Windows going early on in a couple of hours. Wasn’t that hard. I’ve had to rework parts of the code as I’ve progr…

>I don’t really understand the, “more, better, faster,” cachet to be honest. Writing the code hasn’t been the bottle neck to developing software for a long time. It’s usually the thinking that takes most of the time and if that goes away well… I dunno, that’s weird. I will understand it even less. This is what I've always found confusing as well about this push for AI. The act of typing isn't the hard part - its unde…

Don't worry. In a few years we'll be like the COBOL programmers who still understand how things work, our brains haven't atrophied, and we make good money fixing the giant messes created by others.

Re: Write less code, be more responsible

#52

Post by rwmj »

osm3000 wrote: post #37

I am a machine learning engineer. I've been in the domain almost 12 years now (different titles and roles). In my current role (and by no means that is unique), I don't know how to write less code. Here are problems I am facing: - DS generating a lot of code - Managers who have therapy sessions with Gemini, and in which their ideas have been validated - No governance on DS (you want this package? import it) - No gove…

What is DS?

Re: Write less code, be more responsible

#53

Post by cassianoleal »

mrklol wrote: post #50
lelanthran wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s more than just typing though. A simple example remembering the exact incantation of CSS classes to style something that you can easily describe in plain English. Do that enough and you won't know enough about your codebase to recognise errors in the LLM output.

imo a question is, do you still need to understand the codebase? What if that process changes and the language you’re reading is a natural one instead of code?

What happens when your LLM of choice goes on an infinite loop failing to solve a problem?

What happens when your LLM provider goes down during an incident?

What happens when you have an incident on a distributed system so complex that no LLM can maintain a good enough understanding of the system as a whole in a single session to spot the problem?

What happens when the LLM providers stop offering loss leader subscriptions?

Re: Write less code, be more responsible

#54

Post by locknitpicker »

20k wrote: post #11
agentultra wrote: post #2

I’m working as a single solo developer of a tiny video game. I’m writing it in C with raylib. No coding assistants, no agents, not even a language server. I only work on it for a few hours during the week. And it’s progressing at a reasonable pace that I’m happy with. I got cross-compilation from Linux to Windows going early on in a couple of hours. Wasn’t that hard. I’ve had to rework parts of the code as I’ve progr…

>I don’t really understand the, “more, better, faster,” cachet to be honest. Writing the code hasn’t been the bottle neck to developing software for a long time. It’s usually the thinking that takes most of the time and if that goes away well… I dunno, that’s weird. I will understand it even less. This is what I've always found confusing as well about this push for AI. The act of typing isn't the hard part - its unde…

> This is what I've always found confusing as well about this push for AI. The act of typing isn't the hard part - its understanding what's going on, and why you're doing it.

This is a very superficial and simplistic analysis of the whole domain. Programmers don't "type". They apply changes to the code. Pressing buttons in a keyboard is not the bottleneck. If that was the case, code completion and templating would have been a revolutionary, world changing development in the field.

The difficult part is understanding what to do and how to do it, and why. It turns out LLMs can handle all these types of task. You are onboarding onto a new project? Hit a LLM assistant with /explain. You want to implement a feature that matches a specific requirement? You hit your LLM assistant with /plan followed by apply. You want to cover some code with tests? You hit your LLM assistant with /tests.

In the end you review the result,and do with it whatever you want. Some even feel confident enough to YOLO the output of the LLM.

So while you still try to navigate through files, others already have features out.

Re: Write less code, be more responsible

#55

Post by osm3000 »

rwmj wrote: post #52
osm3000 wrote: post #37

I am a machine learning engineer. I've been in the domain almost 12 years now (different titles and roles). In my current role (and by no means that is unique), I don't know how to write less code. Here are problems I am facing: - DS generating a lot of code - Managers who have therapy sessions with Gemini, and in which their ideas have been validated - No governance on DS (you want this package? import it) - No gove…

What is DS?

Data Scientists

Re: Write less code, be more responsible

#56

Post by andai »

After experimenting with various approaches, I arrived at Power Coding (like Power Armor). This requires:

- small codebases (whole thing is injected into context)

- small, fast models (so it's realtime)

- a custom harness (cause everything I tried sucks, takes 10 seconds to load half my program into context instead of just doing it at startup lmao)

The result is interactive, realtime, doesn't break flow (no waiting for "AI compile", small models are very fast now), and most importantly: active, not passive.

I make many small changes. The changes are small, so small models can handle them. The changes are small, so my brain can handle them. I describe what I want, so I am driving. The mental model stays synced continuously.

Life is good.

Re: Write less code, be more responsible

#57

Post by osm3000 »

__mharrison__ wrote: post #40
osm3000 wrote: post #37

I am a machine learning engineer. I've been in the domain almost 12 years now (different titles and roles). In my current role (and by no means that is unique), I don't know how to write less code. Here are problems I am facing: - DS generating a lot of code - Managers who have therapy sessions with Gemini, and in which their ideas have been validated - No governance on DS (you want this package? import it) - No gove…

I've seen some success teaching data scientists how to write better code. SWE concepts like modularity, testing, and refuse. Things that they normally ignore or choose to throw out the window. (Disclosure: I'm a corporate trainer)

I appreciate that. I am not a position though to advocate for such a change :)

Re: Write less code, be more responsible

#58

Post by dpark »

lelanthran wrote: post #44
dpark wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Writing the code hasn’t been the bottle neck to developing software for a long time. It’s usually the thinking that takes most of the time Does your coding not involve thinking? And if not, why are you not delighted to have AI take that over? Writing unthinking boilerplate is tedious garbage work. Today I wanted to address a bug I found on a product I work on. At the intersection of platform migration and backwards…

>> Writing the code hasn’t been the bottle neck to developing software for a long time. It’s usually the thinking that takes most of the time > I used an LLM to research the code paths and ensure that my understanding of the break was correct and what the potential side effects of my proposed fix would be. Using the LLM for understanding is very different to using the LLM for codegen. You are not really disagreeing w…

My point is that these are not separate activities. They are drawing a false distinction between thinking and coding and then asserting that code speed doesn’t matter and implying that AI only helps with the coding bit.

None of this is actually true, though. Coding and thinking are often tightly intertwined, as rarely is the coding piece so straightforward that it requires no interesting thought. Coding speed does matter, even if it’s not the primary bottleneck for many things. And AI can be very helpful outside the context of pure coding.

Re: Write less code, be more responsible

#59

Post by lelanthran »

mrklol wrote: post #50
lelanthran wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s more than just typing though. A simple example remembering the exact incantation of CSS classes to style something that you can easily describe in plain English. Do that enough and you won't know enough about your codebase to recognise errors in the LLM output.

imo a question is, do you still need to understand the codebase? What if that process changes and the language you’re reading is a natural one instead of code?

> What if that process changes and the language you’re reading is a natural one instead of code?

Okay, when that happens, then sure, you don't need to understand the codebase.

I have not seen any evidence that that is currently the case, so my observation that "Continue letting the LLM write your code for you, and soon you won't be able to spot errors in its output" is still applicable today.

When the situation changes, then we can ask if it is really that improtant to understand the code. Until that happens, you still need to understand the code.

Re: Write less code, be more responsible

#60

Post by throwaw12 »

agentultra wrote: post #2

I’m working as a single solo developer of a tiny video game. I’m writing it in C with raylib. No coding assistants, no agents, not even a language server. I only work on it for a few hours during the week. And it’s progressing at a reasonable pace that I’m happy with. I got cross-compilation from Linux to Windows going early on in a couple of hours. Wasn’t that hard. I’ve had to rework parts of the code as I’ve progr…

> Writing the code hasn’t been the bottle neck to developing software for a long time

It was!

pre-2022 people needed developers to build software for them, now with platforms like Replit, Lovable - people are creating their own tiny software projects, which wasn't easily accessible in the past.

If you say coding wasn't a bottleneck, then indirectly you could also say, you don't need developers. If you need developers, outcome of their other type of work (thinking, designing based on existing tools and so on) is actually CODE.

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