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Why write code in 2026

softwaredoug.com

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Re: Why write code in 2026

#51

Post by JackSlateur »

ataru wrote: post #38
h2aichat wrote: post #35

It seems to me that AI won the code Battle and that humans are just trying to justify the defeat. I will relax and wait for the Next AI generation to see how it fixed its problems. May be, everything will be ok.

I've got a coin that answers questions. You have to give it a heads or tails query, then flip the coin, and it returns an answer. It's incredible. Now, it doesn't get the right answer every single time, but we're all learning how to use the new coin technology, and this is only the first generation of coin. The next model of coin is going to be even better. Soon we're not going to need humans any more, for any questi…

Even a broken clock is right twice a day :)

Re: Why write code in 2026

#52

Post by zelphirkalt »

jdw64 wrote: post #13

Recently, even a tourist lost to OAI's model in competitive coding. To be honest, I haven't been able to beat AI at coding since around 5.2. People often say 'AI can't write good code,' but in reality, the quality of AI's output is layered depending on the level of the prompt input. The deeper the prompt, the better the code actually gets. Usually, when people say AI code is terrible, it's because they either don't u…

In my experience AI often overlooks generalizations of ideas iteratively arrived at. I need to give it the idea, that something could be generalized and nudge it, to arrive at the solution.

I imagine at competitive coding the goal is quite clear, but in a real world project, the goal is not always so clear, and especially in hobby projects the ideas and goals are not that clear. I get inspiration on how to improve my project or its usability, not the LLM. I instruct it to do something a specific way, because it doesn't do anything on its own, and I need to tell it what to generalize, which it failed to see, because it didn't consider a simplification which is technically less precise, but due to user context and human nature doesn't matter (in this case it was interpreting "now" to mean the current second, which is a small time range, instead of a mere point in time).

So it still takes a ton of hand holding in a more open project. I imagine, one could also code it up in the same amount of time. But it is good for generating tons of test cases. Though one will have to review those, and impose a test style on them, give examples and so on.

Re: Why write code in 2026

#53

Post by zelphirkalt »

rossant wrote: post #21
jdw64 wrote: post #13

Recently, even a tourist lost to OAI's model in competitive coding. To be honest, I haven't been able to beat AI at coding since around 5.2. People often say 'AI can't write good code,' but in reality, the quality of AI's output is layered depending on the level of the prompt input. The deeper the prompt, the better the code actually gets. Usually, when people say AI code is terrible, it's because they either don't u…

I don't write code anymore, because AI writes better code than me. I could write code, but the next AI would find 10 ways to make it better and more consistent with the rest of the AI-generated codebase. So I just let it write all of it. However, I inspect it all carefully and I constantly asks it to reflect on the code quality, to refactor, to reorganize, to make the code as good as possible. The end result is code…

How do you improve, if you don't write code? How do you aim to close that gap, that is the 10 different ways of improving your code? And if you don't aim to improve, how do you deem yourself capable of even reviewing AI code in say 3 to 5 years, when your code writing skill has fully atrophied?

Re: Why write code in 2026

#54

Post by jdw64 »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #52
jdw64 wrote: post #13

Recently, even a tourist lost to OAI's model in competitive coding. To be honest, I haven't been able to beat AI at coding since around 5.2. People often say 'AI can't write good code,' but in reality, the quality of AI's output is layered depending on the level of the prompt input. The deeper the prompt, the better the code actually gets. Usually, when people say AI code is terrible, it's because they either don't u…

In my experience AI often overlooks generalizations of ideas iteratively arrived at. I need to give it the idea, that something could be generalized and nudge it, to arrive at the solution. I imagine at competitive coding the goal is quite clear, but in a real world project, the goal is not always so clear, and especially in hobby projects the ideas and goals are not that clear. I get inspiration on how to improve my…

I agree. In fact, that's precisely one of the hardest parts of programming. Your thinking aligns with mine. I do a lot of equipment programming for factory delivery. I've even delivered an MES system before, to be precise, it was migrating a legacy MES to a modern version.

Beyond hobby projects, most clients often don't really know what they want. And that's generally what we call domain modeling. This is definitely an area where AI is weak. As you know, it mainly pulls from generic patterns.

When there are specific constraints, AI struggles with core business logic. And as you said, it's also weak at choosing the right direction or the goal to pursue. But as you also know, 80% of programming is built on what others have already created. Originality is only about 20%. And in that 80%, AI is absolutely dominant. I agree with you and I've upvoted your comment.

I really like your perspective

Re: Why write code in 2026

#55

Post by vips7L »

lordnacho wrote: post #43
vips7L wrote: post #4

I still exclusively write my code. The quality is higher. I know exactly how it works. It’s more extensible. You don’t have to generate it.

But the attraction of LLM code is not that you get quality. The selling point is that you know have a quality Vs time tradeoff that is a lot better than you used to have. I can spend 10 seconds typing out a prompt that will generate ok code. Before a couple of years ago, it might have taken me an hour to type out and debug that code.

Sure, if you prefer low quality go ahead. Many people have always preferred low quality. Many people prefer to eat junk. I also genuinely believe that time tradeoff doesn’t matter.

> Before a couple of years ago, it might have taken me an hour to type out and debug that code.

Are you not running and testing your code?

Re: Why write code in 2026

#56

Post by lordnacho »

vips7L wrote: post #55
lordnacho wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the attraction of LLM code is not that you get quality. The selling point is that you know have a quality Vs time tradeoff that is a lot better than you used to have. I can spend 10 seconds typing out a prompt that will generate ok code. Before a couple of years ago, it might have taken me an hour to type out and debug that code.

Sure, if you prefer low quality go ahead. Many people have always preferred low quality. Many people prefer to eat junk. I also genuinely believe that time tradeoff doesn’t matter. > Before a couple of years ago, it might have taken me an hour to type out and debug that code. Are you not running and testing your code?

It's just naive to say you are always going for quality. Everyone has constraints in money and time that they need to think about.

> Are you not running and testing your code?

Why would you think that?

Re: Why write code in 2026

#57

Post by vips7L »

lordnacho wrote: post #56
vips7L wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, if you prefer low quality go ahead. Many people have always preferred low quality. Many people prefer to eat junk. I also genuinely believe that time tradeoff doesn’t matter. > Before a couple of years ago, it might have taken me an hour to type out and debug that code. Are you not running and testing your code?

It's just naive to say you are always going for quality. Everyone has constraints in money and time that they need to think about. > Are you not running and testing your code? Why would you think that?

> Why would you think that?

Because you’re claiming to not debug, and that you’ve gone from 1 hour to 10 seconds. I can only go off of what you tell me here.

Re: Why write code in 2026

#58

Post by softwaredoug »

prymitive wrote: post #24

I need to write code because otherwise LLMs will write too much code, it’s only when you fully understand the problem you can generalise it enough to not end up with 10k lines and 5 abstraction layers for “hello world”. LLMs are token predictors, so all solutions are you tokens, the more problems to solve == the more tokens (code) to output.

LLMs love to defensively wrap code instead of thinking holistically about the big picture. That creates a lot of bloat.

A human coder might OTOH follow the Boy Scout rule and clean up as they go.

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