Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

seangoedecke.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 203 posts

Re: If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

#61

Post by pmg101 »

crazygringo wrote: post #60
QuantumNoodle wrote: post #10

Code review is part of the job, but one of the least enjoyable parts. Developers like _writing_ and that gives the most job satisfaction. AI tools are helpful, but inherently increases the amount of code we have to review with more scrutiny than my colleagues because of how unpredictable - yet convincing - it can be. Why did we create tools that do the fun part and increase the non-fun part? Where are the "code-revie…

> Developers like _writing_ and that gives the most job satisfaction. Not me. I enjoy figuring out the requirements, the high-level design, and the clever approach that will yield high performance, or reuse of existing libraries, or whatever it is that will make it an elegant solution. Once I've figured all that out, the actual process of writing code is a total slog. Tracking variables, remembering syntax, trying to…

You don't really know if the system design you've architected in your mind is any good though, do you, until you've actually tried coding it. Discovering all the little edge cases at that point is hard work ("a total slog") because it's where you find out where the flaws in your thinking were, and how your beautifully imagined abstractions fall down.

Then after going back and forth between thinking about it and trying to build it a few times, after a while you discover the real solution.

Or at least that's how it's worked for me for a few decades, everyone might be different.

Re: If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

#62

Post by skydhash »

crazygringo wrote: post #60
QuantumNoodle wrote: post #10

Code review is part of the job, but one of the least enjoyable parts. Developers like _writing_ and that gives the most job satisfaction. AI tools are helpful, but inherently increases the amount of code we have to review with more scrutiny than my colleagues because of how unpredictable - yet convincing - it can be. Why did we create tools that do the fun part and increase the non-fun part? Where are the "code-revie…

> Developers like _writing_ and that gives the most job satisfaction. Not me. I enjoy figuring out the requirements, the high-level design, and the clever approach that will yield high performance, or reuse of existing libraries, or whatever it is that will make it an elegant solution. Once I've figured all that out, the actual process of writing code is a total slog. Tracking variables, remembering syntax, trying to…

> Tracking variables, remembering syntax,

That's why you have short functions so you don't have to track that many variable. And use symbol completion (a standard in many editors).

> trying to think through every edge case, avoiding off-by-one errors.

That is designing, not coding. Sometimes I think of an edge case, but I'm already on a task that I'd like to finish, so I just add a TODO comment. Then at least before I submit the PR, I ripgrep the project for this keyword and other.

Sometimes the best design is done by doing. The tradeoffs become clearer when you have to actually code the solution (too much abstraction, too verbose, unwieldy,...) instead of relying on your mind (everything seems simpler)

Re: If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

#63

Post by walleeee »

esperent wrote: post #19
rollulus wrote: post #16

I have received a few LLM produced PRs from peers from adjacent teams, in good faith but not familiar with the project, and they increasingly infuriate me. They were all garbage, but there’s a great asymmetry: it costs my peers nothing to generate them, it costs me precious time to refute them. And what can I do really? Saying “it’s irreparable garbage because the syntax might be right but it’s conceptually nonsense”…

You could use an LLM to give you advice on how to present that take in a more constructive manner. Partially sarcastic but I do personally use LLMs to guide my communication in very limited cases: 1. It's purely business related, and 2. I'm feeling too emotionally invested (or more likely, royally pissed off) and don't trust myself to write in a professional manner, and 3. I genuinely want the message to sound cold,…

> Why should you take the time to write back personally?

Because it's 3 sentences, if you want to be way more polite and verbose than necessary.

"I will close PRs if they appear to be largely LLM-generated. I am always happy to review something with care and attention if it shows the same qualities. Thanks!"

The idea is to get your coworkers to stop sending you AI slop, send them AI slop in retaliation?

Re: If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

#64

Post by jffhn »

shakna wrote: post #2

> bikeshedding function names ... Function names compose much of the API. The API is the structure of the codebase. This isn't some triviality you can throw aside as unimportant, it is the shape that the code has today, and limits and controls what it will have tomorrow. It's how you make things intuitive, and it is equally how you ensure people follow a correct flow and don't trap themselves into a security bug.

Agreed. A program is made of names, these names are of the utmost importance. For understanding, and also for searchability.

I do a lot of code reviews, and one of the main things I ask for, after bug fixes, is renaming things for readers to understand at first read unambiguously and to match the various conventions we use throughout the codebase.

Ex: new dev wrote "updateFoo()" for a method converting a domain thing "foo" from its type in layer "a" to its type in layer "b", so I asked him to use "convertFoo_aToB()" instead.

Re: If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

#65

Post by phito »

lapcat wrote: post #47
phito wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the goal of "AI" is not to have fun, it's to solve problems and increase productivity. I have fun programming too, but you have to realize the world isn't optimizing make things more fun.

> you have to realize the world isn't optimizing make things more fun. Serious question: why not? IMO it should be. If "progress" is making us all more miserable, then what's the point? Shouldn't progress make us happier? It feels like the endgame of AI is that the masses slave away for the profit of a few tech overlords.

As a human, I do agree that it would be better and we should strive for that. However I don't think humans are really driving all this progress/innovation. It is just evolution keeping doing what it's always done, it is ruthless and does not care at all whether we are having fun or not.

Re: If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

#66

Post by skydhash »

fhd2 wrote: post #17
phito wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the goal of "AI" is not to have fun, it's to solve problems and increase productivity. I have fun programming too, but you have to realize the world isn't optimizing make things more fun.

I hear you, but without any enjoyment in the process, quality and productivity go down the drain real fast. The Ironies of Automation paper is something I mention a lot, the core thesis is that making humans review / rubber stamp automation reduces their work quality. People just aren't wired to do boring stuff well.

Enjoyment and rewards are the drivers for motivation.

Re: If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

#67

Post by gus_massa »

rsynnott wrote: post #23

This idea that you can get good results from a bad process as long as you have good quality control seems… dubious, to say the least. “Sure, it’ll produce endless broken nonsense, but as long as someone is checking, it’s fine.” This, generally, doesn’t really work. You see people _try_ it in industry a bit; have a process which produces a high rate of failures, catch them in QA, rework (the US car industry used to be…

I'm not sure about the current state of the art, but microprocessors production is (was?) very bad. You make a lot of them in a single silicon wafer, and then test them thoughtfully until you find the few that are good. You drop all the defective ones because they are very cheap piece of sand and charge a lot for the ones that works correctly to cover all the costs.

I'm not sure how this translates to programming, code review is too expensive, but for short code you can try https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superoptimization

Re: If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

#69

Post by rco8786 »

brap wrote: post #34

My process is basically 1. Give it requirements 2. Tell it to ask me clarifying questions 3. When no more questions, ask it to explain the requirements back to me in a formal PRD 4. I criticize it 5. Tell it to come up with 2 alternative high level designs 6. I pick one and criticize it 7. Tell it to come up with 2 alternative detailed TODO lists 8. I pick one and criticize it 9. Tell it to come up with 2 alternative…

> It’s very time consuming and 80% of the time I end up wondering if it would’ve been quicker to just do it all by myself right from the start.

Yes, this. Every time I read these sort of step by step guides to getting the best results with coding agents it all just sounds like boatloads of work that erase the efficiency margins that AI is supposed to bring in the first place. And anecdotally, I've found that to be true in practice as well.

Not to say that AI isn't useful. But I think knowing when and where AI will be useful is a skill in and of itself.

Re: If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

#70

Post by codingdave »

brap wrote: post #34

My process is basically 1. Give it requirements 2. Tell it to ask me clarifying questions 3. When no more questions, ask it to explain the requirements back to me in a formal PRD 4. I criticize it 5. Tell it to come up with 2 alternative high level designs 6. I pick one and criticize it 7. Tell it to come up with 2 alternative detailed TODO lists 8. I pick one and criticize it 9. Tell it to come up with 2 alternative…

Definitely sounds slower than doing it yourself.

I am falling into a pattern of treating AI coding like a drunk mid-level dev: "I saw those few paragraphs of notes you wrote up on a napkin, and stayed up late Saturday night while drinking and spat out this implementation. you like?"

So I can say to myself, "No, do not like. But the overall gist at least started in the right direction, so I can revise it from here and still be faster than had I done it myself on Monday morning."

Post reply on HN