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How to effectively write quality code with AI

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Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#81

Post by blibble »

agumonkey wrote: post #11
OptionOfT wrote: post #2

I wonder at the end of this if it's the still worth the risk? A lot of how I form my thoughts is driven by writing code, and seeing it on screen, running into its limitations. Maybe it's the kind of work I'm doing, or maybe I just suck, but the code to me is a forcing mechanism into ironing out the details, and I don't get that when I'm writing a specification.

I second this. This* is the matter against which we form understanding. This here is the work at hand, our own notes, discussions we have with people, the silent walk where our brain kinda process errors and ideas .. it's always been like this since i was a kid, playing with construction toys. I never ever wanted somebody to play while I wait to evaluate if it fits my desires. Desires that often come from playing. Ou…

> I see people at work who are drooling about being able to have code made for them .. but I'm not in that group.

people seem to have a inability to predict second and third order effects

the first order effect is "I can sip a latte while the bot does my job for me"... well, great I suppose, while it lasts

but the second order effect is: unless you're in the top 10%, you will now lose your job, permanently

and the third order effect is the economy collapses as it is built on consumer spending

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#82

Post by rkafbg »

positron26 wrote: post #73
OptionOfT wrote: post #2

I wonder at the end of this if it's the still worth the risk? A lot of how I form my thoughts is driven by writing code, and seeing it on screen, running into its limitations. Maybe it's the kind of work I'm doing, or maybe I just suck, but the code to me is a forcing mechanism into ironing out the details, and I don't get that when I'm writing a specification.

Are there still people under the impression that the correct way to use Stack Overflow all these years was to copy & paste without analyzing what the code did and making it fit for purpose? If I have to say, we're just waiting for the AI concern caucus to get tired of performing for each other and justifying each other's inaction in other facets of their lives.

Lab-grown meat slop producer defends AI slop.

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#83

Post by bornfreddy »

orwin wrote: post #65
krashidov wrote: post #39

> Use strict linting and formatting rules to ensure code quality and consistency. This will help you and your AI to find issues early. I've always advocated for using a linter and consistent formatting. But now I'm not so sure. What's the point? If nobody is going to bother reading the code anymore I feel like linting does not matter. I think in 10 years a software application will be very obfuscated implementation c…

That's the opposite. I've never read and re-read code more than i do today. The new hires generate 50 more code than they use to, and you _have_ to check it or have compounding production issues (been there, done that). And the errors can now be anywhere, when before you more or less knew what the person writing code is thinking and can understand why some errors are made. LLMs errors could hide _anywhere_, so you ha…

Isn't that a losing proposition? Or do you get 50 times the value out of it too? In my experience the more verbose the code is, the less thought out it is. Lots of changes? Cool, now polish some more and come back when it's below 100 lines change, excluding tests and docs. I don't dare touch it before.

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#85

Post by zingar »

rapind wrote: post #47
gtowey wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. But it's also likely that these tools will produce mountains of unmaintainable code and people will get buried by the technical debt. It kind of strikes me as similar to the hubris of calling the Titanic "unsinkable." It's an untested claim with potentially disastrous consequences.

> But it's also likely that these tools will produce mountains of unmaintainable code and people will get buried by the technical debt. It's not just likely, but it's guaranteed to happen if you're not keeping an eye on it. So much so, that it's really reinforced my existing prejudice towards typed and compiled languages to reduce some of the checking you need to do. Using an agent with a dynamic language feels very…

Tests make me faster. Dynamic or not feels irrelevant when I consider how much slower I’d be without the fast feedback loop of tests.

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#86

Post by bornfreddy »

notpachet wrote: post #24
Akranazon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, you are really missing out of the biggest revolution of my life. This is the opinion of someone who has not tried to use Claude Code, in a brand new project with full permissions enabled, and with a model from the last 3 months.

> in a brand new project Must be nice. Claude and Codex are still a waste of my time in complex legacy codebases.

What are you talking about? Exploring and explaining the legacy codebases is where they shine, in my experience.

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#87

Post by exitb »

jweir wrote: post #55

Remember having to write detailed specs before coding? Then folks realized it was faster and easier to skip the specs and write the code? So now are we back to where we were? One of the problems with writing detailed specs is it means you understand the problem, but often the problem is not understand - but you learn to understand it through coding and testing. So where are we now?

We’re not „thinking with portals” about these things enough yet. Typically we’d want a detailed spec beforehand, as coding is expensive and time consuming, thus we want to make sure we’re coding the right thing. With AI though, coding is cheap. So let AI skip the spec and write the code badly. Then have it review the solution, build understanding, design a spec for better solution and have it write it again. Rinse and repeat as many times you need.

It’s also nothing new, as it’s basically Joe Armstrong's programming method. It’s just not prohibitively expensive for the first time in history.

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#89

Post by stareatgoats »

agumonkey wrote: post #19
Akranazon wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you have said here is completely true, except for "not in that group": the cost-benefit analysis clearly favors letting these tools rip, even despite the drawbacks.

Oh I'm well aware of this. I admitted defeat in a way.. I can't compete. I'm just at loss, and unless LLM stall and break for some reason (ai bubble, enshittification..) I don't see a future for me in "software" in a few years.

Somehow I appreciate this type of attitude more than the one which reflects total denial of the current trajectory. Fervent denial and AI trash-talking being maybe the single most dominant sentiment on HN over the last year, by all means interspersed with a fair amount of amazement at our new toys.

But it is sad if good programmers should loose sight of the opportunities the future will bring (future as in the next few decades). If anything, software expertise is likely to be one of the most sought-after skills - only a slightly different kind of skill than churning out LOCs on a keyboard faster than the next person: People who can harness the LLMs, design prompts at the right abstraction level, verify the code produced, understand when someone has injected malware, etc. These skills will be extremely valuable in the short to medium term AFAICS.

But ultimately we will obviously become obsolete if nothing (really) catastrophic happens, but when that happens then likely all human labor will be obsolete too, and society will need to be organized differently than exchanging labor for money for means of sustenance.

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#90

Post by jwpapi »

The first rule is an antipattern. I think describing your architecture or ANY kind of documentation for your AI is an anti-pattern and blows the context window leading to worse results, and actual more deviation.

The controlling systems are not give it more words at the start. Agentic coding needs to work in loop with dedicated context.

You need to think about how can i give as much intent as possible with as little words.

You can built a tremendous amount of custom lint rules ai never needs to read except they miss it.

Every pattern in your repo gets repeated, repo will always win over documentation and when your repo is good structured you don’t need to repeat this to AI

It’s like dev always has been, watch what has gone wrong and make sure the whole type or error can’t happen again.

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