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Grief and the AI split

blog.lmorchard.com

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Re: Grief and the AI split

#91

Post by scuff3d »

torben-friis wrote: post #12

Lots of mentions of the term mourning... As they say in my country, don't sell the skin until you kill the bear. All I'm seeing around me is people dropping best practices in a FOMO driven push for speed: let's stop reviews, let's drive 5 agents in parallel, let's not even look at the code! This is going to blow up. Only after we pick up the remains we'll find a more sustainable approach for AI usage. I suspect that…

A couple of guys at work have been raving about Claude. How quick they get stuff done, how great the code is, how working any other way is a waste of time.

I just had the misfortune today to wade into one of their codebases. It's 60k lines of code for something that should have been simple, and it's an absolute fucking mess. I'm gonna have to rip out most of it and start over just to get it to do what we actually need it to do.

I use LLMs, they come in handy, and I use agents, but this "have agents do everything" nonsense is a disaster, and it's only going to get worse.

On the upside I'm getting paid to fix this shit show.

Re: Grief and the AI split

#92

Post by sarchertech »

epolanski wrote: post #76
sarchertech wrote: post #69

I’ve heard this thesis a lot, but it’s almost always from the result chasers. It doesn’t resonate with me because I am a result chaser. I like woodworking because I like building something that never existed before. I don’t mind using a CNC router or a 3 printer to help me out. I don’t care about the process, I care about the result. But I care deeply about the quality of the result. I don’t care about the beauty of…

> AI doesn’t help me with these. At least not much. Mostly because the time I spend coding is time I spend understanding, diagnosing, and perfecting. Not the code. The product. It can actually help a lot here too. In fact I rarely have AI author or edit code, but I have it all time researching, finding edge cases I didn't think about, digging into dependencies code, finding ideas or alternative approaches. My usage i…

Yeah I’ve used it for that and it use useful. But it’s kind of like listening to a math audiobook vs working out math problems. I still need to work out the math problems to really understand what’s going on.

I’m also nervous about the inevitable cognitive decline of relying on AI to explain everything to me.

Re: Grief and the AI split

#93

Post by enraged_camel »

rudedogg wrote: post #17
simonw wrote: post #2

This sounds right to me: > Before AI, both camps were doing the same thing every day. Writing code by hand. Using the same editors, the same languages, the same pull request workflows. The craft-lovers and the make-it-go people sat next to each other, shipped the same products, looked indistinguishable. The motivation behind the work was invisible because the process was identical. Helps explain why some people are d…

I think the real divide is over quality and standards. We all have different thresholds for what is acceptable, and our roles as engineers typically reflect that preference. I can grind on a single piece of code for hours, iterating over and over until I like the way it works, the parameter names, etc. Other people do not see the value in that whatsoever, and something that works is good enough. We both are valuable…

I think this is a false dichotomy because which approach is acceptable depends heavily on context, and good engineers recognize this and are capable of adapting.

Sometimes you need something to be extremely robust and fool-proof, and iterating for hours/days/weeks and even months might make sense. Things that are related to security or money are good examples.

Other times, it's much more preferable to put something in front of users that works so that they start getting value from it quickly and provide feedback that can inform the iterative improvements.

And sometimes you don't need to iterate at all. Good enough is good enough. Ship it and forget about it.

I don't buy that AI users favor any particular approach. You can use AI to ship fast, or you can use it to test, critique, refactor and optimize your code to hell and back until it meets the required quality and standards.

Re: Grief and the AI split

#94

Post by allenu »

rudedogg wrote: post #17
simonw wrote: post #2

This sounds right to me: > Before AI, both camps were doing the same thing every day. Writing code by hand. Using the same editors, the same languages, the same pull request workflows. The craft-lovers and the make-it-go people sat next to each other, shipped the same products, looked indistinguishable. The motivation behind the work was invisible because the process was identical. Helps explain why some people are d…

I think the real divide is over quality and standards. We all have different thresholds for what is acceptable, and our roles as engineers typically reflect that preference. I can grind on a single piece of code for hours, iterating over and over until I like the way it works, the parameter names, etc. Other people do not see the value in that whatsoever, and something that works is good enough. We both are valuable…

> I think the real divide is over quality and standards.

I think there are multiple dimensions that people fall on regarding the issue and it's leading to a divide based on where everyone falls on those dimensions.

Quality and standards are probably in there but I think risk-tolerance/aversion could be behind some how you look at quality and standards. If you're high on risk-taking, you might be more likely to forego verifying all LLM-generated code, whereas if you're very risk-averse, you're going to want to go over every line of code to make sure it works just right for fear of anything blowing up.

Desire for control is probably related, too. If you desire more control in how something is achieved, you probably aren't going to like a machine doing a lot of the thinking for you.

Re: Grief and the AI split

#95

Post by beej71 »

frankc wrote: post #20

I think it's more granular than this, though. I also like to "make computer do thing" and have enjoyed using AI. But I also like building systems, optimizing systems. I find AI is a great partner in that. I can churn out prototypes more quickly, iterate on them more quickly etc. That also applies intra-system level. I might have a theory about how a different data structure or caching layer will affect application pe…

> I feel like this is really about how your identify is tied up in what you do.

This is it for me. One thing that's important to my identify making things. And I have a lot of trouble saying I made a thing that I asked someone (or something) else to make for me.

I know you're going to say, "But I'm making things, too!" However...

I could crank out a project a day with Claude Code and slap them all up on GitHub for my green squares, and I could say that I made them all.

Just like I could crank out a novel a day with ChatGPT and say that I made them all.

Or I could use it to write 100 blog posts a day and say that I made them all.

In all those cases, I caused things to get made. But did I make them? I don't feel like I can honestly say I did. (And the copyright office is starting to have a thing or two to say about it, as well.)

This is what I struggle with. I like making things.

As a capitalist, sure, your cash is good with me. Tell me where to shoot and I'll shoot. But in terms of keeping my soul fed, it's a tough one.

Re: Grief and the AI split

#96

Post by jorl17 »

torben-friis wrote: post #50
operatingthetan wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is going to blow up. We are way past wringing our hands over agentic engineering. Every startup and all fast moving companies are onboard. They don't hand code anymore. There will not be some code quality crisis that will stop everyone in their tracks. I'm trying to cope with this too, but I don't think the best path is praying for failure.

Just out of the popularity of the claim, I’ll bite. Both big tech and startups are now full of people working at 10x, features are written as fast as PMs can think them, monoliths self heal with agents buzzing over them. 10x means 10 times the outcomes in a given amount of time, so did you see the last iOS version pack a decade worth of features in a single release? Do you remember when meta moved their backend to ru…

10x is definitely possible at a startup level. I suppose not in a big tech world (seems obvious to me, and it's not like development speed was the bottleneck there either, right?)

You can choose not to believe what I say (and I genuinely understand if you do), and I can simply keep on doing it. I'm not taking it out of thin air either. tuesday I did in 8h the work I scheduled for roughly 65h. Ok, so maybe it's not 10x, maybe it's 8x, same ball park.

And that's only talking about development. If I now get into other aspects....I have just spent the last 1.5 hours creating an incredibly detailed backcatalog of tasks and epics. This is the most detailed I have ever done so in my life and it has been working very well. It's like we merged the good of highly-detailed waterfall with the speed of agile.

Tee-hee: Watergile. (I'm sure some expert in the field will let me know I have coined a new term for something that very much has a name; excuse my ignorance in advance).

Nonetheless, I did this all by talking to the computer which is interfacing with my project management tools, the project documentation, and the project code. Full context on everything. In the past, I would have taken 3 or 4 days to create the same amount of tasks with a vaguely similar amount of detail. But, in truth, I wouldn't have spent so much time putting this love into the craft (!!) of planning a project, because it would exhaust me and feel like a waste of time.

Don't get me wrong, I totally see shit code being thrown everywhere by inferior AI models or people who can't tame the beasts, but the right people in my life are _clearly_ building out more, better tested code, and actually built with more care. Maybe it's not at the line-by-line level, but it certainly is from the end-product result (thinking of the actual end-user). I accept your mileage may vary -- this is my very personal experience.

Maybe it'll stop happening, who knows. Maybe price will be prohibitive, or maybe we'll have such an avalanche of ideas that weren't worth building that everyone will be overwhelmed and take a step back. Or maybe we won't develop juniors into the seniors of tomorrow. Or maybe everything will indeed implode once products are large enough that the original development speed can't be maintained anymore and expectations are mismatched.

What I do know is that it is definitely happening in my world, and I haven't had this much fun since I was a little kid learning to code.

Re: Grief and the AI split

#97

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

torben-friis wrote: post #80
operatingthetan wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say anything about increased productivity or 10x. Feel free to revise your strawman.

Fair, let’s revise it then. If not productivity, what’s the result AI is getting that is disruptive enough to make our previous work obsolete?

At 11 this morning, I wanted to both debug an issue and take a meeting before lunch. Before AI, I would have had to just start debugging after lunch, there wouldn't have been enough time to do both. But now I had Claude debug the issue concurrently with the meeting. Its answer didn't actually make sense (I still do think I'm smarter than Claude, although the gap is narrowing!), but it showed enough of its work that I could make a good guess about what was really going on, and when I asked it to check my hypothesis I got back from lunch with some debug logs that confirmed I'd found the bug.

Re: Grief and the AI split

#98

Post by appreciatorBus »

simonw wrote: post #2

This sounds right to me: > Before AI, both camps were doing the same thing every day. Writing code by hand. Using the same editors, the same languages, the same pull request workflows. The craft-lovers and the make-it-go people sat next to each other, shipped the same products, looked indistinguishable. The motivation behind the work was invisible because the process was identical. Helps explain why some people are d…

> nobody got into it because programming in Perl was somehow aesthetically delightful.

To this day I remember being delighted by Perl on a regular basis. I wasn't concerned with the aesthetics of it, though I was aware it was considered inscrutable and that I could read & write it filled me with pride. So yea, programming Perl was delightful.

Re: Grief and the AI split

#100

Post by epolanski »

sarchertech wrote: post #92
epolanski wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI doesn’t help me with these. At least not much. Mostly because the time I spend coding is time I spend understanding, diagnosing, and perfecting. Not the code. The product. It can actually help a lot here too. In fact I rarely have AI author or edit code, but I have it all time researching, finding edge cases I didn't think about, digging into dependencies code, finding ideas or alternative approaches. My usage i…

Yeah I’ve used it for that and it use useful. But it’s kind of like listening to a math audiobook vs working out math problems. I still need to work out the math problems to really understand what’s going on. I’m also nervous about the inevitable cognitive decline of relying on AI to explain everything to me.

> But it’s kind of like listening to a math audiobook vs working out math problems.

I don't see it that way.

I'm solving the math problem, but after coming with a solution I start asking for alternative approaches or formulas I don't even know about.

In fact, calculus is full of suck gotchas tricks or formulas, think of integrals or limits. Took who found those decades/centuries to find them.

It's not a black/white divide.

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