alt Hacker NewsI basically fully agree with this. I am not sure how to handle the ramifications of this in my day to day work yet. But at least one habit I have been forming is sometimes I find that even though the cost of writing code is immensely cheap, reviewing and validating that it works in certain code bases (like the millions of line mono repo I work in at my job) is extremely high. I try to think through, and improve, our testability such that a few hundred line of code change that modifies the DB really can be a couple of hours of work.
Also, I do want to note that these little "Here is how I see the world of SWE given current model capabilities and tooling" posts are MUCH appreciated, given how much you follow the landscape. When a major hype wave is happening and I feel like I am getting drowned on twitter, I tend to wonder "What would Simon say about this?"
> I find that even though the cost of writing code is immensely cheap, reviewing and validating that it works in certain code bases (like the millions of line mono repo I work in at my job) is extremely high.
That is my observation as well. Churning code is easy, but making sure the code is not total crap is a completely new challenge and concern.
It's not like prior to LLMs code reviews didn't required work. Far from it. It's just that how the code is generated in a completely different way, and in some cases with barely any oversight from vibecoders who are trying to punch way above their weight. So they generate these massive volumes of changes that fail in obvious and subtle ways, and the flow is relentless.