Some of the issues mentioned above like dead code removal, code duplication, unreachable code are already solved using deterministic linters for quite a while now for most language ecosystems.

You can get the LLM to run a script which checks for all of these and also enforce them by running the same script as a pre-commit hook. Setting this up religiously in every code base I work on has been what's given me the most mileage with agentic coding.

I wrote down a more detailed post of the various linters I use here:

https://www.balajeerc.info/Use-Deterministic-Guardrails-for-...

I’ve been working with these things for quite some time now and every time I simply “treat it like I would a human” it seems to perform better. I can’t imagine agents wouldn’t perform better in a clean codebase than a giant mess of one. Just like it performs better when it has well formed specs and access to documentation.

Feel the same way myself when working in messy codebases… At some point, the horrible patterns start to rub off…

I was reading your comment, agreeing with it but still feeling why this is a bad comment. It just occurred to me that an anecdotal statement like this is the antithesis of scientific discourse. We have a paper here, trying to answer a question, and anecdotal testimonials can only harm the discussion by biasing readers without adding anything of value to let anyone objectively conclude anything on the problem.

The most useful discussion would be if we all read the paper and critique its methodology or results.

i mean this is feeling too but im too paranoid and frequently do refactoring and code organization passes and never don't do it, so i cant say i know for sure there is a delta.

though people who complain that llms aren't that great strike me as the type to have messy code bases