alt Hacker NewsIt's really depressing watching brilliant software developers and engineers producing the worst, unmaintainable code imaginable, and being okay with shipping it because it's passing the test suite. Assuming the test suite is any good anyway (because holy crap, the nonsensical tests AI writes...)
Your code used to be a masterpiece, so well crafted it's easy for AI to tweak and modify because you've got everything so logically organised and scoped... and now this is what you're producing? Hard to debug monstrosities that only an LLM can realistically bolt new features or tweaks onto, because it can do the kinds of refactoring necessary each time.
We use to talk about the fact that code should be readable because you spend more time reading it than writing it, but I think that misses the key part that readable code is also typically easier to debug. If you can read and understand the code, you can follow the logic when things are wrong in production, and you can more easily reason about the emergent properties of interactions between the complex systems that are involved.
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I always like to say that LLM-produced test suites aren't for testing software correctness or validity, they're for testing to make sure that stuff that was previously in place stays unchanged. This, of course, is six-in-one-hand-half-a-dozen-in-the-other since the agent will often just update tests to match the updates it just made, but I do find value in providing some kind of continuity to a codebase that's being modified at breakneck pace. YMMV
I don't know which companies you work for. Where is the code a masterpiece? In all my work, I have yet to see this elegant code. Before AI, we had to deal with human slop. Byzantine, spaghetti messes. I haven't been lucky. I once worked with code that made me want to pull my hair out. I look at LLM-generated code, and it's mostly better than any code I have worked on. But maybe it's just me.
I’ve seen people say this kind of code was written, but I’ve never seen this kind of code anywhere I have ever worked.
Not saying it doesn’t exist, just saying this sounds dangerously close to a boomer talking about the 1950s
> Your code used to be a masterpiece
Do you even see anything underneath that rose tint ?
Your code used to be a masterpiece? Ours was more… Amazon basics wall art.
I jest, while in agreement with this whole comment. We used to care about fostering informed developers and maintaining high standards and good quality software.
I literally compared it to being an expert woodworker. Beautiful ornate decoration. Rich, sturdy mahogany, one of a kind, beveled edges and a fantastic stained hardwood.
Now it’s the 30$ Ikea cardboard stuff.
My biggest question is how many tables does the world need, and how many woodworkers will be required to build + maintain those table factories.