This post resonates a lot with me and my approach to counter the idea that an LLM (as amazing as a tool it is) gives programmers permission to stop engineering. To me, executing a decision in the face of trade-offs is what the job is all about.

So, I want to keep pulling the thread: is it worth reading—meaning, understanding—the code in order to prevent p95 latency from skyrocketing, avoid OOM death, and keep our apps reliable for customers?

The cost of understanding the code is ostensibly very high relative to just using a clanker (citation needed), so does paying that cost translate to value—what is it worth? Concretely, if vibe coding increases bugs and enshittification, but decreases spending without decreasing revenue (read: customers suffer, but they don't leave), do we still need to pay the cost of reading code? Is it better to invest in stickiness, lobbying, and market capture?

This comment shouldn't be read as advocating for this; it's a thought experiment about pragmatism and trade-offs, and reflects what I'm witnessing companies (and "programmers") asking themselves. I personally care a lot about understanding systems and code, and I believe I'm paid to do exactly that (I very much enjoy understanding code and nobody is paying me to run a business, so I may be biased in this). In everyday SaaS-land—not talking about critical safety systems—we've seen production databases destroyed, personal data leaked, platforms unwittingly exploited, and UX bugs creep into our operating systems, and yet the companies involved keep on keeping on.

Is thinking, meaning taking the time to actually understand what our systems are doing, going to increase their shareholder value?