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That's also how you get security nightmares.

The way I use LLM's is that I design main data structures, function interfaces etc. and ask LLM's to fill them. Also test cases and assertions.

by harel2 hours ago|

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This. I find bringing in the LLM when there is a good structure already in place is better. I also use it sparingly, asking it for very specific things. Write me tests for this, or create me a function that does this or that. Review this, extend that etc.

by mym19904 hours ago|

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LLMs would not be popular if "spending those few minutes doing it yourself" part was true. In actuality it can be hours, days, or weeks depending on the feature and your pickiness. Everyone acts as if they are the greatest developer and that these tools are subpar, the truth is that most developers are just average, just like most drivers are average but think of themselves as above average. All of the sudden everyone that was piecing together code off of stackoverflow with no idea how to build the damn thing is actually a someone who can understand large code bases and find bugs and write flawless code? Give me a break.

To the degree that those same people are now writing 10-100x more code...that is scary, but the doom and gloom is pretty tiring.

by blauditore3 hours ago|

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The SO copy-pasting is actually quite accurate. The same folks are now just blindly generating code. That's why most software in the world is shit, and will continue to be in the future. There might just be more of it.

by mym19903 hours ago|

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There will most definitely be much more of it, maybe machines are doing this on purpose to increase dependency on them haha. Ultimately, wagging a finger at someone will have no outcome, allowing someone to make real mistakes while vibe coding will be a much better learning experience. Someone that drops a prod database using Claude will have a very lasting memory of that(not saying that should be the goal, critical thinking obviously matters A LOT). Cars didn't used to have seatbelts, a lot of people died, then they got seatbelts and now the world is a better place.

by written-beyond1 hours ago|

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I never said anything against using LLMs. You're projecting.

Any engineer worth their weight will always try to avoid adding code. Any amount of code you add to a system, whether is written by you or a all knowing AI is a liability. If you spent a majority of your work day writing code it's understandable to want to rely heavily on LLMs.

Where I'd like for people to draw a line on is not knowing at all what the X thousand lines of code are doing.

In my career, I have never been in a situation where my problems could be a solved by piecing together code from SO. When I say "spend those few minutes doing it yourself" I am specifically talking about UI, but it does apply to other situations too.

For instance, if you had to change your UI layout to something specific. You could try to collect screenshots and articulate what you need to see changed. If you weren't clear enough that cycle of prompting with the AI would waste your time, you could've just made the change yourself.

There are many instances where the latter option is going to be faster and more accurate. This would only be possible if you had some idea of your code base.

When you've let an agent take full control of your codebase you will have to sink time into understanding it. Since clearly everyone is too busy for that you get stuck in a loop, the only way to make those "last 10%" changes is *only* via the agent.

by doctorpangloss5 hours ago|

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Yeah… I wonder how you write complex software without something that looks like a spec, other than slowly. It seems like the prep work is unavoidable, and this contrarian opinion you are offering is just that.

by written-beyond1 hours ago|

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Writing the spec is becoming the default for pet projects. Which would be a good thing if the spec wasn't also partly written by an LLM.

You can already see people running into these issues, they have a spec in mind. They work on the spec with and LLM, the spec has stuff added to it that wasn't what they were expecting.

And again, I am not against LLMs but I can be against how they're being used. You write some stuff down, maybe have the LLM scaffold some skeleton for you. You could even discuss with the LLM what classes should be named what should they do etc. just be in the process so the entire code base isn't 200% foreign to you by the time it's done.

Also I am no one's mother, everyone has freewill they can do whatever they'd like. If you don't think you have better things to do than to produce 3-5 pieces of abandonware software every weekend then good for you.