3 ms·

I feel for the future maintainers of all this crappy LLM legacy code in the future. It’s gonna be ugly.

by elzbardico 3y ago

idle_zealot 3y ago
Surely we will get LLMs to maintain it.
duderific 3y ago
So, I guess LLMs are actually creating jobs rather than destroying them. Not exactly fun jobs though.
- steve_adams_86 3y ago
  Not exactly well paid either, I suspect.
bigfudge 3y ago
I suspect it will be no worse than enterprisey code. It might even look quite similar, although the comments and docs will be more thorough and less likely to be actively wrong.
- jachee 3y ago
  …unless the LLM hallucinates the comments and docs.
- Nathanba 3y ago
  It will be worse because there will be a lot more of it
bongodongobob 3y ago
Agreed. LLMs will never get any better than they are right now and haven't improved at all in 2 years. Just fancy Markov chains. The only way they can be used to write code is by people who don't know how to code blindly commiting code to prod without any review whatsoever. People who do know how to code couldn't possibly have a use case and it won't make them any more productive. I'm just going to ignore all this LLM nonsense that isn't changing the world at all and you definitely should too.
- SnowTile 3y ago
  Disagree, I find them very useful to quickly explain new libraries or do tedious things like regex
  - bongodongobob 3y ago
    My post is absolutely doused in sarcasm.
armchairhacker 3y ago
Just delete the tests, problem solved. Your CI dashboard even gives you the green checkmark.
- steve_adams_86 3y ago
  This made me think of that midwit meme with “delete the tests, green check mark in CI” on either side of the graph and “100% coverage” in the centre. Not totally valid, but… A bit of truth, haha. Maybe the right side should be something about fuzzing and using static types. Use systemic and automated checks. I’m a little ashamed that I thought in memes so readily.
block_dagger 3y ago
I too feel compassion for the AI agents that will be dealing with this code. 99% of human developers will be out of the loop by then.
- travoc 3y ago
  I’m old enough to remember the first time they said this about offshoring.

I feel for the future maintainers of all this crappy LLM legacy code in the future. It’s gonna be ugly.

idle_zealot 3y ago

Surely we will get LLMs to maintain it.

duderific 3y ago

So, I guess LLMs are actually creating jobs rather than destroying them. Not exactly fun jobs though.

steve_adams_86 3y ago
Not exactly well paid either, I suspect.

bigfudge 3y ago

I suspect it will be no worse than enterprisey code. It might even look quite similar, although the comments and docs will be more thorough and less likely to be actively wrong.

jachee 3y ago
…unless the LLM hallucinates the comments and docs.
Nathanba 3y ago
It will be worse because there will be a lot more of it

bongodongobob 3y ago

Agreed. LLMs will never get any better than they are right now and haven't improved at all in 2 years. Just fancy Markov chains. The only way they can be used to write code is by people who don't know how to code blindly commiting code to prod without any review whatsoever. People who do know how to code couldn't possibly have a use case and it won't make them any more productive. I'm just going to ignore all this LLM nonsense that isn't changing the world at all and you definitely should too.

SnowTile 3y ago
Disagree, I find them very useful to quickly explain new libraries or do tedious things like regex
- bongodongobob 3y ago
  My post is absolutely doused in sarcasm.

armchairhacker 3y ago

Just delete the tests, problem solved. Your CI dashboard even gives you the green checkmark.

steve_adams_86 3y ago
This made me think of that midwit meme with “delete the tests, green check mark in CI” on either side of the graph and “100% coverage” in the centre. Not totally valid, but… A bit of truth, haha. Maybe the right side should be something about fuzzing and using static types. Use systemic and automated checks. I’m a little ashamed that I thought in memes so readily.

block_dagger 3y ago

I too feel compassion for the AI agents that will be dealing with this code. 99% of human developers will be out of the loop by then.

travoc 3y ago
I’m old enough to remember the first time they said this about offshoring.