4 ms·

Tangent. Does any body have good tips for working in a company that is totally bought in on all this stuff, such that the codebase is a complete wreck? I am in

Tangent. Does any body have good tips for working in a company that is totally bought in on all this stuff, such that the codebase is a complete wreck? I am in a very small team, and I am just a worker, not a manager or anything. It has become increasingly clear that most if not all my coworkers rely on all this stuff so much. Spending hours trying to give benefit of the doubt to huge amounts of inherited code, realizing there is actually no human bottom to it. Things are merged quickly, with very little review, because, it seems, the reviewers can't really have their own opinion about stuff anymore. The idea of "idiomatic" or even "understandable" code seems foreign at this place. I asked why we don't use more structural directives in our angular frontend, and people didn't know what I was talking about! I don't want the discourse, or tips on better prompts. Just tips for being able to interact with the more heavy AI-heads, to maybe encourage/inspire curiosity and care in the actual code, rather than the magic chatgpt outputs. Or even just to talk about what they did with their PR. Not for some ethical reason, but just to make my/our jobs easier. Because its so hard to maintain this code now, it is like truly a nightmare for me everyday seeing what has been added, what now needs to be fixed. Realizing nobody actually has this stuff in their heads, its all just jira ticket > prompt > mission accomplished! I am tired of complaining about AI in principle. Whatever, AGI is here, "we too are stochastic parrots", "my productivity has tripled", etc etc. Ok yes, you can have that, I don't care. But can we like actually start doing work now? I just want to do whatever I can, in my limited formal capacity, to steer the company to be just a tiny bit more sustainable and maybe even enjoyable. I just don't know how to like... start talking about the problem I guess, without everyone getting super defensive and doubling down on it. I just miss when I could talk to people about documentation, strategy, rationale..

WOnderFullGOnzo 2y ago
[dead]
whywhywhywhy 2y ago
Found it better to not fight it, you can't really turn back the clock with people who have embraced it or become enamored by it. Part of the issue I've noticed with it is it enables people who couldn't do a thing at all to do the most basic version of a thing, e.g a CEO can now make a button appear on the app and maybe it'll kinda work, they then assume this magic experience to them is applicable across the rest of coding where if you actually know how to code making the button appear isn't the thing that's difficult, it's the harder work that the AI can't really solve. But really you're never going to convince these people so I'd say if you're really passionate about coding find a workplace with similar minded people, if you really want to stay in this job then embrace it, stop caring if the codebase is good or maintainable and just let the slop flow. It's the path of least resistance and stress, trying to fight it and convince people is a losing and frustrating battle, take your passion for your work and invest it in a project outside work or find a workplace where they appreciate it too.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
martinpw 2y ago
> Things are merged quickly, with very little review Sounds like the real problem is lax pre-existing dev practices rather than just LLM usage. If code is getting merged with little review, that is a big red flag right away. But the 'very little' gives some hope - that means there is some review? So what happens when you see problems with the code and give review feedback and ask why things have been done the way they were done, or suggest alternative better approaches? That should make it clear first if devs actually understand the code they are submitting, and second if they are willing to listen to suggested improvements. And if they blow you off, and the tech leads on the project also don't care, then it sounds like a place you don't want to stick around.

WOnderFullGOnzo 2y ago

[dead]

whywhywhywhy 2y ago

Found it better to not fight it, you can't really turn back the clock with people who have embraced it or become enamored by it. Part of the issue I've noticed with it is it enables people who couldn't do a thing at all to do the most basic version of a thing, e.g a CEO can now make a button appear on the app and maybe it'll kinda work, they then assume this magic experience to them is applicable across the rest of coding where if you actually know how to code making the button appear isn't the thing that's difficult, it's the harder work that the AI can't really solve. But really you're never going to convince these people so I'd say if you're really passionate about coding find a workplace with similar minded people, if you really want to stay in this job then embrace it, stop caring if the codebase is good or maintainable and just let the slop flow. It's the path of least resistance and stress, trying to fight it and convince people is a losing and frustrating battle, take your passion for your work and invest it in a project outside work or find a workplace where they appreciate it too.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

martinpw 2y ago

> Things are merged quickly, with very little review Sounds like the real problem is lax pre-existing dev practices rather than just LLM usage. If code is getting merged with little review, that is a big red flag right away. But the 'very little' gives some hope - that means there is some review? So what happens when you see problems with the code and give review feedback and ask why things have been done the way they were done, or suggest alternative better approaches? That should make it clear first if devs actually understand the code they are submitting, and second if they are willing to listen to suggested improvements. And if they blow you off, and the tech leads on the project also don't care, then it sounds like a place you don't want to stick around.