4 ms·

Where I work, we have a directive to use AI as much as we can wherever possible. I was handed a codebase that's been working on by many, many, many different pe

Where I work, we have a directive to use AI as much as we can wherever possible. I was handed a codebase that's been working on by many, many, many different people over the past ~2 years and was written almost entirely with AI (starting with GPT 3) The only way you can deal with the codebase is to fully embrace the AI. Whenever I want to make anything beyond a simple API change, I have to boot up Cursor and give it 5+ files for context and then write a short novel about what I want it to do. I sip some coffee while it chugs away and spits out some changes, which I then have to go and figure out how to test. I'm not fully convinced that the iteration time is any faster, and the codebase is a hot mess. It also just feels very stifling and frustrating to me to have to write a ton of prose for something when I'm used to being able to write code to do it! I have to go home and work on other projects without AI just to scratch the itch of actually programming which is what I fell in love with all those years ago.

solaire_oa 2y ago
It's hard to address just one point for how messed up this seems, but the first thing that stands out is that I would guess the code volume of this process has to be unsustainable. Humans themselves tend to write new code instead of using old code- a common problem- but with sensible code structures and CI, code will grow at a sustainable rate. LLMs continuously barf a steam of new code, never deleting anything. Then you need to provide the barf as context, and the cycle surely must continue until it falls apart. How has this not happened yet?
- TranquilMarmot 2y ago
  Yes - writing code myself, whenever I need to do something substantial the first question I ask is "is there already a function in this codebase somewhere that does this, or does something close enough to it that I can just tweak it?" and most of the time there is! AI will just write a new function every time. You can also ask it to write tests, but I think that AI-written test coverage of AI-written code is just asking for trouble. When it breaks, you'll probably just ask an AI to fix it.
outworlder 2y ago
This is how I think the current bubble will pop. Yes, these are useful tools that we just now are trying to learn how to use. But wallstreet and bean counters are going apeshit on the prospect of replacing the (expensive!) humans they currently pay for. Once the codebases become an unmanageable mess I think the pendulum will swing back, hard. That should buy sometime for anyone not entering the industry right now.

solaire_oa 2y ago

It's hard to address just one point for how messed up this seems, but the first thing that stands out is that I would guess the code volume of this process has to be unsustainable. Humans themselves tend to write new code instead of using old code- a common problem- but with sensible code structures and CI, code will grow at a sustainable rate. LLMs continuously barf a steam of new code, never deleting anything. Then you need to provide the barf as context, and the cycle surely must continue until it falls apart. How has this not happened yet?

TranquilMarmot 2y ago
Yes - writing code myself, whenever I need to do something substantial the first question I ask is "is there already a function in this codebase somewhere that does this, or does something close enough to it that I can just tweak it?" and most of the time there is! AI will just write a new function every time. You can also ask it to write tests, but I think that AI-written test coverage of AI-written code is just asking for trouble. When it breaks, you'll probably just ask an AI to fix it.

outworlder 2y ago

This is how I think the current bubble will pop. Yes, these are useful tools that we just now are trying to learn how to use. But wallstreet and bean counters are going apeshit on the prospect of replacing the (expensive!) humans they currently pay for. Once the codebases become an unmanageable mess I think the pendulum will swing back, hard. That should buy sometime for anyone not entering the industry right now.