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> I think we're gonna need more SW devs, not fewer Code is a liability. What we really care about is the outcome, not the code. These AI tools are great at gen

> I think we're gonna need more SW devs, not fewer Code is a liability. What we really care about is the outcome, not the code. These AI tools are great at generating code, but are they good at maintaining the generated code? Not from what I've seen. So there's a good chance we'll see people using tools to generate a ton of instant legacy code (because nobody in house has ever understood it) which, if it hits production, will require skilled people to figure out how to support it.

kmoser 2y ago
We will see both: lots of poor code, lots of neutral code (LLMs cranking out reasonably well written boilerplate), and even some improved code (by devs who use LLMs to ferret out inefficiencies and bugs in their existing, human-written codebase). This is no different from what we see with any tool or language: the results are highly dependent on the experience and skills of the operator.
- gorjusborg 2y ago
  You've missed my core point if you think those isn't different. Before AI there was always someone who understood the code/system. In the a world where people are having machines build the entire system, there is potentially no human that has ever understood it. Now, we are talking about a yet unseen future; I have yet to see a real world system that did not have a human driving the design. But, maintaining a system that nobody has ever understood could be ultra-hardmode.
  - kmoser 2y ago
    Humans will always have a hand in the design because they need to explain the real-world constraints to the AI. Sure, the code it produces may be complex, but if the AI is really as smart as you're claiming it will eventually be, then it will also have the ability to explain how the code works in plain English (or your human language of choice). Even today, LLMs are remarkably good at summarizing what code does. Philosophical question: how is LLM-produced code that nobody has ever understood any different from human-written legacy code that nobody alive today understands?
    - gorjusborg 2y ago
      > Philosophical question: how is LLM-produced code that nobody has ever understood any different from human-written legacy code that nobody alive today understands? - There is zero option of paying an obscene amount of money to find the person and make the problem 'go away' - There is a non-zero possibility that the code is not understandable by any developer you can afford. By this I mean that the system exhibits the desired behavior, but is written in such a way that only someone like Mike Pall* can understand. * Mike Pall is a robot from the future
ivanbalepin 2y ago
> Code is a liability This is so true! Actual writing of the code is such a small step in overall running of a typical business/project, and the less of it the better.
duderific 2y ago
> Code is a liability Another way I've seen this expressed, which resonates with me, is "All code is technical debt."
intelVISA 2y ago
As one HNer aptly put it: coding is to SWE as cutting is to surgery.
podunkPDX 2y ago
These AI tools are also not good at answering PagerDuty to fix a production problem that is a result of the code they imagined.

kmoser 2y ago

We will see both: lots of poor code, lots of neutral code (LLMs cranking out reasonably well written boilerplate), and even some improved code (by devs who use LLMs to ferret out inefficiencies and bugs in their existing, human-written codebase). This is no different from what we see with any tool or language: the results are highly dependent on the experience and skills of the operator.

gorjusborg 2y ago
You've missed my core point if you think those isn't different. Before AI there was always someone who understood the code/system. In the a world where people are having machines build the entire system, there is potentially no human that has ever understood it. Now, we are talking about a yet unseen future; I have yet to see a real world system that did not have a human driving the design. But, maintaining a system that nobody has ever understood could be ultra-hardmode.
- kmoser 2y ago
  Humans will always have a hand in the design because they need to explain the real-world constraints to the AI. Sure, the code it produces may be complex, but if the AI is really as smart as you're claiming it will eventually be, then it will also have the ability to explain how the code works in plain English (or your human language of choice). Even today, LLMs are remarkably good at summarizing what code does. Philosophical question: how is LLM-produced code that nobody has ever understood any different from human-written legacy code that nobody alive today understands?
  - gorjusborg 2y ago
    > Philosophical question: how is LLM-produced code that nobody has ever understood any different from human-written legacy code that nobody alive today understands? - There is zero option of paying an obscene amount of money to find the person and make the problem 'go away' - There is a non-zero possibility that the code is not understandable by any developer you can afford. By this I mean that the system exhibits the desired behavior, but is written in such a way that only someone like Mike Pall* can understand. * Mike Pall is a robot from the future

ivanbalepin 2y ago

> Code is a liability This is so true! Actual writing of the code is such a small step in overall running of a typical business/project, and the less of it the better.

duderific 2y ago

> Code is a liability Another way I've seen this expressed, which resonates with me, is "All code is technical debt."

intelVISA 2y ago

As one HNer aptly put it: coding is to SWE as cutting is to surgery.

podunkPDX 2y ago

These AI tools are also not good at answering PagerDuty to fix a production problem that is a result of the code they imagined.