8 ms·

> Here’s the thing - we want to help. We want to build good things. Things that work well, that make people’s lives easier. We want to teach people how to do so

> Here’s the thing - we want to help. We want to build good things. Things that work well, that make people’s lives easier. We want to teach people how to do software engineering! This is not what companies want. Companies want "value" that customers will pay for as quickly and cheaply as possible. As entities they don't care about craftsmanship or anything like that. Just deliver the value quickly and cheaply. Its this fundamental mismatch between what engineers want to do (build elegant, well functioning tools) and what businesses want to do (the bare minimum to get someone to give them as much money as possible) that is driving this sort of pulling-our-hair-out sentiment on the engineering side.

gjsman-1000 1y ago
Right; I discovered at the new company I joined, they want velocity more than anything. The sloppy code, risk of mistakes, it’s all priced in to the risk assessment of not gaining ground first. So… I’m shooting out AI-written code left and right and that’s what they want. My performance? Excellent. Will it be a problem in the future? Well, either the startup fails, or AI might be able to rewrite it in the future. It’s not what I want… but at the same time, how many of our jobs do what we want? I could easily end up being the garbage man. I’m doing what I’m paid to do and I’m paid well to do it.
armada651 1y ago
While this is true, the push-pull between sales and engineering resulted in software that is built well enough to last without being over-engineered. However if both sales and the engineers start chasing quick short term gains over long term viability that'll result in a new wave of shitty low-quality software being released. AI isn't good enough yet to generate the same quality of software as human engineers. But since AI is cheaper we'll gladly lower the quality bar so long as the user is still willing to put up with it. Soon all our digital products will be cheap AI slop that's barely fit for purpose, it's a future I dread.
- gjsman-1000 1y ago
  Well, in such a future, when people have been burned by countless vibecoded projects, congratulations - FAANG wins again! Who is going to risk one penny on your rapidly assembled startup? Any startup that can come to the table saying “All human engineers; SOC 2 Type 2 certified; dedicated Q/A department” will inherit the earth.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- Workaccount2 1y ago
  >AI isn't good enough yet to generate the same quality of software as human engineers The software I have vibecoded for myself totally obliterates anything available on the market. Imagine a program that operates without any lag or hicupps. Opens and runs instantly. A program that can run without an internet connection, without making an account, without somehow being 12GB in size, without totally unintuitive UI, without having to pay $20/mo for static capabilities, without persistent bugs that are ignored for years, without any ability to customize anything. I know you are incredulous reading this is, but hear me out Bespoke narrow scope custom software is incredibly powerful, and well within the wheelhouse of LLMs. Modern software is written to be the 110-tool swiss army knife feature pack to capture as large of an audience as possible. But if I am just using 3 of those tools, an LLM can write a piece of software that is better for me in every single way. And that's exactly what my experience has been so far, and exactly the direction I see software moving in the future.
  - DrillShopper 1y ago
    I'll believe it when I see it with my own eyes, otherwise these words read more like sales copy than technological discovery.
    - Workaccount2 1y ago
      If you haven't seen an LLM output a functional 2K or even 5K LOC program at this point, you probably never will. The problem space of average people problems that can be addressed with <5K LOC is massive. The only real barrier is having to go through an IDE, but that will almost certainly be solved in the near future, it already sort of is with Canvas features.
      - DrillShopper 1y ago
        I can barely get GitHub Copilot to output a functional 50 line program, let alone a 5 KLOC program that actually works.
        1y ago
Lauris100 1y ago
“The only way to go fast, is to go well.” Robert C. Martin Maybe spaghetti code delivers value as quickly as possible in the short term, but there is a risk that it will catch up in the long term - hard to add features, slow iterations - ultimately losing customers, revenue and growth.
- gjsman-1000 1y ago
  Or, you can be like many modern CTOs: AI will likely get better and eventually be capable of mostly cleaning up its own mess today. In which case, YOLO - your startup dies, or AI is sufficiently advanced enough by the time it succeeds. The objections about quality only matter if you think it’s going to plateau.
  - SoftTalker 1y ago
    If the AI gets that good, what value does your startup add?
  - Piskvorrr 1y ago
    That is, literally, faith-based business management. "We suck, sure - but wait, a miracle will SURELY happen in version 5. Or 6. Or 789. It will happen eventually, have faith and shovel money our way."
  - godshatter 1y ago
    I suspect it's going to tank instead of getting better, no matter what they try to do with attention or agents or whatever, especially if it's training on AI-written code of which there will be more and more of as time goes on. I'm not an AI expert by any means, so take that with a grain of salt.
- ascendantlogic 1y ago
  Anecdotally I'm already seeing this on a small scale. People who vibe coded a prototype to 1 mil ARR are realizing that the velocity came at the cost of immense technical debt. The code has reached a point where it is essentially unmaintainable and the interest payments on that technical debt are too expensive. I think there's going to be a lot of money to be made over the next few years un-fucking these sort of things so these new companies can continue to scale.
Quarrelsome 1y ago
the fundamental issue remains that there is no objective and reliable measure of developer productivity. So those who experience it (developers) and the business who are isolated from it; end up with different perspectives. This IMHO is going to be the most important factor that fuels "AI first" stories like these, that could dominate our industry over the coming decade. I don't think the chasm is unbridgable, because ultimately everybody wants the same thing (for the company to prosper) but they fail to entirely appreciate the perspective of the other. Its up to a healthy company organisation to productively address the conflict between the two perspectives. However, I have yet to encounter such a culture of mutal respect and resource allocation. I fear that agentic AI could erase all the progress we've made on culture in the past 25 years (e.g. agile) and drag us back towards 80s tech culture.
- gjsman-1000 1y ago
  Progress? Agile, and the aftermath (the MVP!), it’s how we got here in the first place!
  - Quarrelsome 1y ago
    Seems like you don't remember the 80s, 90s or even early 2000s. Agile was a movement specifically designed to help represent the interests of development in organisations. Obviously business corrupted it over time but the industry before it was considerably worse. MVPs exist to force business into better defining their requirements. Prior to Agile we'd spend years building something and then we'd deliver it, only for business to then "change their mind", because they've now just realised (now that they have it), that what they asked for was stupid.
  - ascendantlogic 1y ago
    Do me a favor and spend a few years in the early 2000's writing enterprise javabeans in a place doing waterfall. Then you'll understand how we ended up with agile.

gjsman-1000 1y ago

Right; I discovered at the new company I joined, they want velocity more than anything. The sloppy code, risk of mistakes, it’s all priced in to the risk assessment of not gaining ground first. So… I’m shooting out AI-written code left and right and that’s what they want. My performance? Excellent. Will it be a problem in the future? Well, either the startup fails, or AI might be able to rewrite it in the future. It’s not what I want… but at the same time, how many of our jobs do what we want? I could easily end up being the garbage man. I’m doing what I’m paid to do and I’m paid well to do it.

armada651 1y ago

While this is true, the push-pull between sales and engineering resulted in software that is built well enough to last without being over-engineered. However if both sales and the engineers start chasing quick short term gains over long term viability that'll result in a new wave of shitty low-quality software being released. AI isn't good enough yet to generate the same quality of software as human engineers. But since AI is cheaper we'll gladly lower the quality bar so long as the user is still willing to put up with it. Soon all our digital products will be cheap AI slop that's barely fit for purpose, it's a future I dread.

gjsman-1000 1y ago
Well, in such a future, when people have been burned by countless vibecoded projects, congratulations - FAANG wins again! Who is going to risk one penny on your rapidly assembled startup? Any startup that can come to the table saying “All human engineers; SOC 2 Type 2 certified; dedicated Q/A department” will inherit the earth.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
Workaccount2 1y ago
>AI isn't good enough yet to generate the same quality of software as human engineers The software I have vibecoded for myself totally obliterates anything available on the market. Imagine a program that operates without any lag or hicupps. Opens and runs instantly. A program that can run without an internet connection, without making an account, without somehow being 12GB in size, without totally unintuitive UI, without having to pay $20/mo for static capabilities, without persistent bugs that are ignored for years, without any ability to customize anything. I know you are incredulous reading this is, but hear me out Bespoke narrow scope custom software is incredibly powerful, and well within the wheelhouse of LLMs. Modern software is written to be the 110-tool swiss army knife feature pack to capture as large of an audience as possible. But if I am just using 3 of those tools, an LLM can write a piece of software that is better for me in every single way. And that's exactly what my experience has been so far, and exactly the direction I see software moving in the future.
- DrillShopper 1y ago
  I'll believe it when I see it with my own eyes, otherwise these words read more like sales copy than technological discovery.
  - Workaccount2 1y ago
    If you haven't seen an LLM output a functional 2K or even 5K LOC program at this point, you probably never will. The problem space of average people problems that can be addressed with <5K LOC is massive. The only real barrier is having to go through an IDE, but that will almost certainly be solved in the near future, it already sort of is with Canvas features.
    - DrillShopper 1y ago
      I can barely get GitHub Copilot to output a functional 50 line program, let alone a 5 KLOC program that actually works.
      - 1y ago

Lauris100 1y ago

“The only way to go fast, is to go well.” Robert C. Martin Maybe spaghetti code delivers value as quickly as possible in the short term, but there is a risk that it will catch up in the long term - hard to add features, slow iterations - ultimately losing customers, revenue and growth.

gjsman-1000 1y ago
Or, you can be like many modern CTOs: AI will likely get better and eventually be capable of mostly cleaning up its own mess today. In which case, YOLO - your startup dies, or AI is sufficiently advanced enough by the time it succeeds. The objections about quality only matter if you think it’s going to plateau.
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  If the AI gets that good, what value does your startup add?
- Piskvorrr 1y ago
  That is, literally, faith-based business management. "We suck, sure - but wait, a miracle will SURELY happen in version 5. Or 6. Or 789. It will happen eventually, have faith and shovel money our way."
- godshatter 1y ago
  I suspect it's going to tank instead of getting better, no matter what they try to do with attention or agents or whatever, especially if it's training on AI-written code of which there will be more and more of as time goes on. I'm not an AI expert by any means, so take that with a grain of salt.
ascendantlogic 1y ago
Anecdotally I'm already seeing this on a small scale. People who vibe coded a prototype to 1 mil ARR are realizing that the velocity came at the cost of immense technical debt. The code has reached a point where it is essentially unmaintainable and the interest payments on that technical debt are too expensive. I think there's going to be a lot of money to be made over the next few years un-fucking these sort of things so these new companies can continue to scale.

Quarrelsome 1y ago

the fundamental issue remains that there is no objective and reliable measure of developer productivity. So those who experience it (developers) and the business who are isolated from it; end up with different perspectives. This IMHO is going to be the most important factor that fuels "AI first" stories like these, that could dominate our industry over the coming decade. I don't think the chasm is unbridgable, because ultimately everybody wants the same thing (for the company to prosper) but they fail to entirely appreciate the perspective of the other. Its up to a healthy company organisation to productively address the conflict between the two perspectives. However, I have yet to encounter such a culture of mutal respect and resource allocation. I fear that agentic AI could erase all the progress we've made on culture in the past 25 years (e.g. agile) and drag us back towards 80s tech culture.

gjsman-1000 1y ago
Progress? Agile, and the aftermath (the MVP!), it’s how we got here in the first place!
- Quarrelsome 1y ago
  Seems like you don't remember the 80s, 90s or even early 2000s. Agile was a movement specifically designed to help represent the interests of development in organisations. Obviously business corrupted it over time but the industry before it was considerably worse. MVPs exist to force business into better defining their requirements. Prior to Agile we'd spend years building something and then we'd deliver it, only for business to then "change their mind", because they've now just realised (now that they have it), that what they asked for was stupid.
- ascendantlogic 1y ago
  Do me a favor and spend a few years in the early 2000's writing enterprise javabeans in a place doing waterfall. Then you'll understand how we ended up with agile.