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> But once that’s done, why not? Do you have the same understanding of the code? Be honest here. I don't think you do. Just like none of us have the same unde

> But once that’s done, why not? Do you have the same understanding of the code? Be honest here. I don't think you do. Just like none of us have the same understanding of the code somebody else wrote. It's just a fact that you understand the code you wrote better than code you didn't. I'm not saying you don't understand the code, that's different. But there's a deeper understanding to code you wrote, right? You might write something one way because you had an idea to try something in the future based on an idea to had while finding some bug. Or you might write it some way because some obscure part of the codebase. Or maybe because you have intuition about the customer. But when AI writes the code, who has responsibility over it? Where can I go to ask why some choice was made? That's important context I need to write code with you as a team. That's important context a (good) engineering manager needs to ensure you're on the right direction. If you respond "well that's what the AI did" then how that any different from the intern saying "that's how I did it at the last place." It's a non-answer, and infuriating. You could also try to bullshit an answer, guessing why the AI did that (helpful since you promoted it), but you're still guessing and now being disingenuous. It's a bit more helpful, but still not very helpful. It's incredibly rude to your coworkers to just bullshit. Personally I'd rather someone say "I don't know" and truthfully I respect them more for that. (I actually really do respect people that can admit they don't know something. Especially in our field where egos are quite high. It's can be a mark of trust that's *very* valuable) Sure, the AI can read the whole codebase, but you have hundreds or thousands of hours in that codebase. Don't sell yourself short. Honestly I don't mind the AI acting as a reviewer to be a check before you submit a PR, but it just doesn't have the context to write good code. AI tries to write code like a junior, fixing the obvious problem that's right in front of you. But it doesn't fix the subtle problems that come with foresight. No, I want you to stumble through that code because while you write code you're also debugging and designing. Your brain works in parallel, right? I bet it does even if you don't know it. I want you stumbling through because that struggling is helping you learn more about the code and the context that isn't explicitly written. I want you to develop ideas and gain insights. But AI writing code? That's like measuring how good a developer is by the number of lines of code they write. I'll take quality over quantity any day of the week. Quality makes the business run better and waste fewer dollars debugging the spaghetti and duct tape called "tech debt".

D13Fd 1y ago
If you wrote the code, then you’ll understand it and know why it is written the way you wrote it. If the AI writes the code, you can still understand the code, but you will never know why the code is written that way. The AI itself doesn’t know, beyond the fact that that’s how it is in the training data (and that’s true even if it could generate a plausible answer for why, if you asked it).
- godelski 1y ago
  Exactly! Thanks for summing it up. There needs to be some responsible entity that can discuss the decisions behind the code. Those decisions have tremendous business value[0] [0] I stress because it's not just about "good coding". Maybe in a startup it only matters that "things work". But if you're running a stable business you care if your machine might break down at any moment. You don't want the MVP. The MVP is a program that doesn't want to be alive but you've forced into existence and it is barely hanging on
- jmcodes 1y ago
  I don't agree entirely with this. I know why the LLM wrote the code that way. Because I told it to and _I_ know why I want the code that way. If people are letting the LLM decide how the code will be written then I think they're using them wrong and yes 100% they won't understand the code as well as if they had written it by hand. LLMs are just good pattern matchers and can spit out text faster than humans, so that's what I use them for mostly. Anything that requires actual brainpower and thinking is still my domain. I just type a lot less than I used to.
  - godelski 1y ago
    > I know why the LLM wrote the code that way. Because I told it to and _I_ know why I want the code that way. That's a different "why". > If people are letting the LLM decide how the code will be written then I think they're using them wrong I'm unconvinced you can have an LLM produce code and you do all the decision making. These are fundamentally at odds. I am convinced that it will tend to follow your general direction, but when you write the code you're not just writing either. I don't actually ever feel like the LLMs help me generate code faster because when writing I am also designing. It doesn't take much brain power to make my fingers move. They are a lot slower than my brain. Hell, I can talk and type at the same time, and it isn't like this is an uncommon feat. But I also can't talk and type if I'm working on the hard part of the code because I'm not just writing. People often tell me they use LLMs to do boilerplate. I can understand this, but at the same time it begs the question "why are you writing boilerplate?" or "why are you writing so much boilerplate?" If it is boilerplate, why not generate it through scripts or libraries? Those have a lot of additional benefits. Saves you time, saves your coworkers time, and can make the code a lot cleaner because you're now explicitly saying "this is a routine". I mean... that's what functions are for, right? I find this has more value and saves more time in the long run than getting the LLMs to keep churning out boilerplate. It also makes things easier to debug because you have far fewer things to look at.

D13Fd 1y ago

If you wrote the code, then you’ll understand it and know why it is written the way you wrote it. If the AI writes the code, you can still understand the code, but you will never know why the code is written that way. The AI itself doesn’t know, beyond the fact that that’s how it is in the training data (and that’s true even if it could generate a plausible answer for why, if you asked it).

godelski 1y ago
Exactly! Thanks for summing it up. There needs to be some responsible entity that can discuss the decisions behind the code. Those decisions have tremendous business value[0] [0] I stress because it's not just about "good coding". Maybe in a startup it only matters that "things work". But if you're running a stable business you care if your machine might break down at any moment. You don't want the MVP. The MVP is a program that doesn't want to be alive but you've forced into existence and it is barely hanging on
jmcodes 1y ago
I don't agree entirely with this. I know why the LLM wrote the code that way. Because I told it to and _I_ know why I want the code that way. If people are letting the LLM decide how the code will be written then I think they're using them wrong and yes 100% they won't understand the code as well as if they had written it by hand. LLMs are just good pattern matchers and can spit out text faster than humans, so that's what I use them for mostly. Anything that requires actual brainpower and thinking is still my domain. I just type a lot less than I used to.
- godelski 1y ago
  > I know why the LLM wrote the code that way. Because I told it to and _I_ know why I want the code that way. That's a different "why". > If people are letting the LLM decide how the code will be written then I think they're using them wrong I'm unconvinced you can have an LLM produce code and you do all the decision making. These are fundamentally at odds. I am convinced that it will tend to follow your general direction, but when you write the code you're not just writing either. I don't actually ever feel like the LLMs help me generate code faster because when writing I am also designing. It doesn't take much brain power to make my fingers move. They are a lot slower than my brain. Hell, I can talk and type at the same time, and it isn't like this is an uncommon feat. But I also can't talk and type if I'm working on the hard part of the code because I'm not just writing. People often tell me they use LLMs to do boilerplate. I can understand this, but at the same time it begs the question "why are you writing boilerplate?" or "why are you writing so much boilerplate?" If it is boilerplate, why not generate it through scripts or libraries? Those have a lot of additional benefits. Saves you time, saves your coworkers time, and can make the code a lot cleaner because you're now explicitly saying "this is a routine". I mean... that's what functions are for, right? I find this has more value and saves more time in the long run than getting the LLMs to keep churning out boilerplate. It also makes things easier to debug because you have far fewer things to look at.