7 ms·

Calling things "slop" is just begging the question. The real differentiating factor is that, in the past, "human-generated slop" at least took effort to produce

Calling things "slop" is just begging the question. The real differentiating factor is that, in the past, "human-generated slop" at least took effort to produce. Perhaps, in the process of producing it, the human notices what's happening and reconsiders (or even better, improves it such that it's no longer "slop".) Claude has no such inhibitions. So, when you look at a big bunch of code that you haven't read yet, are you more or less confident when you find out an LLM wrote it?

WalterSear 1y ago
I have pretty much the same amount of confidence when I receive AI generated or non-AI generated code to review: my confidence is based on the person guiding the LLM, and their ability to that. Much more so than before, I'll comfortably reject a PR that is hard to follow, for any reason, including size. IMHO, the biggest change that LLMs have brought to the table is that clean code and refactoring are no longer expensive, and should no longer be bargained for, neglected or given the lip service that they have received throughout most of my career. Test suites and documentation, too. (Given the nature of working with LLMs, I also suspect that clean, idiomatic code is more important than ever, since LLMs have presumably been trained on that, but this is just a personal superstition, that is probably increasingly false, but also feels harmless) The only time I think it is appropriate to land a large amount of code at once is if it is a single act of entirely brain dead refactoring, doing nothing new, such as renaming a single variable across an entire codebase, or moving/breaking/consolidating a single module or file. And there better be tests. Otherwise, get an LLM to break things up and make things easier for me to understand, for crying out loud: there are precious few reasons left not to make reviewing PRs as easy as possible. So, I posit that the emotional reaction from certain audiences is still the largest, most exhausting difference.
- grey-area 1y ago
  clean code and refactoring are no longer expensive Are you contending that LLMs produce clean code?
  - WalterSear 1y ago
    They do, for many people. Perhaps you need to change your approach.
    - dmurray 1y ago
      If you can produce a clean design, the LLM can write the code.
      - fragmede 1y ago
        Unless you're doing something fabulously unique (at which point I'm jealous you get to work on such a thing), they're pretty good at cribbing the design of things if it's something that's been well documented online (canonically, a CRUD SaaS app, with minor UI modification to support your chosen niche).
        WalterSear 1y ago
        And if you are doing something fabulously unique, the LLM can still write all the code around it, likely help with many of the components, give you at least a first pass at tests, and enable rapid, meaningful refactors after each feature PR.
      - WalterSear 1y ago
        I think maybe there's another step too - breaking the design up into small enough peices that the LLM can follow it, and you can understand the output.
        TexanFeller 1y ago
        So do all the hard work yourself and let the AI do some of the typing, that you’ll have to spend extra time reviewing closely in case its RNG factor made it change an important detail. And with all the extra up front design, planning, instructions, and context you need to provide to the LLM I’m not sure I’m saving on typing. A lot of people recommend going meta and having LLMs generate a good prompt and sequence of steps to follow, but I’ve only seen that kinda sorta work for the most trivial tasks.
- hatefulmoron 1y ago
  I don't really understand your point. It reads like you're saying "I like good code, it doesn't matter if it comes from a person or an LLM. If a person is good at using an LLM, it's fine." Sure, but the problem people have with LLMs is their _propensity_ to create slop in comparison to humans. Dismissing other people's observations as purely an emotional reaction just makes it seem like you haven't carefully thought about other people's experiences.
  - WalterSear 1y ago
    My point is that, if I can do it right, others can too. If someone's LLM is outputing slop, they are obviously doing something different: I'm using the same LLMs. All the LLM hate here isn't observation, it's sour grapes. Complaining about slop and poor code quality outputs is confessing that you haven't taken the time to understand what is reasonable to ask for, aren't educating your junior engineers how to interact with LLMs.
    - lukan 1y ago
      "My point is that, if I can do it right, others can too." Can it also be, that different people work in different areas and LLM's are not equally good in all areas?
      - WalterSear 1y ago
        That was my first assumption, quite a while ago now.
    - rockskon 1y ago
      ??? People complaining about receiving bad code is, by definition, observation.
fragmede 1y ago
If you try and one shot it, sure, but if you question Claude, point out the errors of its ways, tell it to refactor and ultrathink, point out that two things have similar functionality and could be merged. It can write unhinged code with duplicate unused variable definitions that don't work, and it'll fix it up if you call it out, or you can just do it yourself. (cue questions of if, in that case, it would just be faster to do it yourself.)
- hatefulmoron 1y ago
  I have a Claude max subscription. When I think of bad Claude code, I'm not thinking about unused variable definitions. I'm thinking about the times you turn on ultrathink, allow it to access tools and negotiate it's solution, and it still churns out an over complicated yet partially correct solution that breaks. I totally trust Claude to fix linting errors.
  - WalterSear 1y ago
    If you are getting garbage out, you are asking it for too much at once. Don't ask for solutions - ask for implementations.
    - hatefulmoron 1y ago
      Distinction without a difference. I'm talking about its output being insufficient, whatever word you want to use for output.
      - WalterSear 1y ago
        And I'm arguing that if the output wasn't sufficient, neither was your input. You could also be asking for too much in one go, though that's becoming less and less of a problem as LLMs improve.
        hatefulmoron 1y ago
        You're proposing a truism: if you don't get a good result, it's either because your query is bad or because the LLM isn't good enough to provide a good result. Yes, that is how this works. I'm talking about the case where you're providing a good query and getting poor results. Claiming that this can be solved by more LLM conversations and ultrathink is cope.
HelloNurse 1y ago
> Perhaps, in the process of producing it, the human notices what's happening and reconsiders (or even better, improves it such that it's no longer "slop".) Given the same ridiculously large and complex change, if it is handwritten only a seriously insensitive and arrogant crackpot could, knowing what's inside, submit it with any expectation that you accept it without a long and painful process instead of improving it to the best of their ability; on the other hand using LLM assistance even a mildly incompetent but valuable colleague or contributor, someone you care about, might underestimate the complexity and cost of what they didn't actually write and believe that there is nothing to improve.

WalterSear 1y ago

I have pretty much the same amount of confidence when I receive AI generated or non-AI generated code to review: my confidence is based on the person guiding the LLM, and their ability to that. Much more so than before, I'll comfortably reject a PR that is hard to follow, for any reason, including size. IMHO, the biggest change that LLMs have brought to the table is that clean code and refactoring are no longer expensive, and should no longer be bargained for, neglected or given the lip service that they have received throughout most of my career. Test suites and documentation, too. (Given the nature of working with LLMs, I also suspect that clean, idiomatic code is more important than ever, since LLMs have presumably been trained on that, but this is just a personal superstition, that is probably increasingly false, but also feels harmless) The only time I think it is appropriate to land a large amount of code at once is if it is a single act of entirely brain dead refactoring, doing nothing new, such as renaming a single variable across an entire codebase, or moving/breaking/consolidating a single module or file. And there better be tests. Otherwise, get an LLM to break things up and make things easier for me to understand, for crying out loud: there are precious few reasons left not to make reviewing PRs as easy as possible. So, I posit that the emotional reaction from certain audiences is still the largest, most exhausting difference.

grey-area 1y ago
clean code and refactoring are no longer expensive Are you contending that LLMs produce clean code?
- WalterSear 1y ago
  They do, for many people. Perhaps you need to change your approach.
  - dmurray 1y ago
    If you can produce a clean design, the LLM can write the code.
    - fragmede 1y ago
      Unless you're doing something fabulously unique (at which point I'm jealous you get to work on such a thing), they're pretty good at cribbing the design of things if it's something that's been well documented online (canonically, a CRUD SaaS app, with minor UI modification to support your chosen niche).
      - WalterSear 1y ago
        And if you are doing something fabulously unique, the LLM can still write all the code around it, likely help with many of the components, give you at least a first pass at tests, and enable rapid, meaningful refactors after each feature PR.
    - WalterSear 1y ago
      I think maybe there's another step too - breaking the design up into small enough peices that the LLM can follow it, and you can understand the output.
      - TexanFeller 1y ago
        So do all the hard work yourself and let the AI do some of the typing, that you’ll have to spend extra time reviewing closely in case its RNG factor made it change an important detail. And with all the extra up front design, planning, instructions, and context you need to provide to the LLM I’m not sure I’m saving on typing. A lot of people recommend going meta and having LLMs generate a good prompt and sequence of steps to follow, but I’ve only seen that kinda sorta work for the most trivial tasks.
hatefulmoron 1y ago
I don't really understand your point. It reads like you're saying "I like good code, it doesn't matter if it comes from a person or an LLM. If a person is good at using an LLM, it's fine." Sure, but the problem people have with LLMs is their _propensity_ to create slop in comparison to humans. Dismissing other people's observations as purely an emotional reaction just makes it seem like you haven't carefully thought about other people's experiences.
- WalterSear 1y ago
  My point is that, if I can do it right, others can too. If someone's LLM is outputing slop, they are obviously doing something different: I'm using the same LLMs. All the LLM hate here isn't observation, it's sour grapes. Complaining about slop and poor code quality outputs is confessing that you haven't taken the time to understand what is reasonable to ask for, aren't educating your junior engineers how to interact with LLMs.
  - lukan 1y ago
    "My point is that, if I can do it right, others can too." Can it also be, that different people work in different areas and LLM's are not equally good in all areas?
    - WalterSear 1y ago
      That was my first assumption, quite a while ago now.
  - rockskon 1y ago
    ??? People complaining about receiving bad code is, by definition, observation.

fragmede 1y ago

If you try and one shot it, sure, but if you question Claude, point out the errors of its ways, tell it to refactor and ultrathink, point out that two things have similar functionality and could be merged. It can write unhinged code with duplicate unused variable definitions that don't work, and it'll fix it up if you call it out, or you can just do it yourself. (cue questions of if, in that case, it would just be faster to do it yourself.)

hatefulmoron 1y ago
I have a Claude max subscription. When I think of bad Claude code, I'm not thinking about unused variable definitions. I'm thinking about the times you turn on ultrathink, allow it to access tools and negotiate it's solution, and it still churns out an over complicated yet partially correct solution that breaks. I totally trust Claude to fix linting errors.
- WalterSear 1y ago
  If you are getting garbage out, you are asking it for too much at once. Don't ask for solutions - ask for implementations.
  - hatefulmoron 1y ago
    Distinction without a difference. I'm talking about its output being insufficient, whatever word you want to use for output.
    - WalterSear 1y ago
      And I'm arguing that if the output wasn't sufficient, neither was your input. You could also be asking for too much in one go, though that's becoming less and less of a problem as LLMs improve.
      - hatefulmoron 1y ago
        You're proposing a truism: if you don't get a good result, it's either because your query is bad or because the LLM isn't good enough to provide a good result. Yes, that is how this works. I'm talking about the case where you're providing a good query and getting poor results. Claiming that this can be solved by more LLM conversations and ultrathink is cope.

HelloNurse 1y ago

> Perhaps, in the process of producing it, the human notices what's happening and reconsiders (or even better, improves it such that it's no longer "slop".) Given the same ridiculously large and complex change, if it is handwritten only a seriously insensitive and arrogant crackpot could, knowing what's inside, submit it with any expectation that you accept it without a long and painful process instead of improving it to the best of their ability; on the other hand using LLM assistance even a mildly incompetent but valuable colleague or contributor, someone you care about, might underestimate the complexity and cost of what they didn't actually write and believe that there is nothing to improve.