4 ms·

Code is cheap is the same as saying "Buying on credit is easy". Code is a liability, not an asset.

by malfist 8mo ago

danesparza 8mo ago
I think you mean to say, "code you don't understand is a liability, not an asset" But please correct me if I'm wrong.
- malfist 8mo ago
  No I said what I meant. Code is a liability, though to your point, code you don't understand is an even bigger liability. Even if I understand all my code, when I go to make changes, if it's 100k lines of code vs 2k lines of code, it's going to take more time and be more error prone. Even if I understand all my code, the intern I hired last week won't and I'll have to teach it to them. Even if I understand all my code, I don't remember everything all the time and I can forget about an edge case handed in thousands of lines of code. Even if I understand all my code, I don't understand my co-workers code, and they don't understand mine. Even if I understand all my code, I might not want to work for this company the rest of my life.
  - leptons 8mo ago
    I've worked at so many places in my career that "not understanding code" is not an excuse. It is a skill to be able to read and follow code and get up to speed quickly, even on shit codebases. But "AI" generated code makes that so much more difficult, and the "AI" isn't going to walk you through it, and neither will your new coworkers. We aren't in a race to the bottom with "AI", we're in a speedrun to the bottom, and I don't think it's going to end up going too well for whatever developers are left in a few years.
mehagar 8mo ago
I would normally agree, but I think the "code is a liability" quote assumes that humans are reading and modifying the code. If AI tools are also reading and modifying their own code, is that still true?
- OptionOfT 8mo ago
  You have to be able to express the change you want in natural language. This is not always possible due to ambiguity. Next to that, eventually you run into the same issue that we humans run into: no more context windows. But we as software engineers have learned to abstract away components, to reduce the cognitive load when writing code. E.g., when you write file you don't deal with syscalls anymore. This is different with AI. It doesn't abstract away things, which means you requesting a change might make the AI make a LOT of changes to the same pattern, but this can cause behavior to change in ways you haven't anticipated, haven't tested, or haven't seen yet. And because it's so much code to review, it doesn't get the same scrutiny.
- qudat 8mo ago
  What happens when there’s a service outage and you cannot debug code without an agent?
  - duggan 8mo ago
    Like any service outage out of their control, people will find other things to do until it’s over.
    - wiseowise 8mo ago
      Afternoon latte and useless meetings won’t do themselves!
  - simonw 8mo ago
    Switch to a rival service that doesn't have an outage. There are at least half a dozen competent hosted LLM vendors for coding now (Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, Mistral, Kimi, MiniMax, Qwen, ...)
leptons 8mo ago
>Code is a liability, not an asset Then "AI" code is even more of a liability.
beagle3 8mo ago
Code you can’t just throw away is a liability because you have to keep supporting it / servicing it. Claude Code and friends also change that part of the cost equation: You might not get gcc/llvm level optimization from a newly built compiler - but if you had a home-built one, which took $15,000/month engineer to support (for years!) you can now get a new one for $20,000 every 3 months, for a 50% cost saving, each time changing your requirements (which you couldn’t do before). Code used to be a liability, like a car or an apartment for the average person. Now it’s a liability, like a car or apartment for Bill Gates.

Code is cheap is the same as saying "Buying on credit is easy". Code is a liability, not an asset.

by malfist 8mo ago

Code is cheap is the same as saying "Buying on credit is easy". Code is a liability, not an asset.

danesparza 8mo ago

I think you mean to say, "code you don't understand is a liability, not an asset" But please correct me if I'm wrong.

malfist 8mo ago
No I said what I meant. Code is a liability, though to your point, code you don't understand is an even bigger liability. Even if I understand all my code, when I go to make changes, if it's 100k lines of code vs 2k lines of code, it's going to take more time and be more error prone. Even if I understand all my code, the intern I hired last week won't and I'll have to teach it to them. Even if I understand all my code, I don't remember everything all the time and I can forget about an edge case handed in thousands of lines of code. Even if I understand all my code, I don't understand my co-workers code, and they don't understand mine. Even if I understand all my code, I might not want to work for this company the rest of my life.
- leptons 8mo ago
  I've worked at so many places in my career that "not understanding code" is not an excuse. It is a skill to be able to read and follow code and get up to speed quickly, even on shit codebases. But "AI" generated code makes that so much more difficult, and the "AI" isn't going to walk you through it, and neither will your new coworkers. We aren't in a race to the bottom with "AI", we're in a speedrun to the bottom, and I don't think it's going to end up going too well for whatever developers are left in a few years.

mehagar 8mo ago

I would normally agree, but I think the "code is a liability" quote assumes that humans are reading and modifying the code. If AI tools are also reading and modifying their own code, is that still true?

OptionOfT 8mo ago
You have to be able to express the change you want in natural language. This is not always possible due to ambiguity. Next to that, eventually you run into the same issue that we humans run into: no more context windows. But we as software engineers have learned to abstract away components, to reduce the cognitive load when writing code. E.g., when you write file you don't deal with syscalls anymore. This is different with AI. It doesn't abstract away things, which means you requesting a change might make the AI make a LOT of changes to the same pattern, but this can cause behavior to change in ways you haven't anticipated, haven't tested, or haven't seen yet. And because it's so much code to review, it doesn't get the same scrutiny.
qudat 8mo ago
What happens when there’s a service outage and you cannot debug code without an agent?
- duggan 8mo ago
  Like any service outage out of their control, people will find other things to do until it’s over.
  - wiseowise 8mo ago
    Afternoon latte and useless meetings won’t do themselves!
- simonw 8mo ago
  Switch to a rival service that doesn't have an outage. There are at least half a dozen competent hosted LLM vendors for coding now (Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, Mistral, Kimi, MiniMax, Qwen, ...)

leptons 8mo ago

>Code is a liability, not an asset Then "AI" code is even more of a liability.

beagle3 8mo ago

Code you can’t just throw away is a liability because you have to keep supporting it / servicing it. Claude Code and friends also change that part of the cost equation: You might not get gcc/llvm level optimization from a newly built compiler - but if you had a home-built one, which took $15,000/month engineer to support (for years!) you can now get a new one for $20,000 every 3 months, for a 50% cost saving, each time changing your requirements (which you couldn’t do before). Code used to be a liability, like a car or an apartment for the average person. Now it’s a liability, like a car or apartment for Bill Gates.