5 ms·

I think code was always expensive. If it seemed cheap, the cost was hidden somewhere else. When I started coding professionally, I joined a team of only intern

I think code was always expensive. If it seemed cheap, the cost was hidden somewhere else. When I started coding professionally, I joined a team of only interns in a startup, hacking together a SaaS platform that had relative financial success. While we were very cheap, being paid below minimum wage, we had outages, data corruption, db wipes, server terminations, unresolved conflicts making their way to production and killing features, tons of tech debt and even more makeshift code we weren't aware of... So yeah, while writing code was cheap, the result had a latent cost that would only show itself on occasion. So code was always expensive, the challenge was to be aware of how expensive sooner rather than later. The thing with coding agents is that it seems now that you can eat your cake and have it too. We are all still adapting, but results indicate that given the right prompts and processes harnessing LLMs quality code can be had in the cheap.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
ryaniscool 8mo ago
> The thing with coding agents is that it seems now that you can eat your cake and have it too. We are all still adapting, but results indicate that given the right prompts and processes harnessing LLMs quality code can be had in the cheap. It's cheaper but not cheap If you're building a variation of a CRUD web app, or aggregating data from some data source(s) into a chart or table, you're right. It's like magic. I never thought this type of work was particularly hard or expensive though. I'm using frontier models and I've found if you're working on something that hasn't been done by 100,000 developers before you and published to stackoverflow and/or open source, the LLM becomes a helpful tool but requires a ton of guidance. Even the tests LLMs will write seem biased to pass rather than stress its code and find bugs.
- gchamonlive 8mo ago
  > It's cheaper but not cheap It's quite cheap if you consider developer time. But it's only as cheap as you can effectively drive the model, otherwise you are just wasting tokens on garbage code. > LLM becomes a helpful tool but requires a ton of guidance I think this is always going to be the case. You are driving the agent like you drive a bike, it'll get you there but you need to be mindful of the clueless kid crossing your path. For some projects I had good results just letting the agent loose. For others I'd have to make the tasks more specific and granular before offloading to the LLM. I see nothing wrong with it.
- zahlman 8mo ago
  > I never thought this type of work was particularly hard or expensive though. Maybe not intrinsically hard, but hard because it's so boring you can't concentrate. > the LLM becomes a helpful tool but requires a ton of guidance. Even the tests LLMs will write seem biased to pass rather than stress its code and find bugs. ISTR some have had success by taking responsibility for the tests and only having the LLM work on the main code. But since I only seem to recall it, that was probably a while ago, so who knows if it's still valid.
lp4v4n 8mo ago
So code was apparently cheap, but in fact it was expensive because it was low quality. Now with LLMs, code is cheap and it also has quality, therefore "quality code can be had in the cheap". Do you really believe this is the case? Why don't companies fire all their developers if they can have an algorithm that can output cheap and quality code?
- fragmede 8mo ago
  I don't know if you've heard, but there have been a large number of layoffs in the tech sector recently. Whether they're actually related to AI as executives claim, and not section 174 of the US IRS tax code in the BBB, is known only to them, but if your argument hinges on people having not been fired when there have been layoffs, you may need a different one.
  - lp4v4n 8mo ago
    As you said, it's impossible to determine how many of the current layoffs are caused by AI, they probably also have a lot to do with the broader economic downturn. But you’re still missing the point, if companies truly have a black box that can produce cheap, high‑quality code as the GP put it, why don't they just fire 95% of their developers and keep only a small core of AI orchestrators?
    - fragmede 8mo ago
      Who's missing who's point? You're asking why haven't they fired 95% of their people. I'm pointing at tech sector layoffs saying people are being laid off. It's not 95% which is a number you totally made up, but in the broader picture, I wouldn't say it isn't happening.
    - fragmede 8mo ago
      Don't look now, but https://x.com/jack/status/2027129697092731343 https://x.com/jack/status/2027129697092731343
  - AyanamiKaine 8mo ago

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

ryaniscool 8mo ago

> The thing with coding agents is that it seems now that you can eat your cake and have it too. We are all still adapting, but results indicate that given the right prompts and processes harnessing LLMs quality code can be had in the cheap. It's cheaper but not cheap If you're building a variation of a CRUD web app, or aggregating data from some data source(s) into a chart or table, you're right. It's like magic. I never thought this type of work was particularly hard or expensive though. I'm using frontier models and I've found if you're working on something that hasn't been done by 100,000 developers before you and published to stackoverflow and/or open source, the LLM becomes a helpful tool but requires a ton of guidance. Even the tests LLMs will write seem biased to pass rather than stress its code and find bugs.

gchamonlive 8mo ago
> It's cheaper but not cheap It's quite cheap if you consider developer time. But it's only as cheap as you can effectively drive the model, otherwise you are just wasting tokens on garbage code. > LLM becomes a helpful tool but requires a ton of guidance I think this is always going to be the case. You are driving the agent like you drive a bike, it'll get you there but you need to be mindful of the clueless kid crossing your path. For some projects I had good results just letting the agent loose. For others I'd have to make the tasks more specific and granular before offloading to the LLM. I see nothing wrong with it.
zahlman 8mo ago
> I never thought this type of work was particularly hard or expensive though. Maybe not intrinsically hard, but hard because it's so boring you can't concentrate. > the LLM becomes a helpful tool but requires a ton of guidance. Even the tests LLMs will write seem biased to pass rather than stress its code and find bugs. ISTR some have had success by taking responsibility for the tests and only having the LLM work on the main code. But since I only seem to recall it, that was probably a while ago, so who knows if it's still valid.

lp4v4n 8mo ago

So code was apparently cheap, but in fact it was expensive because it was low quality. Now with LLMs, code is cheap and it also has quality, therefore "quality code can be had in the cheap". Do you really believe this is the case? Why don't companies fire all their developers if they can have an algorithm that can output cheap and quality code?

fragmede 8mo ago
I don't know if you've heard, but there have been a large number of layoffs in the tech sector recently. Whether they're actually related to AI as executives claim, and not section 174 of the US IRS tax code in the BBB, is known only to them, but if your argument hinges on people having not been fired when there have been layoffs, you may need a different one.
- lp4v4n 8mo ago
  As you said, it's impossible to determine how many of the current layoffs are caused by AI, they probably also have a lot to do with the broader economic downturn. But you’re still missing the point, if companies truly have a black box that can produce cheap, high‑quality code as the GP put it, why don't they just fire 95% of their developers and keep only a small core of AI orchestrators?
  - fragmede 8mo ago
    Who's missing who's point? You're asking why haven't they fired 95% of their people. I'm pointing at tech sector layoffs saying people are being laid off. It's not 95% which is a number you totally made up, but in the broader picture, I wouldn't say it isn't happening.
  - fragmede 8mo ago
    Don't look now, but https://x.com/jack/status/2027129697092731343 https://x.com/jack/status/2027129697092731343
- AyanamiKaine 8mo ago