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Am I too much of an idealist to hope that AI leads to less buggy software? On the one hand, it should reduce the time of development; on the other hand, I'm wor

Am I too much of an idealist to hope that AI leads to less buggy software? On the one hand, it should reduce the time of development; on the other hand, I'm worried devs will just let the agents run free w/o proper design specs.

goalieca 7mo ago
The message with AI from execs is that you have to go fast (rush!). Quality of work drops when you rush. You forget things, don’t dwell on decisions and consequences, just go-fast-and-break-things.
- mschuster91 7mo ago
  > The message with AI from execs is that you have to go fast (rush!). Quality of work drops when you rush. Sure, but otherwise, the competition will be first to market, and the exec may lose their bonus. So, the exec keeps their bonus, and when the tech debt collapses, the exec will either have departed long ago or will be let go with a golden parachute, and in the worst case an entire product line goes down the drain, if not the entire company. The financialization and stonkmarketization of everything is killing our society.
tkzed49 7mo ago
The average LLM writes cleaner, better-factored code than the average engineer at my company. However, I worry about the volume of code leading to system-scale issues. Prior to LLMs, the social contract was that a human needs to understand changes and the system as a whole. With that contract being eroded, I think the sloppiness of testing, validation, and even architecture in many organizations is going to be exposed.
- al_borland 7mo ago
  The social contract where I work is that you’re still expected to understand and be accountable for any code you ship. If you use an LLM to generate the code, it’s yours. If someone is uncomfortable with that, then they are leaning too hard on the LLM and working outside of their skill level.
KeplerBoy 7mo ago
It might actually turn out like that. A lot of bloat came from efforts to minimize developer time. Instead of truly native apps a lot of stuff these days is some react shaped tower of abstractions with little regard for hardware constraints. That trend might reverse if porting to a best practice native App becomes trivial.
fzeroracer 7mo ago
Considering how many companies that have adopted AI led to disastrous bugs and larger security holes? I wouldn't call it an idealist position as much as a fools one. Companies don't give a shit about software security or sustainable software as long as they can ship faster and pump stocks higher.
bigstrat2003 7mo ago
Considering that AI still can't even reliably get basic programming tasks correct, it doesn't seem very likely that turning it loose will improve software quality.

goalieca 7mo ago

The message with AI from execs is that you have to go fast (rush!). Quality of work drops when you rush. You forget things, don’t dwell on decisions and consequences, just go-fast-and-break-things.

mschuster91 7mo ago
> The message with AI from execs is that you have to go fast (rush!). Quality of work drops when you rush. Sure, but otherwise, the competition will be first to market, and the exec may lose their bonus. So, the exec keeps their bonus, and when the tech debt collapses, the exec will either have departed long ago or will be let go with a golden parachute, and in the worst case an entire product line goes down the drain, if not the entire company. The financialization and stonkmarketization of everything is killing our society.

tkzed49 7mo ago

The average LLM writes cleaner, better-factored code than the average engineer at my company. However, I worry about the volume of code leading to system-scale issues. Prior to LLMs, the social contract was that a human needs to understand changes and the system as a whole. With that contract being eroded, I think the sloppiness of testing, validation, and even architecture in many organizations is going to be exposed.

al_borland 7mo ago
The social contract where I work is that you’re still expected to understand and be accountable for any code you ship. If you use an LLM to generate the code, it’s yours. If someone is uncomfortable with that, then they are leaning too hard on the LLM and working outside of their skill level.

KeplerBoy 7mo ago

It might actually turn out like that. A lot of bloat came from efforts to minimize developer time. Instead of truly native apps a lot of stuff these days is some react shaped tower of abstractions with little regard for hardware constraints. That trend might reverse if porting to a best practice native App becomes trivial.

fzeroracer 7mo ago

Considering how many companies that have adopted AI led to disastrous bugs and larger security holes? I wouldn't call it an idealist position as much as a fools one. Companies don't give a shit about software security or sustainable software as long as they can ship faster and pump stocks higher.

bigstrat2003 7mo ago

Considering that AI still can't even reliably get basic programming tasks correct, it doesn't seem very likely that turning it loose will improve software quality.