5 ms·

Using FizzBuzz as your proxy for "unreviewed code" is extremely misleading. It has practically no complexity, it's completely self-contained and easy to verify.

Using FizzBuzz as your proxy for "unreviewed code" is extremely misleading. It has practically no complexity, it's completely self-contained and easy to verify. In any codebase of even modest complexity, the challenge shifts from "does this produce the correct outputs" to "is this going to let me grow the way I need it to in the future" and thornier questions like "does this have the performance characteristics that I need".

loloquwowndueo 7mo ago
> is this going to let me grow the way I need it to in the future This doesn’t matter in the age of AI - when you get a new requirement just tell the AI to fulfill it and the old requirements (perhaps backed by a decent test suite?) and let it figure out the details, up to and including totally trashing the old implementation and creating an entirely new one from scratch that matches all the requirements. For performance, give the AI a benchmark and let it figure it out as well. You can create teams of agents each coming up with an implementation and killing the ones that don’t make the cut. Or so goes the gospel in the age of AI. I’m being totally sarcastic, I don’t believe in AI coding
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- baq 7mo ago
  it isn't gospel, it's perspective. if you care about the code, it's obviously bonkers. if you care about the product... code doesn't matter - it's just a means to an end. there's an intersection of both views in places where code actually is the product - the foundational building blocks of today's computing software infrastructure like kernels, low level libraries, cryptography, etc. - but your typical 'uber for cat pictures' saas business cares about none of this.
  - Alex_L_Wood 7mo ago
    If you care about the product, you double-so-much care about code correctness and the alignment with the expectations of the stakeholders.
  - hvb2 7mo ago
    So you're an auto maker, you say you can care about your product but not care how is built? If you're building for the cheapest segment of the market, just maybe. Anything else is a hard no imho
    - baq 7mo ago
      Yes? If you’re an auto factory, you might care, but an auto maker cares about minimizing cost and maximizing revenue within the regulatory constraints. Nowhere is there a requirement to care about how the car is built, there are requirements on what the car can and cannot do.
      - slopinthebag 7mo ago
        Caring about the requirements on what the car can and cannot do sounds suspiciously like caring about how it's built when you consider how it's built directly impacts what it can and cannot do.
        baq 7mo ago
        Not al all, it’s what vs how, completely different beasts. How is for engineers to solve, but the business sells the what.
      - hvb2 7mo ago
        Branding is a thing, you know. Especially if you want to sell the high margin cars.
- Swizec 7mo ago
  > including totally trashing the old implementation and creating an entirely new one from scratch that matches all the requirements Let me guess, you've never worked in a real production environment? When your software supports 8, 9, 10 or more zeroes of revenue, "trash the old and create new" are just about the scariest words you can say. There's people relying on this code that you've never even heard of. Really good post about why AI is a poor fit in software environments where nobody even knows the full requirements: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/production-telemetry-spec-survived-vidhya-ranganathan-vvkyc/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/production-telemetry-spec-sur...
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  - person22 7mo ago
    I work on a product that meets your criteria. We can't fix a class of defects because once we ship, customers will depend upon that behavior and changing is very expensive and takes years to deprecate and age out. So we are stuck with what we ship and need to be very careful about what we release.
    - fhd2 7mo ago
      That's why I find any effort to create specifications... cute. In brownfield software, more often than not, the code _is_ the specification.
      - suzzer99 7mo ago
        But if you start from the beginning with a code base that is always only generated from a spec, presumably as the tools improve you'd be able to grow to a big industrial-grade app that is 100% based on a spec. The question is how many giant apps out there have yet to be even started vs. how many brownfield apps out there that will outlive all of us.
        fhd2 7mo ago
- lelanthran 7mo ago
  > Or so goes the gospel in the age of AI. I’m being totally sarcastic, I don’t believe in AI coding You may think you are being sarcastic, but I guarantee that a significant percentage of developers think that both the following are true: a) They will never need to write code again, and b) They are some special snowflake that will still remain employed.
  - patates 7mo ago
    I don't agree with your first point. We are surely writing less code, and it will keep getting less and less. At some point it will reduce to a single run function that will make the universe and everything work and it will be called via a button, and that will be the modern definition of writing code: Click the button. Not a lot of keys with weird alphabet thingies on them. You are however right on your second point because I'm damn good at clicking buttons.
builtbyzac 7mo ago
[flagged]
- wordpad 7mo ago
  > AI capability problem is mostly solved; the distribution and trust problem isn't. SaaS opportunity? Maybe, some sort of marketplace of AI-written applications and services with discovery features?

loloquwowndueo 7mo ago

> is this going to let me grow the way I need it to in the future This doesn’t matter in the age of AI - when you get a new requirement just tell the AI to fulfill it and the old requirements (perhaps backed by a decent test suite?) and let it figure out the details, up to and including totally trashing the old implementation and creating an entirely new one from scratch that matches all the requirements. For performance, give the AI a benchmark and let it figure it out as well. You can create teams of agents each coming up with an implementation and killing the ones that don’t make the cut. Or so goes the gospel in the age of AI. I’m being totally sarcastic, I don’t believe in AI coding

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
baq 7mo ago
it isn't gospel, it's perspective. if you care about the code, it's obviously bonkers. if you care about the product... code doesn't matter - it's just a means to an end. there's an intersection of both views in places where code actually is the product - the foundational building blocks of today's computing software infrastructure like kernels, low level libraries, cryptography, etc. - but your typical 'uber for cat pictures' saas business cares about none of this.
- Alex_L_Wood 7mo ago
  If you care about the product, you double-so-much care about code correctness and the alignment with the expectations of the stakeholders.
- hvb2 7mo ago
  So you're an auto maker, you say you can care about your product but not care how is built? If you're building for the cheapest segment of the market, just maybe. Anything else is a hard no imho
  - baq 7mo ago
    Yes? If you’re an auto factory, you might care, but an auto maker cares about minimizing cost and maximizing revenue within the regulatory constraints. Nowhere is there a requirement to care about how the car is built, there are requirements on what the car can and cannot do.
    - slopinthebag 7mo ago
      Caring about the requirements on what the car can and cannot do sounds suspiciously like caring about how it's built when you consider how it's built directly impacts what it can and cannot do.
      - baq 7mo ago
        Not al all, it’s what vs how, completely different beasts. How is for engineers to solve, but the business sells the what.
    - hvb2 7mo ago
      Branding is a thing, you know. Especially if you want to sell the high margin cars.
Swizec 7mo ago
> including totally trashing the old implementation and creating an entirely new one from scratch that matches all the requirements Let me guess, you've never worked in a real production environment? When your software supports 8, 9, 10 or more zeroes of revenue, "trash the old and create new" are just about the scariest words you can say. There's people relying on this code that you've never even heard of. Really good post about why AI is a poor fit in software environments where nobody even knows the full requirements: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/production-telemetry-spec-survived-vidhya-ranganathan-vvkyc/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/production-telemetry-spec-sur...
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- person22 7mo ago
  I work on a product that meets your criteria. We can't fix a class of defects because once we ship, customers will depend upon that behavior and changing is very expensive and takes years to deprecate and age out. So we are stuck with what we ship and need to be very careful about what we release.
  - fhd2 7mo ago
    That's why I find any effort to create specifications... cute. In brownfield software, more often than not, the code _is_ the specification.
    - suzzer99 7mo ago
      But if you start from the beginning with a code base that is always only generated from a spec, presumably as the tools improve you'd be able to grow to a big industrial-grade app that is 100% based on a spec. The question is how many giant apps out there have yet to be even started vs. how many brownfield apps out there that will outlive all of us.
      - fhd2 7mo ago
lelanthran 7mo ago
> Or so goes the gospel in the age of AI. I’m being totally sarcastic, I don’t believe in AI coding You may think you are being sarcastic, but I guarantee that a significant percentage of developers think that both the following are true: a) They will never need to write code again, and b) They are some special snowflake that will still remain employed.
- patates 7mo ago
  I don't agree with your first point. We are surely writing less code, and it will keep getting less and less. At some point it will reduce to a single run function that will make the universe and everything work and it will be called via a button, and that will be the modern definition of writing code: Click the button. Not a lot of keys with weird alphabet thingies on them. You are however right on your second point because I'm damn good at clicking buttons.

builtbyzac 7mo ago

[flagged]

wordpad 7mo ago
> AI capability problem is mostly solved; the distribution and trust problem isn't. SaaS opportunity? Maybe, some sort of marketplace of AI-written applications and services with discovery features?