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Some programmers will write more efficient code. At my $dayjob (one of the big tech companies) we're already planning a major goal next year of optimizing serve
by cornstalks 4mo ago
Some programmers will write more efficient code. At my $dayjob (one of the big tech companies) we're already planning a major goal next year of optimizing server code to reduce RAM requirements, and this is directly in response to the crunch.
In practice I expect most optimizations will come from "stop doing stupid stuff" and not "use fancy advanced algorithms." But that's a cynical perspective so don't be cynical like me.
- kapperchino 4mo agoReal, there are so many low hanging fruits for optimization but no one has time to do them. And they don’t incentivize spending your time on it either.
- thewhitetulip 3mo agoEspecially when LLMs are used to generate most of the code anyways in bigcorps
- inigyou 3mo agoIs there a single example of a successful LLM project apart from Claude Code?
- thewebguyd 3mo agoIf the CEOs are to be believed, then 75% of all new code in Google is AI generated. 46% of GitHub internal code, and roughly 30% across all of Microsoft is AI. Meta expects at least 65%, and snap reported 65% is AI generated. Its how software is built now in these palces.
- elcritch 3mo agoUnfortunately doesn’t answer the question “successful LLM project”. From what I’ve seen of GitHub and AWS this year the answer is no. That’s despite me being bullish on LLMs and finding them highly productive.
- aabdi 3mo agohttps://blog.joemag.dev/2025/10/the-new-calculus-of-ai-based-coding.html?m=1 https://blog.joemag.dev/2025/10/the-new-calculus-of-ai-based...? in aws, some of the core bedrock services have been replaced with the new serving architecture. that thing was written basically with LLMs. mind you, guy's a distinguished engineer, his team was basically all principals, but you can do it and some of the new teams are copying the style (though with less success, due to lack of technical skill).
- inigyou 3mo agoAmazon Bedrock is their LLM serving system, so it's basically in the same class as Claude Code: AI infrastructure.
- FridgeSeal 3mo agoGiven the uhhh, quality and issues GitHub and Microslop have been exhibiting recently, that’s probably not a great indicator.
- thewhitetulip 3mo agoGithub was down so much, I was surprised that they didn't use Copilot to fix their issues
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- inigyou 3mo ago99% of my new writing is generated by scigen, but 0% of my successful writing.
- TiredOfLife 3mo agoBun, Ghostty
- thewhitetulip 3mo agoMigration projects probably won't be the best fit here An existing project has a well defined code base, test cases etc If llms aren't able to migrate a good project then they wouldn't be of any use for general purpose programming
- pjc50 3mo agoExactly. Customer's RAM is free to the developer.
- devmor 3mo ago“Stop doing stupid stuff” is usually the biggest performance gain in commercial development. We do stupid stuff as a stopgap to meet a deadline and then stupid stuff stays until it starts being a problem.
- thewebguyd 3mo agoThere's nothing more permanent than a temporary fix. If deadlines are causing those stopgaps, the aggressive deadlines are the root problem.
- devmor 3mo agoIn my experience, many of those deadlines are commonly the only reason the company continues to exist as well. The root of the problem is much more deeply ingrained in our economic system.
- timacles 3mo agoHonestly, after years of seeing this play out, a lot of devs really lack the judgement to know when something is good enough to deliver and will endlessly delay projects to “ do the right thing”
- devmor 3mo agoAbsolutely. It’s one of the defining characteristics of what makes someone a capable senior in the role IMO. I have known a lot of extremely talented developers, some with more technical skill than me, that simply failed at their job because they couldn’t come to terms with the fact that their job isn’t to produce the most perfect code possible for the problem.
- throwaway2037 3mo agoIn my experience, I have only developed internal enterprise software for my entire career. Most of this stuff is gloried CRUD. Above all: Ship early and ship often. You don't get paid more for having less bugs. (Of course, don't ship crap, but you don't need perfection.) Also, often the specs (in my line of business) are unwritten, so you learn more by releasing quickly, then watching (internal) customers use the product and provide feedback.
- hashmap 3mo agoeven a lot of the fancy algorithms are ways to not do something you dont need to do, it's rooting out waste all the way down.
- dabinat 3mo agoThe key word here is “server”. Optimizing memory server-side directly translates to cost savings for companies. There is a lot less incentive to optimize memory for code that runs on the user’s computer.
- avarun 3mo agoThere's plenty of incentive if it causes your users to churn.
- remus 3mo agoIt is typically hard to directly attribute churn though, whereas some massive EC2 instance costing you $30/day is a clear line item where cost savings can be measured easily.
- znpy 3mo agoNah that simply doesn’t happen. Users routinely blame that on the hardware or on the operating system, occasionally rightfully so. My anecdotal data point: my MacBook neo with 8 gb of ram running mac os is much snappier than my thinkpad x13g1 (ryzen 7 pro, 8c/16t+ 32gb memory) running linux. Same user (me), same apps, same websites, same data. I don’t really blame the apps.
- Byamarro 3mo agoThat's a clever observation and is very true. Development time tho historically was also very expensive hence push for easy to work with dev stacks such as js
- throwaway2037 3mo ago> Optimizing memory server-side directly translates to cost savings for companies. Only if those cost savings exceed the cost of development. Optimisation work is usually done by the most experienced, and hence most expensive engineers. It is also possible that the optimisation efforts will fail to produce meaningful results. In my career, I have seen more optimisation efforts fail than succeed.