5 ms·

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't AI agents replacing the coding mostly being done on the outer layers of development? I mean, end user applications, a

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't AI agents replacing the coding mostly being done on the outer layers of development? I mean, end user applications, apps, dashboards, business applications? On this "outer crust" people can maybe tolerate things with 99% accuracy, or bloated code. A vibe coded app can be argued to be "good enough." (Even then, look at the disaster that Microsoft apps have become post AI adoption.) But people are still staying away from LLMs on the critical compilers, frameworks, tools and libraries that people need to really rely on. No one wants to build on code that is 99% accurate or bloated. No one wants to use an AI coded web browser. To really build good building materials, you need to code it and know what you're doing. Where is anybody even getting close to phasing out coding in those critical areas?

em-bee 3mo ago
doesn't the recent bun controversy tell a different story?
- adamddev1 3mo ago
  exactly, it seems like people run away when a tool becomes heavily AI developed.
bad_haircut72 3mo ago
This type of comment retroactively assigns human written code a quality which it has never had. "No one wants to build on code that is 99% accurate or bloated" - my friend have you ever used Windows??
- forgetfreeman 3mo ago
  While there are certainly more examples than either of us can count of shitty half-baked codebases claiming quality code has never existed is pretty wild. With humans it's at least something to be aspired to and occasionally even accomplished.
- adamddev1 3mo ago
  Of course Windows is garbage. But this is the sort of defeatist argument that always shows up among both AI optimists and places where corruption is rampant. Corruption and incorrectness is established as an inescapable baseline, and then greater systematic corruption (like LLMs producing constantly sub-par code) is justified.
- ern 3mo ago
  2016: "the median developer is too stupid to do FizzBuzz correctly" 2026: "the median developer is a craftsman whose work is being replaced by AI slop"
exfalso 3mo ago
There are ways to do it correctly. You just end up spending a lot of time conceptualizing and refining abstractions. To me the issue is more that conceptualizing requires a certain state of mind. Before llms it was 10% hard thinking 90% implementing. Implementation was actually sort of a reward, it felt so good just being in the zone and fleshing out ideas. Post llms I find myself walking up and down quite a lot, only doing the thinking. Now it's more like 40% thinking 60% reviewing plans/code. I haven't experienced flow state since. The thinking is fun but exhausting, the reviewing is just kind of annoying, especially as llms get into these weird failure modes. Before I could look at a bad piece of code and instantly tell what the author was thinking and why the thing doesn't work. Now I need to be a lot more careful because there is little code smell, but a lot of badly chosen abstractions. Just exhausting...
- adamddev1 3mo ago
  That's why I say, just don't use LLMs. I think conceptualizing and refining the abstraction is the essence of the beauty of the craft and progress.
- bluefirebrand 3mo ago
  I wonder what the rates of burnout are going to look like in a couple of years, if this is the future Talk about driving people off a cliff
  - blooalien 3mo ago
    > Talk about driving people off a cliff The mega-rich clowns firing everyone and then hiring back just those few that they realize they actually needed to keep after-the-fact are actually driving themselves right off that same cliff along with everyone else, and they don't even realize it. I bet money all this "AI" nonsense don't end up leadin' to the "Rich Guy Utopia" they think they're workin' toward. It's much more likely gonna just lead to a shittier world for everyone on Earth, rich and mega-ultra-totally-too-rich folk included. Wait'll the "AI bubble" bursts and see how much fun they have losin' zillions while pretty much everyone else lands in the "poor house" and comes lookin' to them for retribution. I suspect the guillotine is makin' a comeback sometime in the future.
hollowturtle 3mo ago
> On this "outer crust" people can tolerate things 99% accuracy, or bloated code Sorry what people would tolerate? Go look around and ask people, friends and family. They all hate slow bloated software, it costs us dunno how much in time and productivity. With the advent of LLMs it only got worse not better
- adamddev1 3mo ago
  I agree 100%. I was just trying to say people can sort of get away with more, or justify it easier.
tzs 3mo ago
Aren't the things in your second paragraph only a small fraction of coding jobs? If we end up with those being the kind of jobs you have to get to make a living as a programmer we could end up with programming a lot like sports. You can enjoy playing basketball, say, as an amateur, and you can play more seriously in high school and college, but if you want to make a living playing basketball you need to be good enough to make the NBA.
- skydhash 3mo ago
  Are they? Most B2C tooling are free or nearly free or serve a very small market. The heavyweights are all B2B and I don’t believe they can tolerate the inefficiency for long.

em-bee 3mo ago

doesn't the recent bun controversy tell a different story?

adamddev1 3mo ago
exactly, it seems like people run away when a tool becomes heavily AI developed.

bad_haircut72 3mo ago

This type of comment retroactively assigns human written code a quality which it has never had. "No one wants to build on code that is 99% accurate or bloated" - my friend have you ever used Windows??

forgetfreeman 3mo ago
While there are certainly more examples than either of us can count of shitty half-baked codebases claiming quality code has never existed is pretty wild. With humans it's at least something to be aspired to and occasionally even accomplished.
adamddev1 3mo ago
Of course Windows is garbage. But this is the sort of defeatist argument that always shows up among both AI optimists and places where corruption is rampant. Corruption and incorrectness is established as an inescapable baseline, and then greater systematic corruption (like LLMs producing constantly sub-par code) is justified.
ern 3mo ago
2016: "the median developer is too stupid to do FizzBuzz correctly" 2026: "the median developer is a craftsman whose work is being replaced by AI slop"

exfalso 3mo ago

There are ways to do it correctly. You just end up spending a lot of time conceptualizing and refining abstractions. To me the issue is more that conceptualizing requires a certain state of mind. Before llms it was 10% hard thinking 90% implementing. Implementation was actually sort of a reward, it felt so good just being in the zone and fleshing out ideas. Post llms I find myself walking up and down quite a lot, only doing the thinking. Now it's more like 40% thinking 60% reviewing plans/code. I haven't experienced flow state since. The thinking is fun but exhausting, the reviewing is just kind of annoying, especially as llms get into these weird failure modes. Before I could look at a bad piece of code and instantly tell what the author was thinking and why the thing doesn't work. Now I need to be a lot more careful because there is little code smell, but a lot of badly chosen abstractions. Just exhausting...

adamddev1 3mo ago
That's why I say, just don't use LLMs. I think conceptualizing and refining the abstraction is the essence of the beauty of the craft and progress.
bluefirebrand 3mo ago
I wonder what the rates of burnout are going to look like in a couple of years, if this is the future Talk about driving people off a cliff
- blooalien 3mo ago
  > Talk about driving people off a cliff The mega-rich clowns firing everyone and then hiring back just those few that they realize they actually needed to keep after-the-fact are actually driving themselves right off that same cliff along with everyone else, and they don't even realize it. I bet money all this "AI" nonsense don't end up leadin' to the "Rich Guy Utopia" they think they're workin' toward. It's much more likely gonna just lead to a shittier world for everyone on Earth, rich and mega-ultra-totally-too-rich folk included. Wait'll the "AI bubble" bursts and see how much fun they have losin' zillions while pretty much everyone else lands in the "poor house" and comes lookin' to them for retribution. I suspect the guillotine is makin' a comeback sometime in the future.

hollowturtle 3mo ago

> On this "outer crust" people can tolerate things 99% accuracy, or bloated code Sorry what people would tolerate? Go look around and ask people, friends and family. They all hate slow bloated software, it costs us dunno how much in time and productivity. With the advent of LLMs it only got worse not better

adamddev1 3mo ago
I agree 100%. I was just trying to say people can sort of get away with more, or justify it easier.

tzs 3mo ago

Aren't the things in your second paragraph only a small fraction of coding jobs? If we end up with those being the kind of jobs you have to get to make a living as a programmer we could end up with programming a lot like sports. You can enjoy playing basketball, say, as an amateur, and you can play more seriously in high school and college, but if you want to make a living playing basketball you need to be good enough to make the NBA.

skydhash 3mo ago
Are they? Most B2C tooling are free or nearly free or serve a very small market. The heavyweights are all B2B and I don’t believe they can tolerate the inefficiency for long.