4 ms·

> But a big yes for still typing code by hand, and not leaving it to the llm. Except it has to be the code generated by your brain. > That is what will create

> But a big yes for still typing code by hand, and not leaving it to the llm. Except it has to be the code generated by your brain. > That is what will create new neurons and new connections, which is what will keep away the cognitive decline. 100% agree with this. The problem is, your employer doesn’t care whether your brain is creating new neurons and connections. They care about productivity and profit. I feel like the folks that believe we can continue to write code by hand are either in denial that LLMs will eventually (if not already) outperform handwritten code, or are in denial that employers will be ok with lower levels of productivity. If you have the luxury of working for an employer that either doesn’t care or is oblivious to this, then 100% continue writing code by hand. Or if you do work on the side (whether for fun or for profit) and are ok with lower productivity, then yes, stick to handwritten code. But just because handwriting code is better for your brain and cognitive development, doesn’t mean that the industry will be in support of it.

coffeefirst 2mo ago
Well there’s a lot of middle ground between “don’t use AI” and “generate everything, exclusively.” When the bill for the latter lands with a heavy thud, moderation and common sense start to look like a pretty good idea.
- jader201 2mo ago
  > Well there’s a lot of middle ground between “don’t use AI” and “generate everything.” Sure, but again, this assumes both that handwriting code sometimes outperforms LLMs, and also that your employer agrees with this. I think it’s only a matter of time (again, if we’re not already there) before LLMs outperform handwritten code nearly all of the time. And, even if that’s not the case, I’m pretty convinced nearly all employers believe this is true, whether it is or not. So your employer only sees a “middle ground” as room for higher productivity.
  - Henchman21 2mo ago
    Perhaps the thing we’re going to learn to leave behind after all the dust settles … will be shitty management at shitty companies? Because to be honest, more and more it seems many businesses have no real purpose other than to act as a sort of adult daycare for otherwise useless people.
  - twister2920 2mo ago
    this pure speculation. maybe you're right that it's a matter of time but /maybe you're wrong/. neither of us can actually know, because you're making predictions about the future rather than claims about what is true today
    - pmg101 2mo ago
      I'm REALLY REALLY not enjoying this current middle ground where we may be on the cusp of LLMs writing all code better than I could OR we may be on the cusp of realising that this is a chimera. Mostly I just want to skip forward to the point where we find out which track we're on, because until we know, I feel constantly tense.
  - marcosdumay 2mo ago
    So... AGI in 6 months?
ErroneousBosh 2mo ago
> I feel like the folks that believe we can continue to write code by hand are either in denial that LLMs will eventually (if not already) outperform handwritten code, or are in denial that employers will be ok with lower levels of productivity. Cooking a steak and then flushing it straight down the toilet outperforms all the slow and tedious business of eating and digesting it, too. Why should I use an LLM to write code? It cannot do the job I want it to. It cannot type the code I've already written and it cannot generate correct code.
- jader201 2mo ago
  > Cooking a steak and then flushing it straight down the toilet outperforms all the slow and tedious business of eating and digesting it, too. That would be more equivalent to writing the code and immediately deleting it. Except this code is being deployed, and it is still (mostly) functional, at least functional enough to satisfy your employer (their “hunger” in your analogy). > Why should I use an LLM to write code? It cannot do the job I want it to. Because your employer is convinced that it can do the job they want it to (whether it does the job you want it to do is irrelevant, unless you're the employer, in which case 100% handwrite your code).
  - ErroneousBosh 2mo ago
    > Except this code is being deployed, and it is still (mostly) functional, at least functional enough to satisfy your employer (their “hunger” in your analogy). Bzzzt. Wrong. I don't give a fuck who's satisfied by my code. I only care about writing it. > Because your employer is convinced that it can do the job they want it to Bzzzt. Wrong. The code is incorrect because it is not precisely the code I would have written. LLMs are useless to me because they don't solve the problem of actually typing the code I've written into a computer.
    - jader201 2mo ago
      Again, unless you’re the employer, then you’re getting paid by someone that cares more about productivity than whether you think LLMs produce incorrect code. All that matters is whether they agree with you. The only control you have over this is to either a) work for yourself, or b) keep looking until you find an employer that agrees with you. My argument is that the number of employers that fall under (b) is shrinking.
ToucanLoucan 2mo ago
> The problem is, your employer doesn’t care whether your brain is creating new neurons and connections. They care about productivity and profit. Which is why businesses, tech and otherwise, are falling apart constantly unless they achieve gigafuck scale status, at which point they're unkillable no matter how much of this cancer infests their management. I don't know how we arrived at a social norm where it's just completely fine that leadership in massive companies is just absolutely useless at their jobs, but the firms that last another hundred years are going to be the ones that figure out how to fire them all.
clarionbell 2mo ago
I feel like there is an unspoken assumption of long term maintainability when it comes to LLM generated software. We are still very early in this, so I don't want to make assumptions. In principle, it shouldn't be impossible to both write and maintain stable software, purely with agents. At least, I'm not aware of any actual reasons, backed by a proper theory. On the other hand. I've noticed some persistent issues with code generated by agents, especially poorly supervised agents. If engineers become less vigilant, agents never get to the point of not needing supervision and juniors never pick up required skills, this could lead to real trouble.
- jader201 2mo ago
  I agree with everything you said. I’m simply playing devil’s advocate, because engineers can believe one thing, but until employers believe it, it doesn’t matter much. I’m also not convinced that the reality of LLMs will never catch up with what employers think they can do. It may never happen, but it very well could. Either way, I feel the days of employers being ok with handwriting code are limited.
  - SoftTalker 2mo ago
    The complexity of code is combinatorial. Code is harder to understand than it is to create. The LLMs will be creating code that they will not (nor will any human) be able to understand later, or it won't be the same understanding that was used to create it. We'll find that systems that were created with LLM code will be impossible for LLMs to contextualize, or will be cost-prohibitive to do so.
- iwontberude 2mo ago
  It's a moot point. In Mag7 companies internal code gets thrown away within 2 years on average because of contract negotiations, new opensource projects that obviate need for the internal codebase, license changes, layoffs, etc, etc. We don't need long term maintainability because its already on its way to the garbage bin. Frankly it's always been this way.
  - 2mo ago
nunez 2mo ago
> or are in denial that employers will be ok with lower levels of productivity. More like sweeping the dust under the rug for later. The initial productivity boost is massive but at the cost of massive upfront tech debt. Given that LLMs aren't as good at removing code as they are at generating it, this is a problem.
bigstrat2003 2mo ago
> I feel like the folks that believe we can continue to write code by hand are either in denial that LLMs will eventually (if not already) outperform handwritten code... They certainly don't today. Perhaps they will in the future, but based on the lack of improvement thus far it seems unlikely that they will get to this point. But whether or not they do improve to that point, the reality is that today, LLMs do not give you a productivity boost unless you give up on quality and just YOLO stuff the LLM gives you without actually checking it. And nobody should be willing to do the latter, because that is how you get software/infrastructure that doesn't actually work.
nullsanity 2mo ago
[dead]
notnullorvoid 2mo ago
> The problem is, your employer doesn’t care whether your brain is creating new neurons and connections. They care about productivity and profit. It was/is a struggle to get them to recognize and balance tech dept, we must now push to balance cognitive dept as well. Some employers will eventually get it as they have with tech dept. And those will be the ones we see succeed.
_8L34K 2mo ago
> The problem is, your employer doesn’t care whether your brain is creating new neurons and connections. They care about productivity and profit. I feel like this is an odd thing to be reticent about. You're working for someone who doesn't care about you and, in this changing landscape, you're compartmentalizing that in order to determine how best to care for yourself. Logically, to care for yourself you'd need to find an environment in which your needs aren't being neglected.
eudamoniac 2mo ago
It is game theory optimal to use LLMs as little as possible even if your employer wants you to use it. The less you use it, the more competitive you are in the market, and probably also in your current workplace, LLM usage metrics notwithstanding. This fact will remain true forever, even if LLMs always outperform handwritten code and all employers want you to use them. Probably what you want to do is use it a lot when you first start a job to establish some productivity credence, then as you become ready to switch jobs, use it less and less until you're writing everything by hand and taking interviews.
- GeorgeWBasic 2mo ago
  Interesting idea. I hope you're right: but have you tested this idea on the job market?
budsniffer952 2mo ago
Not shocked to see here that people believe "manually writing code" is the way to build brain power. How about moving up the stack?
- Flere-Imsaho 2mo ago
  This is what I've been focusing on. Writing good user stories, defining the definition of "done", acceptance testing. Thinking about the high level design decisions. Never thinking about how I'm going to implement feature X is honestly a breath of fresh air. I've been writing code for nearly 30 years, and I'm done.
DeluluDon 2mo ago
Businesses demanding high productivity and speed only encourages illicit drug use.

coffeefirst 2mo ago

Well there’s a lot of middle ground between “don’t use AI” and “generate everything, exclusively.” When the bill for the latter lands with a heavy thud, moderation and common sense start to look like a pretty good idea.

jader201 2mo ago
> Well there’s a lot of middle ground between “don’t use AI” and “generate everything.” Sure, but again, this assumes both that handwriting code sometimes outperforms LLMs, and also that your employer agrees with this. I think it’s only a matter of time (again, if we’re not already there) before LLMs outperform handwritten code nearly all of the time. And, even if that’s not the case, I’m pretty convinced nearly all employers believe this is true, whether it is or not. So your employer only sees a “middle ground” as room for higher productivity.
- Henchman21 2mo ago
  Perhaps the thing we’re going to learn to leave behind after all the dust settles … will be shitty management at shitty companies? Because to be honest, more and more it seems many businesses have no real purpose other than to act as a sort of adult daycare for otherwise useless people.
- twister2920 2mo ago
  this pure speculation. maybe you're right that it's a matter of time but /maybe you're wrong/. neither of us can actually know, because you're making predictions about the future rather than claims about what is true today
  - pmg101 2mo ago
    I'm REALLY REALLY not enjoying this current middle ground where we may be on the cusp of LLMs writing all code better than I could OR we may be on the cusp of realising that this is a chimera. Mostly I just want to skip forward to the point where we find out which track we're on, because until we know, I feel constantly tense.
- marcosdumay 2mo ago
  So... AGI in 6 months?

ErroneousBosh 2mo ago

> I feel like the folks that believe we can continue to write code by hand are either in denial that LLMs will eventually (if not already) outperform handwritten code, or are in denial that employers will be ok with lower levels of productivity. Cooking a steak and then flushing it straight down the toilet outperforms all the slow and tedious business of eating and digesting it, too. Why should I use an LLM to write code? It cannot do the job I want it to. It cannot type the code I've already written and it cannot generate correct code.

jader201 2mo ago
> Cooking a steak and then flushing it straight down the toilet outperforms all the slow and tedious business of eating and digesting it, too. That would be more equivalent to writing the code and immediately deleting it. Except this code is being deployed, and it is still (mostly) functional, at least functional enough to satisfy your employer (their “hunger” in your analogy). > Why should I use an LLM to write code? It cannot do the job I want it to. Because your employer is convinced that it can do the job they want it to (whether it does the job you want it to do is irrelevant, unless you're the employer, in which case 100% handwrite your code).
- ErroneousBosh 2mo ago
  > Except this code is being deployed, and it is still (mostly) functional, at least functional enough to satisfy your employer (their “hunger” in your analogy). Bzzzt. Wrong. I don't give a fuck who's satisfied by my code. I only care about writing it. > Because your employer is convinced that it can do the job they want it to Bzzzt. Wrong. The code is incorrect because it is not precisely the code I would have written. LLMs are useless to me because they don't solve the problem of actually typing the code I've written into a computer.
  - jader201 2mo ago
    Again, unless you’re the employer, then you’re getting paid by someone that cares more about productivity than whether you think LLMs produce incorrect code. All that matters is whether they agree with you. The only control you have over this is to either a) work for yourself, or b) keep looking until you find an employer that agrees with you. My argument is that the number of employers that fall under (b) is shrinking.

ToucanLoucan 2mo ago

> The problem is, your employer doesn’t care whether your brain is creating new neurons and connections. They care about productivity and profit. Which is why businesses, tech and otherwise, are falling apart constantly unless they achieve gigafuck scale status, at which point they're unkillable no matter how much of this cancer infests their management. I don't know how we arrived at a social norm where it's just completely fine that leadership in massive companies is just absolutely useless at their jobs, but the firms that last another hundred years are going to be the ones that figure out how to fire them all.

clarionbell 2mo ago

I feel like there is an unspoken assumption of long term maintainability when it comes to LLM generated software. We are still very early in this, so I don't want to make assumptions. In principle, it shouldn't be impossible to both write and maintain stable software, purely with agents. At least, I'm not aware of any actual reasons, backed by a proper theory. On the other hand. I've noticed some persistent issues with code generated by agents, especially poorly supervised agents. If engineers become less vigilant, agents never get to the point of not needing supervision and juniors never pick up required skills, this could lead to real trouble.

jader201 2mo ago
I agree with everything you said. I’m simply playing devil’s advocate, because engineers can believe one thing, but until employers believe it, it doesn’t matter much. I’m also not convinced that the reality of LLMs will never catch up with what employers think they can do. It may never happen, but it very well could. Either way, I feel the days of employers being ok with handwriting code are limited.
- SoftTalker 2mo ago
  The complexity of code is combinatorial. Code is harder to understand than it is to create. The LLMs will be creating code that they will not (nor will any human) be able to understand later, or it won't be the same understanding that was used to create it. We'll find that systems that were created with LLM code will be impossible for LLMs to contextualize, or will be cost-prohibitive to do so.
iwontberude 2mo ago
It's a moot point. In Mag7 companies internal code gets thrown away within 2 years on average because of contract negotiations, new opensource projects that obviate need for the internal codebase, license changes, layoffs, etc, etc. We don't need long term maintainability because its already on its way to the garbage bin. Frankly it's always been this way.
- 2mo ago

nunez 2mo ago

> or are in denial that employers will be ok with lower levels of productivity. More like sweeping the dust under the rug for later. The initial productivity boost is massive but at the cost of massive upfront tech debt. Given that LLMs aren't as good at removing code as they are at generating it, this is a problem.

bigstrat2003 2mo ago

> I feel like the folks that believe we can continue to write code by hand are either in denial that LLMs will eventually (if not already) outperform handwritten code... They certainly don't today. Perhaps they will in the future, but based on the lack of improvement thus far it seems unlikely that they will get to this point. But whether or not they do improve to that point, the reality is that today, LLMs do not give you a productivity boost unless you give up on quality and just YOLO stuff the LLM gives you without actually checking it. And nobody should be willing to do the latter, because that is how you get software/infrastructure that doesn't actually work.

nullsanity 2mo ago

[dead]

notnullorvoid 2mo ago

> The problem is, your employer doesn’t care whether your brain is creating new neurons and connections. They care about productivity and profit. It was/is a struggle to get them to recognize and balance tech dept, we must now push to balance cognitive dept as well. Some employers will eventually get it as they have with tech dept. And those will be the ones we see succeed.

_8L34K 2mo ago

> The problem is, your employer doesn’t care whether your brain is creating new neurons and connections. They care about productivity and profit. I feel like this is an odd thing to be reticent about. You're working for someone who doesn't care about you and, in this changing landscape, you're compartmentalizing that in order to determine how best to care for yourself. Logically, to care for yourself you'd need to find an environment in which your needs aren't being neglected.

eudamoniac 2mo ago

It is game theory optimal to use LLMs as little as possible even if your employer wants you to use it. The less you use it, the more competitive you are in the market, and probably also in your current workplace, LLM usage metrics notwithstanding. This fact will remain true forever, even if LLMs always outperform handwritten code and all employers want you to use them. Probably what you want to do is use it a lot when you first start a job to establish some productivity credence, then as you become ready to switch jobs, use it less and less until you're writing everything by hand and taking interviews.

GeorgeWBasic 2mo ago
Interesting idea. I hope you're right: but have you tested this idea on the job market?

budsniffer952 2mo ago

Not shocked to see here that people believe "manually writing code" is the way to build brain power. How about moving up the stack?

Flere-Imsaho 2mo ago
This is what I've been focusing on. Writing good user stories, defining the definition of "done", acceptance testing. Thinking about the high level design decisions. Never thinking about how I'm going to implement feature X is honestly a breath of fresh air. I've been writing code for nearly 30 years, and I'm done.

DeluluDon 2mo ago

Businesses demanding high productivity and speed only encourages illicit drug use.