3 ms·

How do you expect us to take your views on LLM code quality and durability seriously when a) you don’t even look at the code and b) you’ve only been doing this

by hbcdbff 2mo ago

How do you expect us to take your views on LLM code quality and durability seriously when a) you don’t even look at the code and b) you’ve only been doing this for two months?

user43928 2mo ago
I've been working on the app for four months, and I am clearly not talking about code quality. I am talking about product quality and maintainability. Both are more than adequate. I know this because I have worked on it for an estimated 300 hours. Has the author practiced a similar approach for even a week? I doubt it.
- Krei-se 2mo ago
  I work on my project for 2 years now and using an LLM always came back to bite me. Learning how something works is needed, slow and painful - but pain is gain. If this works for you - awesome. Until it doesn't. As always there is 0 code or link. All talk.
  - user43928 2mo ago
    And when do you expect my approach will stop to work? The core features are complete and the codebase is already sizable. I will not publish my app on GitHub for free. It's a paid app, and I am putting in the hours not for your approval, but for commercial gain. I also do not think it wise to link my HN account to my real name and expose my opinions and comments to my employer and colleagues.
    - skydhash 2mo ago
      Then you may as well said you've solved P=NP. We do not require links to your app. What people are expecting is a description of your approach and sample outputs. So that someone else can try it and have the same standard of output. That's how you make a point that your approach is good. When we buy books like "The Practice of Programming" or "The Pragmatic Programmer", it's because we are hoping to learn useful and productive behaviors. It isn't to hear boasts about how good the authors are good at using tools. Even self-help books follow this pattern: Do this, expect that. They're not "Have you tried this too" or "I don't know about you, but I've got good results myself".
      - user43928 2mo ago
        I am here to discuss my opinions on AI for software development because it's interesting. Not because I am selling a book or to prove anything to you. If I had any special approach, I would be reluctant to share it with my potential competitors. That said, I do not. It just works. Meanwhile people here are posting the thesis that agentic development without careful code review results in an unmaintainable application. I theorize that this is not something they experienced in practice, because it did not happen for me.
        skydhash 2mo ago
        > Meanwhile people here are posting the thesis that agentic development without careful code review results in an unmaintainable application. > I theorize that this is not something they experienced in practice, because it did not happen for me. Are you currently maintaining the application? Like it's in production with paying users? You've only been on the app for 4 months. Compare that to something like Emacs that has been going for 40+ years. You can make a better case when you've been on prod for a few years.
        user43928 2mo ago
        By that standard, we could have AGI tomorrow, and I should still not comment. No, my app is not published yet. It will probably take another month, with hopefully no complications arising out of the AppStore review process. Then, I hope the ad campaign financials work out to compete with old apps of a lower quality that already boast no less than a million reviews. I get it, you want me to make a case that can objectively convince you of the usefulness of agentic development without code review. From my perspective, I have no interest in doing so, and I can only share my experience so far. In a few months time we will know more objectively whether my ambitions paid off. Until then, you will either have to take my word for the quality of the product, or spend tens to hundreds of hours of effort in trying the approach for yourself. OP's article does not contain any specifics for where and how supposedly agentic development failed him either.
        2mo ago
    - Krei-se 2mo ago
      more talk
- sethammons 2mo ago
  2 months simply isn't enough time for evolving system needs. You don't get to know if your code is maintainable until the use cases have expanded and usually other devs will come on board, and what guarantee is there that they will direct the ai the same way? Your core features today may be solid, but expanding and adding cases coupled with debugability is what shows off maintainable code. Two months simply isn't enough time. Two years, maybe. I have maintained the same aggressively growing software from start up to public company to begin acquired. Two months is literally nothing in the maintenance lifecycle
- chr15m 2mo ago
  > worked on it for an estimated 300 hours If humans aren't needed why have you had to spend 300 hours? I upvoted your comment BTW because I think you might be right, but I'm not sure. I still see people doing a lot of work, despite LLMs.
  - user43928 2mo ago
    It's still a lot of work. I have to prompt for the features, test them, then iterate until the UX is acceptable before I merge. Usually I would juggle 2-5 topics in parallel, unless one of them demands more of my attention. While there is no more code review involved, it is a lot of QA work and testing on device. The bottleneck is that the AI does not have taste, does not know what the product should be, and would happily ship horrible slop without my intervention. Other than the implementation itself there are other things that need to be handled: researching competitors, keywords, pricing, AppStore preparation, TOS and privacy policy, when do you show the rating prompt, translations, etc. AI still helps with a lot of it, but it takes time and effort.

by hbcdbff 2mo ago

How do you expect us to take your views on LLM code quality and durability seriously when a) you don’t even look at the code and b) you’ve only been doing this for two months?

user43928 2mo ago

I've been working on the app for four months, and I am clearly not talking about code quality. I am talking about product quality and maintainability. Both are more than adequate. I know this because I have worked on it for an estimated 300 hours. Has the author practiced a similar approach for even a week? I doubt it.

Krei-se 2mo ago
I work on my project for 2 years now and using an LLM always came back to bite me. Learning how something works is needed, slow and painful - but pain is gain. If this works for you - awesome. Until it doesn't. As always there is 0 code or link. All talk.
- user43928 2mo ago
  And when do you expect my approach will stop to work? The core features are complete and the codebase is already sizable. I will not publish my app on GitHub for free. It's a paid app, and I am putting in the hours not for your approval, but for commercial gain. I also do not think it wise to link my HN account to my real name and expose my opinions and comments to my employer and colleagues.
  - skydhash 2mo ago
    Then you may as well said you've solved P=NP. We do not require links to your app. What people are expecting is a description of your approach and sample outputs. So that someone else can try it and have the same standard of output. That's how you make a point that your approach is good. When we buy books like "The Practice of Programming" or "The Pragmatic Programmer", it's because we are hoping to learn useful and productive behaviors. It isn't to hear boasts about how good the authors are good at using tools. Even self-help books follow this pattern: Do this, expect that. They're not "Have you tried this too" or "I don't know about you, but I've got good results myself".
    - user43928 2mo ago
      I am here to discuss my opinions on AI for software development because it's interesting. Not because I am selling a book or to prove anything to you. If I had any special approach, I would be reluctant to share it with my potential competitors. That said, I do not. It just works. Meanwhile people here are posting the thesis that agentic development without careful code review results in an unmaintainable application. I theorize that this is not something they experienced in practice, because it did not happen for me.
      - skydhash 2mo ago
        > Meanwhile people here are posting the thesis that agentic development without careful code review results in an unmaintainable application. > I theorize that this is not something they experienced in practice, because it did not happen for me. Are you currently maintaining the application? Like it's in production with paying users? You've only been on the app for 4 months. Compare that to something like Emacs that has been going for 40+ years. You can make a better case when you've been on prod for a few years.
        user43928 2mo ago
        By that standard, we could have AGI tomorrow, and I should still not comment. No, my app is not published yet. It will probably take another month, with hopefully no complications arising out of the AppStore review process. Then, I hope the ad campaign financials work out to compete with old apps of a lower quality that already boast no less than a million reviews. I get it, you want me to make a case that can objectively convince you of the usefulness of agentic development without code review. From my perspective, I have no interest in doing so, and I can only share my experience so far. In a few months time we will know more objectively whether my ambitions paid off. Until then, you will either have to take my word for the quality of the product, or spend tens to hundreds of hours of effort in trying the approach for yourself. OP's article does not contain any specifics for where and how supposedly agentic development failed him either.
        2mo ago
  - Krei-se 2mo ago
    more talk
sethammons 2mo ago
2 months simply isn't enough time for evolving system needs. You don't get to know if your code is maintainable until the use cases have expanded and usually other devs will come on board, and what guarantee is there that they will direct the ai the same way? Your core features today may be solid, but expanding and adding cases coupled with debugability is what shows off maintainable code. Two months simply isn't enough time. Two years, maybe. I have maintained the same aggressively growing software from start up to public company to begin acquired. Two months is literally nothing in the maintenance lifecycle
chr15m 2mo ago
> worked on it for an estimated 300 hours If humans aren't needed why have you had to spend 300 hours? I upvoted your comment BTW because I think you might be right, but I'm not sure. I still see people doing a lot of work, despite LLMs.
- user43928 2mo ago
  It's still a lot of work. I have to prompt for the features, test them, then iterate until the UX is acceptable before I merge. Usually I would juggle 2-5 topics in parallel, unless one of them demands more of my attention. While there is no more code review involved, it is a lot of QA work and testing on device. The bottleneck is that the AI does not have taste, does not know what the product should be, and would happily ship horrible slop without my intervention. Other than the implementation itself there are other things that need to be handled: researching competitors, keywords, pricing, AppStore preparation, TOS and privacy policy, when do you show the rating prompt, translations, etc. AI still helps with a lot of it, but it takes time and effort.