[jmalicki]

> A programmer might write a function, notice it becoming too long or doing too much, and then decide break it down into smaller subroutines. I've never seen an LLM really do this, they seem biased towards being additive.

The nice thing is a programmer with an LLM just steps in here, and course-corrects, and still has that value add, without taking all the time to write the boilerplate in between.

And in general, the cleaner your codebase the cleaner LLM modifications will be, it does pick up on coding style.

[cedws]

>The nice thing is a programmer with an LLM just steps in here, and course-corrects

This does not seem to be the direction things are going. People are talking about shipping code they haven't edited, most notably the author of Claude Code. Sometimes they haven't even read the code at all. With LLMs the path of least resistance is to take your hands off the wheel completely. Only programmers taking particular care are still playing an editorial role.

When the code is constructed by an LLM, the human in the driving seat doesn't get a chance to build the mental models that they usually would writing it manually. This stifles the ability to see opportunities to refactor. It is widely considered to be harder to read code than to write it.

>And in general, the cleaner your codebase the cleaner LLM modifications will be

Whilst true, this is a kind of "you're holding it wrong" argument. If LLMs had model of what differentiates good code from bad code, whatever they pull into their context should make no difference.

[jmalicki]

> Whilst true, this is a kind of "you're holding it wrong" argument. If LLMs had model of what differentiates good code from bad code, whatever they pull into their context should make no difference.

Good code is in the eye of the beholder. What reviewers in one shop would consider good code is dramatically different than another.

Conforming to the existing code base style is good in and of itself, if the context it pulls in makes no difference that makes it useless.

[jauntywundrkind]

> When the code is constructed by an LLM, the human in the driving seat doesn't get a chance to build the mental models that they usually would writing it manually

I'm asking the LLM for alternatives and options constantly, to test different models. It can give me a write-up description of options, or go spin up subagents to go try 4 different things at once.

> It is widely considered to be harder to read code than to write it

Even more than writing code, I think LLM's are exceptional at reading code. They can review huge amounts of code incredibly fast, to understand very complex systems. And then you can just ask it questions! Don't understand? Ask more questions!

I have mcp-neovim-server open, so I just ask it to open the relevant pieces of code at those lines, and it can then show me. CodeCompanion makes it easy to ask questions about a line. It's amazing how

Reading code was one of the extremely hard parts of programming, and the machine is far far better at it than us!

> When the code is constructed by an LLM, the human in the driving seat doesn't get a chance to build the mental models that they usually would writing it manually.

Here's one way to tell me you haven't tried the thing without saying you haven't tried the thing. The ability to do deep inquiry into topics & to test &btry different models is far far far better than it has ever been. We aren't stuck with what we right, we can keep iterating &b trying at vastly lower cost, to do the hard work to discover what is a good model. Programmers rarely have had the luxury of time and space to keep working on a problem again and again, to adjust and change and tweak until the architecture truly sings. Now you can try a weeks worth of architectures in an afternoon. There is no better time for those who want to understand to do so.

I feel like one thing missing from this thread is that most people adopting AI at a serious level are building really strong AGENTS.md files, that refine tastes and practices and forms. The AI is pretty tasteless, isnt deliberate. It is up to us to explore the possibility space when working on problems, and to create good context that steers towards good solutions. And our ability to get information out, to probe into systems, to asses, to test hypothesis, is vastly vastly higher, which we can keep using to become far better steersfolk.

[NamlchakKhandro]

you're all living in the past btw.

Only laggards are using MCP.

Everyone else is using skills to provide updating knowledge and cli tools for extra functionality.

100% Everything above discussed: solved with skills.md

It's hilarious watching all of you being academic about the recent invention of the wheel and acting like you're smart.

[rybosworld]

"Tell me you don't have a clue what you're talking about without telling me."

Remind me how skills replace:

- authenticated access to remote/external systems

- sandboxed boundaries

- multi-step workflows that span multiple systems