[tptacek]

Developers do not in fact tend to read all the software they use. I have never once looked at the code for jq, nor would I ever want to (the worst thing I could learn about that contraption is that the code is beautiful, and then live out the rest of my days conflicted about my feelings about it). This "developers read code" thing is just special pleading.

[hexaga]

You're a user of jq in the sense of the comment you're replying to, not a developer. The developer is the developer _of jq_, not developers in general.

[fhd2]

Yes, that's exactly how I meant it. I might _rarely_ peruse some code if I'm really curious about it, but by and large I just trust the developers of the software I use and don't really care how it works. I care about what it does.

[agentultra]

As a developer of software I often have to care because it matters and so I read the code.

Source code is often written for other humans first and foremost.

[abustamam]

I've had to dig into node modules to try to debug code from a closed source library that we depended on.

I'd much rather wade through AI slop than minified code, which may have previously been AI slop.

[skydhash]

Minified code is not for humans, it may as well been bytecode.

[abustamam]

Agreed! That's why I told my llm to help me.

But I think larger point being, it's not always feasible for humans to understand every line of code that runs in their software.

[agentultra]

Both can be equally bad. Especially if you could get the source of the minified dependency and find that it is also slop.

What a world when we’re playing Would you rather with people’s property and information.

[tptacek]

We're talking about Show HN here.

[orwin]

But you read your coworkers PRs. I decided this week I wouldn't read/correct the AIgen doc and unit tests from 3 of my coworkers today, because else I would never be able to work. They produce twice as much poor output in 10 time the number of line change, that's too much.

[tptacek]

Right, I'm not arguing developers don't read their own code or their teammates code or anything that merges to main in a repo they're responsible for. Just that the "it's only worth reading if someone took the time to actually write it" objection doesn't meaningfully apply to code in Show HN's --- there's no expectation that code gets read at all. That's why moderation is so at pains to ensure there's some way people can play with whatever it is being shown ("sign up pages can't be Show HN's").