[JackC]

"They may speed up the good programmers a little, but those people were able to program anyway without LLMs."

I don't think this is realistic. I'm a good programmer, and it speeds up my work a lot, from "make sense of this 10 repo project I haven't worked on recently" to "for this next step I need a vpn multiplexer written in a language I don't use" to, yeah, "this 10k line patch lets me see parts of design space we never could have explored before." I think it's all about understanding the blast radius. Sonetimes a lot of code is helpful, sometimes more like a lot of help proving a fact about one line of code.

Like Simon says, if I'm driving by someone else's project, I don't send the generated pull request, I just file the bug report / repro that would generate it.

[PunchyHamster]

> to "for this next step I need a vpn multiplexer written in a language I don't use"

but that acceleration is exactly because you're not good at that language

[renticulous]

Can't we reach a compromise where proven track record of good use of LLM by a contributor or a company (eg. Bun) be pre-approved or entertained? Blanket ban on a new technology shouldn't be the default option.

[dspillett]

Certainly not in the case of asking it to do something you'd be slow at because you are unfamiliar. If you are not familiar enough with the system, how are you confident that what the LLM has produced is valid and complete? IMO the people saying LLMs make then 10x faster were either very bad to start with (like me!) or are not properly looking at the results before throwing them over the wall.

And how do you know if that is the case or the person/team using the LLMs is one of the good ones?

So the safest answer is just "no".

[bcrosby95]

This is the crux of the problem. LLMs make me significantly faster at writing code I was mediocre or bad at. But when I use it to write code in domains I have more knowledge in I see design and correctness problems all over the place and actively fix them and it slows down my output.

Speed is seductive.

The bar isn't "this is a known good contributor". Its "this is a known good contributor working in a space they have knowledge in and has a track record of actually checking and thinking about LLM output before submitting it." It's much higher and I don't see how you can approve people on an organization-wide basis.

[thesz]

  > LLMs make me significantly faster at writing code I was mediocre or bad at. But when I use it to write code in domains I have more knowledge in I see design and correctness problems all over the place and actively fix them and it slows down my output.

I think a very similar phenomena is called Gell-Mann amnesia effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#%22Gell-Mann_...

[em-bee]

if they had a good track record, the current submission that led to this article damaged it.

i am reminded of this quote: it takes more cleverness to debug code than it takes to write it. if you write code as clever as you can, by definition you are not clever enough to debug it. using LLM makes your code many times more clever than what you could write yourself. which means by the same definition the code is to clever for you to understand or debug it.

[ModernMech]

I like the new corollary to that rule, which is that if the AI is the best coder in the room and writes code too clever for itself, then no one including the AI can debug the code. Then where does that leave you?

[em-bee]

i love it. just a moment of thought makes clear that LLMs are not capable to debug their own code because if they were they would be able to write better code. the LLM code doesn't even need to be clever.

[wyre]

That’s why you don’t use SOTA xhigh models to write your code, so you can use the xhigh model to debug the code.

[PunchyHamster]

Why would it be pre-approved ? Code is code, whether it's bad quality LLM code or meatbag code it shouldn't matter.

The entire problem is that before the meatbag code was either not submitted at all (developer knowing they are not competent enough to do the fix) or the volume of it was low.

With LLM people not competent to even review, let alone write are emboldened to just throw shit on the wall at rapid pace. So the wall is entirely covered by the shit

[ragall]

No.

[mamcx]

> I'm a good programmer, and it speeds up my work a lot

The problem with this line of thinking is the same with "I so good as C developer, my code is so-safe!".

And we see what reality instead tell: Yes, exist people where this claims are true, not, is not even a decently sized minority.

[drekipus]

> I'm a good programmer, and it speeds up my work a lot,

Whenever I see this arguement, I'm reminded that most programmers don't know what they do for work

[kiba]

I use LLM as a tutor. It tailor their answers exactly to the situation I am in, even if it hallucinate. I can correct them on the fly and that also serves as training. I try not copy and paste and type every line of code by hand. That doesn't always happen, but I usually understand the code I am writing.

[stirfish]

It's great when I know how the code should look. Sometimes I just can't bring myself to write yet another http handler.

[i_love_retros]

Already libraries for that which are battle tested, why vibe code a unique solution each time?

[stirfish]

Pretend I said "crud handlers using i_love_retros's favorite library" or whatever makes the most sense for you.

[mattmanser]

Why are you writing a vpn multiplexer written in a language you don't use?

You can't review it.

Are you relying on your colleagues to do that, or is this riddled with bugs? Or is it code you're producing for personal use only so it's not worth mentioning as it's not sped your work up, it's just let you write a little play program.

[drekipus]

No no no it's speed at all costs. Sure. I'm writing junk but the speed of what I'm doing is *impressive* You don't understand.

[dnautics]

yep. as an expert programmer there are things i did not have access to. for example, i have an embedded-lite hardware project that required a one line patch to a linux kernel Module.

i know what a kernel module is and im reasonably certain that the patch is safe, but there is no way in hell i would have found that solution (i would have given up). in a world without llms, the project would have died.

[vatsachak]

I really hope that you have gone over what the LLM decides to do.

Time and time again I've had a project (such as a DSL to SQL compiler, automatic Rust codegen, CSS development) stall because the LLM took a short sighted decision.

I later found better solutions by querying Reddit and upon consulting the LLM, it basically said "oh shit I'm sorry"

[switchbak]

We have all had that experience, that's just the way this new world is.

It's honestly pretty arrogant to tell a senior engineer that you "really hope" they've gone over some code. AI generated or otherwise.

[vatsachak]

Sorry. I forgot to add to add the respect form

I really hope usted checked your code

At this point I'm pretty sure I did the homework for people in college who are now senior engineers

[tekknik]

I think your parent didn’t word this correctly.

This is commonplace. So commonplace that most have worked “checking the LLM” into their workflow so deeply that essentially all that’s done is prompt followed by a mini code review.

To suggest a senior engineer blindly accepts modifications without code review kinda hints at you not using LLMs to realize how quickly it will make a mess of things if you don’t hold it’s hand.

[switchbak]

"I forgot to add to add the respect form" ... what does that even mean?

This whole comment is incoherent. And you're the one "hoping" people check things?

Normally I dislike AI slop in comments, but in this case I think it would be an improvement.

[i_love_retros]

Lol why is it arrogant? My workplace is evidence that having a senior engineer title or even a computer science degree doesn't mean you are a good engineer. I honestly think some people have fake credentials and got their jobs via nepotism.

[switchbak]

Jumping to an assumption like this - that they didn't review their work - that's somewhat of an insult to someone who has done this for a long time.

Now it's totally possible that they're an awful developer (who knows!), but it's arrogant to assume that with no evidence.

And I agree, some of the worst devs I've worked with have been PhD's or had otherwise impressive credentials (ostensibly). And I absolutely think at least 1 of them were just lying about their backgrounds.

[dnautics]

i am writing the sw stack for my own pharma startup.

we have 2 very high value DAU, one of whom is me, and probably will max out at 1000 in our wildest dreams.

long term, our biggest concern is a security regression that lets outsiders see our internal information