[dools]

I’ve found it very easy to maintain, add features to and fix bugs in software I’ve written entirely with LLMs, and in languages and frameworks with which I’m unfamiliar. You just ask the LLM to explain the code and then work with it to come up with the fix.

[ai_fry_ur_brain]

How big are those projects.. I dont think this is good for your mental health or physicaly your brains health. Problem solving keeps your brain strong. The laziness in us is inclined to take shortcuts, don't do it. Its like driving your car 3 blocks instead of walking, your physical health will suffer.

[yogthos]

I've been working on a project that's over 150k loc of Rust at this point. https://dirge-code.github.io

You absolutely can have the LLM write maintainable code. A few tricks I use are to ask it to plan out features in phases, and then do a branch and a PR for each focused piece of work. It makes it a lot easier to review and understand what's happening.

I also ended up making a tool which lets the LLM get a high level perspective of the codebase, and then see parts that are structurally gnarly. I've been using it to do refactors and clean things up periodically. It helped a lot with keeping the architecture clean.

https://github.com/yogthos/wavescope-mcp

Adding features and evolving the codebase has not been a problem even at this scale.

[dools]

> How big are those projects

Define big I guess. They're non-trivial, mix of internal enterprise tools, a multiplatform app (android/ios/mac/windows/web currently headbutting its way through review), including a billing system for my small telecommunications business.

> I dont think this is good for your mental health or physicaly your brains health

I find the experience of doing it without writing the code to be intellectually pretty similar. I still solve a lot of problems, the LLM couldn't, for example, one shot the event sourcing model I built for synching data between devices. It took quite a few iterations and I had to define a lot of the architecture, but I did it at a level that wasn't "here is a class, here is a module, this module does XYZ", more at the "whitepaper" level or describing how specific bits of the app needed to work in order to solve some problem.

It's also very similar to managing other developers.

> Its like driving your car 3 blocks instead of walking, your physical health will suffer

It's more similar to having staff rather than doing everything yourself. The problem solving just shifts to a different area, and you get more done.

[matwood]

> Problem solving keeps your brain strong.

Coding is not the sole problem solving skill. In fact, coding may be one of the easier skills much of the time. Deciding what to build, where to focus efforts, understanding a customer's needs, could all be just as if not more challenging than the coding part.

[dools]

Also what the code should do and how it should do it. LLMs regularly cannot come up with the best way to approach something. Once those decisions are made, codifying them is kind of the least interesting part of the entire exercise.

[boredhedgehog]

> Its like driving your car 3 blocks instead of walking, your physical health will suffer.

And be sure to only walk barefoot. Relying on artificial shoes weakens the muscles and the skin of your feet.

[mycocola]

A reasonable compromise in the face of frostbite and hookworm.

I suppose critical thinking skills are also as bad, making you question the state of the world. Problem solving is another one, deluding one into believing there are solutions to suffering.

[jounker]

Sarcasm aside, most shoes are pretty bad for your feet.