[jgeada]

Ideas are a dime a dozen. All of us have half a dozen of what appear to be good ideas every. Execution matters, testing and sanity checking matters, actual engagement with users and iteration matters.

Sure, we're reducing the cost of idea -> prototype to near zero (well, as long as tokens are free or nearly free), but that just means we now have mountains of throw away code, within which there may a gem or two.

Nothing yet has replaced the curating of ideas that good teams do as a matter of course.

[p2detar]

> Sure, we're reducing the cost of idea -> prototype to near zero (well, as long as tokens are free or nearly free), but that just means we now have mountains of throw away code, within which there may a gem or two.

This doesn't strike me as wrong, but where the rubber meets the road. Let me give you an example.

My superior with close to zero programming skills, sat down with Claude and "wrote" a Django backend with SPA React frontend that enables user directory sync from one source to another and then exposes an API for other services to consume. It supports RBAC, 2FA, extensions for directory sources, dashboard with stats and what not. Everything packed into docker containers ready to deploy on the cloud. Again, the person is very skilled as a consultant, but lacks programming skills whatsoever. I did a code review, prepped a list of things to fix and he did fix them with Claude again. Later on, he used Claude to rewrite the Python backend to Go. I did no code review on that part. Fable was used in several iterations to test for security issues before each release.

Long story short, this service is now running in the cloud and the customer uses it to solve their problem. We got a couple of other customers on the line as well.

You tell me what to do with that.

[Chu4eeno]

> Fable was used in several iterations to test for security issues before each release.

How? The point of Fable (vs. Mythos) is that it has extreme guardrails against doing e. g. security work, even mentioning "security" or "vulnerability" in the prompt will shut it down.

[p2detar]

Just opened Claude Code and I don't see any such restrictions. Asked Fable to do security/vulnerability review on the code base and it gladly agreed.

I can't speak for the above-mentioned project though, because I wasn't part of that release.

[skydhash]

> You tell me what to do with that.

That if you polish it a bit, you can probably write a short story. /s

The thing is, making claims like that doesn’t prove anything. You have to either show the result or prove that is reproducible. Otherwise, it may as well be something you dream up this morning.

[antirez]

Execution is not the code, but how do you decide to do every part. "Idea does not matter, execution does" always meant: "big generic ideas don't matter, it is how you organize it in the myriad of details it is composed of (in a given incarnation of the general idea) that matters."

[softwaredoug]

But why aren't lower level "ideas about execution" more clearly expressed in code? Or at least pseudocode?

Many of us would struggle with our reading comprehension of an English description of an algorithm. But the pseudo / actual code? Much easier to reason about.

I'm not saying you should review even 90% of code. But it feels like an arbitrary line to say "never look at code". It's like never taking a wrench to a car to look at what's built to see whether you trust the car factory.

[lantry]

I think "idea" is getting overloaded here. The article isn't talking about new feature/product/tool ideas, but about what concepts to use to build those features. e.g. what data structures and algorithms to use.

So your last line agrees with the article, I think. They are saying that it's still important to curate ideas, and no longer important to read the code; the time you would have spent reading the code should be spent curating ideas.

[jgeada]

Curating ideas requires experience and taste. Can you really develop that without looking at code? Compare Steve Jobs vs Joni Ive curating as a prime example of how taste without practical experience and context can lead things astray. And the worst of it is that it can take a while for the problem to be easily noticeable.

[nimonian]

I completely agree with this you. The article is NOT about product ideas. Your parent has misunderstood the article.