Comment by mpalczewski
2 days ago
and it's wrong. a 6000 line class is not easier for a model to understand. the same things that help humans also help agents. I find myself adding linters that must pass and the agent muss fix that limit file size, function length, function complexity, how many files in a directory. a little more work for the agent, but the codebase is healthier and the agents write fewer bugs.
I don't think the same things that help humans help agents. Simplicity helps humans, for agents parsing complexity is a breeze.
Not saying code quality isn't important - it is. But I think what is described as quality code will change.
Agents still pay a penalty for complexity even if it is a smaller one.
Parsing single file is easier than navigating a file system for an LLM. Until the models have context windows large enough to hold the entire codebase in one shot, single files will beat multiple files every time.
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