Comment by maccard
2 days ago
> Of course, at the end Photoshop is lines of code and it could be output as is, end to end
And yet it’s not.
> LLMs also take a relatively long time to output acceptable code, often taking tens of minutes before giving you a small diff. The larger the codebase, the longer it usually takes to start producing code, even over an hour.
The problem is that they don’t generate acceptable code, they generate code that needs to be edited to be acceptable. That has always been the slow part of engineering. Waiting an hour for a bugfix even if it cost $75 in tokens would be cheaper than hiring an engineer but only if it worked. And it’s a bit like hiring a snake oil salesman - it passes the sniff test but it’s only when you’re drowning in the fact that your ai now takes 4 hours to fix the same bugs, and it introduces new bugs _and_ you don’t have anyone who can reduce that complexity that you see the reality. For a lot of us, that is immediately clear from first glance at the output of Claude and codex and the likes.
> And yet it’s not.
That was my point as well. That it hasn't been output, even though it could be done by a talented solo developer given enough time, and that current LLMs definitely aren't able to do so.
> The problem is that they don’t generate acceptable code, they generate code that needs to be edited to be acceptable.
You've never had an LLM output a one line bugfix that is correct to the point where you don't have to edit it?
To make things more concrete, here's an example from the creator of Redis on how he utilizes LLMs in programming: https://antirez.com/news/164
> You've never had an LLM output a one line bugfix that is correct to the point where you don't have to edit it?
I have. I’ve also had IDEs and static analysers do the same thing. I can also take my car out of gear and have it roll down a hill but that doesn’t mean it can run without fuel. Only a sith deals in absolutes, and in the general cases LLMs don’t generate acceptable code.
Try it out, like seriously, learn to use it well. Spent a few weeks with it. You will not say these things if you were an experienced user of these tools. Saying their code is "unacceptable" is a skill issue. Describe what you consider "acceptable code" and watch it produce it in copious amounts. They don't have one mode, one setting, they can generate whatever the F you want in whatever style you deem "acceptable". You're completely in control.
That said, I watched many of my - generally pretty clever - colleagues struggle mightily with this. I can't put my finger on it yet. Regular "programming" - typing BS syntax one character at a time - always felt astronomically boring to me so I'm one of the guys happy with these tools. Not happy with how it will fuck up society though, but that's uh.. yeah.