Comment by troupo
3 days ago
No. The issue is: "I notice too many things (redundant code, duplicate code, overly complex architecture, etc.) during review"
How does "low-stakes environment" fix that?
3 days ago
No. The issue is: "I notice too many things (redundant code, duplicate code, overly complex architecture, etc.) during review"
How does "low-stakes environment" fix that?
Because one may learn that those fears are overblown. Or they may learn that they cannot build any kind of software without reviewing every line of code.
The person is saying "I am still unable to stop" and that is most likely because they feel a sense of responsibility. If they choose a project where there is no responsibility, where it literally doesn't matter if the project fails, they may feel able to stop. And if they manage to make that project work, if they can succeed, then they will build up confidence.
It seems better to be able to work both on projects where they review all code as well as projects where they do not review any code. In fact, keeping their job in the long term may (or may not) require having both skills.
yolo'ing a code complexity generator doesn't make it suddenly stop being a code complexity generator.
> one may learn that those fears are overblown.
They are not overblown. LLMs do all the things the person described.
> Or they may learn that they cannot build any kind of software without reviewing every line of code.
We already had bad horrendous software before the onslaught of LLM-slop. Why contribute to that?
> And if they manage to make that project work, if they can succeed, then they will build up confidence.
Confidence in what? It doesn't fix the underlying issue. And the underlying issue isn't "I can't stop" but "redundant code, duplicate code, overly complex architecture, etc." that LLMs regularly produce.
> It seems better to be able to work both on projects where they review all code as well as projects where they do not review any code.
"If I close my eyes maybe this goes away"
I guess they’re just saying “you’re holding it wrong”
Last time I chose to vibe code, I did it in a language I didn’t know so that I wasn’t tempted to try and comprehend the choices the robot made. I ended up with the application I wanted.
Caveat: it was code I would never have to touch again, I ran a script to generate the 140,000 static html pages that the rails app provided and then just uploaded them all to R2 buckets (million reads per month on free tier)
> I guess they’re just saying “you’re holding it wrong”
No, they are saying "who cares if all those issues with code are true, just don't review it"
> Caveat:
It's not really a caveat. I also have throw-away code. But we're not talking about throw--away code. We're talking about the systemic issues in LLM-produced code, which are completely ignored and the answer is always "who cares, close your eyes and don't review the code".
Right. You don’t review the machine code or the interaction with registers and branch prediction. If the behavior matches the desired outcome what does it matter?
The classic consideration is, this code will need to be maintained, built on top of… but it’s not like that was ever a solved problem, big projects remain fragile and corporate turnover means no one knows the entire stack. So I see the vibe code out there as just another imperfect way to build barely good enough software.
I’ve also written code I built slowly and intentionally as a piece of art, beautiful code I was proud of. Didn’t make me any money :)
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