Comment by iperov
8 hours ago
I haven't yet seen any significant products made with AI that are at least used long-term. All these browser demos, from the Adobe killers to Star Citizen, are just bells and whistles that I close after 30 seconds of use.
I enjoy this quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
And I feel that sums up my feelings on AI this and that. Just as the wood and clay contain the sculpture within and it's the artist's duty and privilege to reveal that. So, is elegant software exposed from the conceptual mass, rather than built up.
The AI zeitgeist currently is 'how many features can I add' because we've tied self worth to work output instead of some other more personal or human rubric. AI will happily pile more and more and more code on your plate because it's a buffet. It's gone through reinforcement cycles guiding it to add whatever feature you ask. There is no training for elegance or careful considered design. Nobody is teaching this generation of LLM restraint.
The safest code is that which never runs. The most elegant feature is that which is not necessary.
"The safest code is that which never runs. The most elegant feature is that which is not necessary."
I assume you run GNU Hurd as your OS? ...
In general I very much agree to the quote of the Little Prince's creator, but I am not sure if we mean the same by it, because you seem to value code elegance more than adding useful features?
Now "useful" does the heavy lifting here, but my point is a useful feature is useful, even if it is achieved by the most ugly unmaintainable code. And what counts as a useful feature will depend on who you ask, but in general you should ask some users. (They don't care how the code looks)
And sure, they do not enjoy a pile of garbage of new features that only work sometimes, but managed to destroy their existing flow. But "Nobody is teaching this generation of LLM restraint" this is hyperbole and up to each developer. There is no need to let the AI run on auto for hours, this is only one way how to use that tool. The other way is, you make the design yourself - and let the AI implement it.
> The safest code is that which never runs. The most elegant feature is that which is not necessary.
Yes, but the most useless software is that which doesn't exist.
At some point, you actually do have to write some code and add some features, or else the most satisfied client is the one who hired your competitor.
Claude Code?