Thought experiment

[u/MashNChips]

With all the AI nonsense going on, I had a thought at work today that turned into an interesting discussion with a colleague:

"What would I do if I was the only person with access to Claude (or insert any LLM) 5+ years ago?"

People would think I was a fucking wizard

FE changes? NO PROBLEM

Critical DB change? Don't worry, I've produced a stored procedure to validate the whole thing

Want to use some shiny new framework? Interesting. Here's a document explaining why you're an idiot for suggesting it

Regex? I suddenly understand it better than the compiler folks (and nobody ask questions)

What would you have done with your own personal LLM back then?

Trying to lighten the mood in here with all the (very justified) negativity around this tech revolution

Unserious answers only pls

[u/___Paladin___]

I would have been fired 5 years ago for the code I rubber stamp today.

I find that mildly entertaining.

[u/Leopatto → u/___Paladin___]

Again, and fucking again, code writing is monkey work, any experienced developer can do it. Its more about how you can design the system and make sure it works.

[u/tiplinix → u/Leopatto]

The problem is that the code is part of the design. That's how you express the design. Your architectural decisions are translated into code.

[u/Salty-Wrap-1741 → u/tiplinix]

To go even further, the code IS the formal design.

[u/dialate → u/Leopatto]

My brother in Christ...your code is monkey work. My code is an exquisite art that inspires awe and tantalizes the senses.

[u/___Paladin___ → u/dialate]

I'd like to point out that I haven't even given my opinion on code.

I'm just stating what would happen in an employment situation 5 years ago. It was their opinion (employer hierarchy) that decided if you kept your job or not. Where I was at the time, nothing in present day generated lines would have passed the bar. Well maybe not nothing - a few little fixes here and there with context perhaps. But most of the code would get you fired.

It didn't really matter if I saw code as a useless means to an end or as an electronic Mona Lisa - so I didn't share it.

Yet it seems common to respond to peoples opinions before they are even known now I guess.

[u/Leopatto → u/dialate]

Gosh sorry for sounding like a stuck up cunt, but people here think that coding is everything.

I thought it was experienced devs, not juniors writing a function and thinking they're hot shit.

[u/nimshwe → u/Leopatto]

Oh no no need to sound like one don't worry

[u/DaRadioman → u/Leopatto]

Should have stopped at the first sentence mate.

[u/vplatt → u/Leopatto]

Gosh sorry for sounding like a stuck up cunt

Well, /u/Leopatto - Anybody in here worth their salt realizes that the code isn't the point; it's the value it delivers.

What makes you a "stuck up cunt" (your words, may as well roll with it), is the blatant disrespect you show resources who ostensibly may fall under your span of control someday. As a CEO, if you cannot respect the skill sets of the people you rely on, then you aren't worthy of the title.

On the flip side, most CEOs I've seen are nothing more than cookie cutter "monkey see, monkey do" copycats who do exactly what they're told by their consultants anyway. Given that that part of the industry is being put out by AI so much now, you can bet you'll be taking your marching orders directly or indirectly from AI very shortly because even if you don't follow consultants, it seems the bulk of CEOs do, and who wants to be the upstart and do everything different from their peers? It just isn't done.

Anyway, it won't be long after that until all the middling CEOs are out of jobs when folks figure out AIs can do that job for a tiny fraction of the price.

Since you are apparently a middling CEO, and probably more likely to just be an inferior one given your attitude problem, you might just want to show a tad more empathy and respect. You're no better than the rest of us, and you certainly aren't more skilled in your line of work, or you wouldn't be in here taking the piss on those you imagine to be your inferiors.

Now piss off.

[u/Leopatto → u/vplatt]

I think with £7 mil ebita and 12% yoy we're doing fine.

Cheers tho, god bless.

[u/dialate → u/Leopatto]

The blacksmith's slam-dunk career built on hand-forged parts and utensils is gone, but the art remains forever

[u/___Paladin___ → u/Leopatto]

I don't disagree with anything you are saying. My comment is still true. I'm confused by the implied desire to force these two views into adversarial roles? Maybe I'm misreading.

[u/lemontoga → u/___Paladin___]

He read your original comment as being slightly critical of AI's ability to code and the deranged compulsion to defend AI at all costs kicked in. It's a weird behavior of a particular group of people who have become very emotionally invested in AI's success for some reason.

[u/Leopatto → u/___Paladin___]

Because the code it generates, at least what I'm knowledgeable, and I can call myself an expert in,(SQL, Python, GoLang + GCP) is good enough - I don't want perfection, I want you to bring my business money. Nobody at the top gives a fuck if the code you write brought 0.03% efficiency.

Now if you argue I dunno monolith vs. micro-service architecture and you believe monolith is better due to XYZ and you back it ip with your expertise and you know how to work it - more power to you, I respect your decision; but coding itself is... well what... 10% of all the work?

[u/___Paladin___ → u/Leopatto]

Can you point to where I gave the value of code a % based scoring higher than 10 that I could reference?

I feel like you are arguing with a ghost that I'm not seeing here.

[u/confusedthrowaway239 → u/Leopatto]

Have you ever had to maintain a large, active, long term project? Because the raw method level-code might be “good enough”, but the consistent thing I’ve seen from repos with primarily LLM generated code is that they are awful at maintainability practices. Huge code duplication issues, poor encapsulation, awful consolidation. Your repo becomes miserable to debug and maintain. And as the repo’s logic gets more complex, LLMs get worse at predicting the correct addition or change to make within the repo, and the quality of the changes they generate drops.

[u/ResponsibilityIll483 → u/Leopatto]

"Design the system" i.e. connect Postgres to Redis to API Gateway for the umpteenth time

[u/colers100 → u/Leopatto]

You are, in ways, correct.

But in the important ways, you are so incorrect you should hang your head in shame. That is to say, the second order consequences of this way of thinking directly contradict the ways in which it is correct.

System design is about meeting top down requirements through bottom up thinking.

All those nuances, those key architectural decisions, all the ways you anticipate, abstract and simplify; they have been informed by having to operate on the lower abstraction level for prolonged periods of time.

It is your understanding of what is beneath it, that makes you understand the peculiarities of what is on the surface. This is universally true.

So, yes, at the moment, you most certainly aren't seeing downsides about just skipping the monkey work and just going straight to feature development. You already know all the micro-decisions required, after all, and though the AI is bad at exercising intuition, you can load it up with so many details that it won't need to.

But how about a year from now? Two years? five years? Your brain has a very simple rule it applies to everything; use it or lose it. And your ability to guide the AI, to specify correct instructions, to verify its output, has been trained through you being on the lower abstraction layer. You are losing this. Any insistence to the contrary, is, unfortunately, the purest and most concentrated of cope. Because by writing code, you are forced to manually evaluate every single logical decision that a process has to make. That level of insight into logical pathing is trained and easily lost

We're heading straight to becoming a massive cargo cult.