‹ BackHN Continuity

Thread

If AI coding is lowering your code quality, you're not managing quality right

129 points · 169 comments · bucket2015

  1. axegon_ · · focus · HN ↗
    Ah, the "skill issue" argument again. Same crap aswhen everyonewas worshiping Musk 5-6 years ago, this time it's dario and altman with a claude/chatgpt mask. Crash can't come soon enough.
    1. ModernMech · · focus · HN ↗
      I think the point is just it doesn’t have to get worse, so there are things you can do to prevent / change it if it is deteriorating.
      1. Sharlin · · focus · HN ↗
        Yes, but it doesn't matter if nobody actually does that. Either because

        1. they don't care

        2. the rest of the team doesn't care

        3. the powers that be actively discourage it because velocity.

        1. rgoulter · · focus · HN ↗
          Without LLMs, you can still have bad development processes which lead to increasing technical debt with no plan for paying it off.

          LLMs let you move faster.

          But it's not as if introducing them is the only reason your codebase isn't high quality.

          1. Sharlin · · focus · HN ↗
            So you're saying that LLMs let you accrue technical debt faster? I suppose that's like the fact that living on payday loans let you accrue monetary debt faster.
            1. rgoulter · · focus · HN ↗
              Yes.

              I think if you're on a team that cares about quality, LLMs can help you write quality code faster.

              If you're on a team that's mindful about technical debt, you can have make practical trade-offs for velocity now at the expense of paying off technical debt later.

              And if you're on a team that's unable to care about code quality ("I gotta merge this code now!"), then you can write mountains more code than you can understand.

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.