It's funny, i push back on pull requests because there is too much description now - a 20 line change has pages and pages of generated description, rationalisation for why it is safe, defense of each design decision, analysis of risks and side effects. People are indignant, you're rejecting my change because there is too much documentation? And my response is, I don't have time to read it and you put me in the position where I can't afford not to - because approving the PR implies I did and accepted it. The investment to read all that for the value of a code change that I'm one prompt away from doing myself if I cared is just not high enough. So it's rejected.
I just have my LLM read the PR, then give me a summary of what the PR is about, how important it is, and how good the PR itself actually is. Then I have a conversation with the LLM about specific points, especially things where I get that feeling that I don't have a 100% understanding.
Until I fully understand what's going on, the PR doesn't move and my interrogation of the LLM doesn't end. My interaction is littered with "Explain X" and "How does this square with Y?" and "What if Z happens?"
The interrogation is the point, without me having to wade through hundreds of lines of irrelevant code to get at the meat of the matter.
Personally I'm starting to see less and less "smart" people here, given how easily and quickly everyone jumps on random hype trains with very little investigation or thought put into it. And those who do investigate and put thought into it are then quickly down voted for being a hater. This forum has turned into almost like a FOMO echo chamber in a way.
I can read the room. Coding is going to go the way of some other disciplines where machines do most of the detail work and and we know stuff works by verification. There are other fields like this.
Do I like it or not? That doesn't really matter. I need a job, so I'm going to get good at the new way to ensure I continue to have a job. I consider this to be a smart thing to do for myself and my family.
I agree with the work changing more towards verification, but if the verification is one LLM reviewing another one, then that isn't really verification. At best you "assume", but you don't "verify".
Unfortunately I see a lot of (senior as well) engineers who think that just a vanilla LLM reviewing another LLM is sufficient, and my comment was directed towards those. If however you see the LLM era as needing more test support and systems than ever before in the form E2E tests and so forth, where "code review" as such becomes mostly irrelevant as you have such a strong test system in place that if that passes you can be sure it doesn't break anything for users, then yes, that's good.
What I mean is verification through testing, and perhaps other more formal means. This has happened to other engineering domains, yet us programmers have so much hubris that we think it can't happen to us. And everyone is throwing their toys out the cot because it looks like it is actually going to happen.
Code reviews may not even happen, or if they do, it'll be all automated, and the verification will be the key.
Ask anyone in the semiconductor industry when last they understood the design of those things.
zmmmmm · · focus · HN ↗
kstenerud · · focus · HN ↗
Until I fully understand what's going on, the PR doesn't move and my interrogation of the LLM doesn't end. My interaction is littered with "Explain X" and "How does this square with Y?" and "What if Z happens?"
The interrogation is the point, without me having to wade through hundreds of lines of irrelevant code to get at the meat of the matter.
askonomm · · focus · HN ↗
GlacierFox · · focus · HN ↗
askonomm · · focus · HN ↗
munksbeer · · focus · HN ↗
I can read the room. Coding is going to go the way of some other disciplines where machines do most of the detail work and and we know stuff works by verification. There are other fields like this.
Do I like it or not? That doesn't really matter. I need a job, so I'm going to get good at the new way to ensure I continue to have a job. I consider this to be a smart thing to do for myself and my family.
askonomm · · focus · HN ↗
Unfortunately I see a lot of (senior as well) engineers who think that just a vanilla LLM reviewing another LLM is sufficient, and my comment was directed towards those. If however you see the LLM era as needing more test support and systems than ever before in the form E2E tests and so forth, where "code review" as such becomes mostly irrelevant as you have such a strong test system in place that if that passes you can be sure it doesn't break anything for users, then yes, that's good.
munksbeer · · focus · HN ↗
Code reviews may not even happen, or if they do, it'll be all automated, and the verification will be the key.
Ask anyone in the semiconductor industry when last they understood the design of those things.