There's a continuum between "vibe coded by someone with no technical knowledge or inclination" and "hand written domain driven design development". You can absolutely use coding agents AND have maintainable code. But yes, the coding agents will not magically make everything maintainable if you don't tell them to.
"Code maintainability and good architecture don’t have good measurements that we can apply"
Who has no wisdom? There are dozens of ways to measure code maintainability. Cyclomatic complexity is just one.
Nothing stops you from wiring up something like SonarQube metrics to your agentic coding workflow.
> You can absolutely use coding agents AND have maintainable code. But yes, the coding agents will not magically make everything maintainable if you don't tell them to.
The trillion dollar question is how you do this, if your employees do not care (they are optimising for salary & time spent not code quality) and you have no way of telling apart AI slop vs. good maintainable code. (If you could you would just train the AI.)
Before AI there was at least some way to tell apart good programmers from bad, because there was some human effort involved in coding. Now with AI and slop generation there is almost now way to do this.
> if your employees do not care (they are optimising for salary & time spent not code quality)...
From what I see is it's mainly managers and higher brass who doesn't care about code quality and sustainability, and aims to drive time to market metrics down aggressively with AI.
Any employee who cares about code quality will become a poor performer with a red luddite label because they dare to change what the AI has emitted for them.
I'd love to be wrong, very wrong about this, actually.
> Any employee who cares about code quality will become a poor performer with a red luddite label because they dare to change what the AI has emitted for them.
I think that's true but it's a special case. AI is here to stay and with AI coding IS faster and quality is better than ever before. Ideally you want your luddite fired along with the slop generators and keep the ones who are using AI and taking their time to deliver a maintainable code.
Chances are high the luddite is the one with the deepest understanding about the product and the code base - the one who is actually passionate about the project and actually cares.
And unless you have ownership level stake in the company, you *shouldnt* care about what happens downstream of selling labor to the company. Yes, I highly recommend 8 and skate.
Ive seen soooo many people burnt out, or "ive given years to the company and i got hit with layoffs", or "$200 software would have saved $1000000 when I brought it up to them". And companies will throw you away the MOMENT your usefulness is gone, even if just perceived. So, use them just as much as they use you.
And that idea of slacker is ALSO a way to generate more money for you, by slyly withholding or slowing work. I didnt get my paltry 3% last year. Inflation up 15% or whatever stupid number. But I can control how much work I do, so my effective wage/hour stays with inflation.
Save your caring for your personal projects, nonprofits you help at, your and family/friends labor you help with.
With some. You insisted, so let's get into the details.
1. Caring about the company when you are a worker and not owner?
Yes and no. I don't care about the company. I do care about what I do. It's a self-respect matter. I do good work not because I'm a slave to company, but because of self respect. My deal is simple: "I'll do my best to produce the best artifact and push the company further as long as it doesn't conflict with my personal principles, you'll buy that time for that amount of money".
I have a simple, foundational rule: I'll sleep sound at night, and this rule is rooted in my ethics. So, I don't shortchange anyone, incl. my employer. If terms change between us, we will discuss, but this probability is not a reason to do shitty work (or optimize for money, or which sugarcoated absurdity others name this).
2. Companies will throw away/layoff people with no notice?
Yes, this is bad. This is life. It's not nice, fair or acceptable, but without unionization, you can't act against this. So, you either try to change this or you just accept it. Realities of work life is not a predicament to shortchange your employer again.
This is as absurd as saying "I'll die anyway, why do all these things? I can just die on-demand".
Meaningless...
3. Work slowage (work-to-rule) as a counter to low/no pay raises in accordance to general inflation
We can accept that, but you all shall really unionize. It's not scary. Try organizing. It's a force multiplier.
4. Invest emotional and physical labor in ventures you gain completely out of
Everybody should have hobbies either productive or unproductive. I can't find the question.
There are companies where you can spend years doing as you describe. More and more, though, you’re competing with people who care even though they don’t own, put in the same effort YoY, and invest in their job. Companies love these employees.
So I guess it really depends on your values and what you want out of life. If you enjoy hobbies and time outside of work, sure find a job where you can coast. Don’t get frustrated when you get laid off just find another place to work. Etc.
Plenty of people want to grow within the industry and build a career, though. And many have what we call basic self-respect and care about how they are perceived.
That could be the case. But if other companies figure out a way to deliver good code with AI, then the company with the luddites is going bankrupt. Luddites are better than slop generators, but both are worse against a developer with AI who actually cares and has a deep understanding of the code base and programming.
Well, and that's how you get enshittification everywhere. Everyone just cares about time to market, consumers are left to drown among a sea of slop, and honest businesses go down because they cannot stand a chance against slop peddlers flush with VC money.
Enshittification happens after the company was quick to deliver a working solution. They successfully captured the market, killed off the competition and now they are ready to start milking the customers who have no other choice.
AI slop can actually help with this, because it reduces the cost of replacing their enshittificated software.
The reason its hard to dethrone Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, etc. Is not because it's hard to recreate the software (it may or may not be) it's because of network effects, budgets, etc.
Maybe? This does not seem to be in evidence to me. In my experience thus far, this seems to be way more of a personality and ideology split than a depth of understanding split. On my teams thus far, I've seen the deepest experts land on opposite sides of this question.
davedx · · focus · HN ↗
"Code maintainability and good architecture don’t have good measurements that we can apply"
Who has no wisdom? There are dozens of ways to measure code maintainability. Cyclomatic complexity is just one.
Nothing stops you from wiring up something like SonarQube metrics to your agentic coding workflow.
abroszka33 · · focus · HN ↗
The trillion dollar question is how you do this, if your employees do not care (they are optimising for salary & time spent not code quality) and you have no way of telling apart AI slop vs. good maintainable code. (If you could you would just train the AI.)
Before AI there was at least some way to tell apart good programmers from bad, because there was some human effort involved in coding. Now with AI and slop generation there is almost now way to do this.
bayindirh · · focus · HN ↗
From what I see is it's mainly managers and higher brass who doesn't care about code quality and sustainability, and aims to drive time to market metrics down aggressively with AI.
Any employee who cares about code quality will become a poor performer with a red luddite label because they dare to change what the AI has emitted for them.
I'd love to be wrong, very wrong about this, actually.
abroszka33 · · focus · HN ↗
I think that's true but it's a special case. AI is here to stay and with AI coding IS faster and quality is better than ever before. Ideally you want your luddite fired along with the slop generators and keep the ones who are using AI and taking their time to deliver a maintainable code.
mschuster91 · · focus · HN ↗
nekusar · · focus · HN ↗
Ive seen soooo many people burnt out, or "ive given years to the company and i got hit with layoffs", or "$200 software would have saved $1000000 when I brought it up to them". And companies will throw you away the MOMENT your usefulness is gone, even if just perceived. So, use them just as much as they use you.
And that idea of slacker is ALSO a way to generate more money for you, by slyly withholding or slowing work. I didnt get my paltry 3% last year. Inflation up 15% or whatever stupid number. But I can control how much work I do, so my effective wage/hour stays with inflation.
Save your caring for your personal projects, nonprofits you help at, your and family/friends labor you help with.
bayindirh · · focus · HN ↗
nekusar · · focus · HN ↗
1. Caring about the company when you are a worker and not owner?
2. Companies will throw away/layoff people with no notice?
3. Work slowage (work-to-rule) as a counter to low/no pay raises in accordance to general inflation
4. Invest emotional and physical labor in ventures you gain completely out of
bayindirh · · focus · HN ↗
1. Caring about the company when you are a worker and not owner?
Yes and no. I don't care about the company. I do care about what I do. It's a self-respect matter. I do good work not because I'm a slave to company, but because of self respect. My deal is simple: "I'll do my best to produce the best artifact and push the company further as long as it doesn't conflict with my personal principles, you'll buy that time for that amount of money".
I have a simple, foundational rule: I'll sleep sound at night, and this rule is rooted in my ethics. So, I don't shortchange anyone, incl. my employer. If terms change between us, we will discuss, but this probability is not a reason to do shitty work (or optimize for money, or which sugarcoated absurdity others name this).
2. Companies will throw away/layoff people with no notice?
Yes, this is bad. This is life. It's not nice, fair or acceptable, but without unionization, you can't act against this. So, you either try to change this or you just accept it. Realities of work life is not a predicament to shortchange your employer again.
This is as absurd as saying "I'll die anyway, why do all these things? I can just die on-demand".
Meaningless...
3. Work slowage (work-to-rule) as a counter to low/no pay raises in accordance to general inflation
We can accept that, but you all shall really unionize. It's not scary. Try organizing. It's a force multiplier.
4. Invest emotional and physical labor in ventures you gain completely out of
Everybody should have hobbies either productive or unproductive. I can't find the question.
dcow · · focus · HN ↗
There are companies where you can spend years doing as you describe. More and more, though, you’re competing with people who care even though they don’t own, put in the same effort YoY, and invest in their job. Companies love these employees.
So I guess it really depends on your values and what you want out of life. If you enjoy hobbies and time outside of work, sure find a job where you can coast. Don’t get frustrated when you get laid off just find another place to work. Etc.
Plenty of people want to grow within the industry and build a career, though. And many have what we call basic self-respect and care about how they are perceived.
abroszka33 · · focus · HN ↗
zxor · · focus · HN ↗
I don't think companies are living and dying, by how much code they can produce. Even tech companies.
abroszka33 · · focus · HN ↗
mschuster91 · · focus · HN ↗
sanderjd · · focus · HN ↗
mschuster91 · · focus · HN ↗
abroszka33 · · focus · HN ↗
AI slop can actually help with this, because it reduces the cost of replacing their enshittificated software.
zxor · · focus · HN ↗
The reason its hard to dethrone Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, etc. Is not because it's hard to recreate the software (it may or may not be) it's because of network effects, budgets, etc.
sanderjd · · focus · HN ↗