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AI Has No Wisdom and Neither Will You

388 points · 554 comments · dimonomid

  1. skybrian · · focus · HN ↗
    You can still read the code, ask the AI questions about it, and ask it to fix things. Coding agents are a power tool for cleaning up codebases, but you have to ask for the right cleanups, which means figuring out what it is based on your understanding. (You can also ask the AI to suggest ideas.)

    This takes time away from implementing new features, but that’s true of all code health maintenance.

    1. kkapelon · · focus · HN ↗
      > You can still read the code, ask the AI questions about it, and ask it to fix things

      This only works in small projects. For large projects, it is close to impossible. Everybody talks about how new models appear all the time and nobody comments on the fact that context size has almost stalled.

      1. skybrian · · focus · HN ↗
        Yes, it's certainly possible to generate code faster than you can clean it up. That's a choice. (Often called technical debt.)
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