Thread

1. bschwindHN · 1790319591 · focus · HN ↗

   So are we just letting go and having clankers write everything now while we have other clankers "explain" it to us? Just collectively, "fuck it" ?

   The software I use day to day is just getting worse and worse, and I can only guess that AI is accelerating that problem. Like I can barely convince spotify to play a full album anymore without it "failing to play a song", crashing, or play without audio underruns. We're so screwed if we can't even play audio smoothly in 2026.

   Sorry, just ranting. But I see tools like this that are basically encouraging people to "let go" of understanding what exactly your code is doing, and continue to let the robot pile more and more code on top of the bad abstractions we already have.

   1. sidharthkmenon · 1790625139 · focus · HN ↗

      hmm - I think we care about the same problems you do ("software I use day to day is just getting worse and worse"). and pandora's box is already open with getting AI to write code - it's just so much faster than us.

      but i think being a "good software engineer" was never really about the writing code part though - it was in the craft of designing systems, making sure that they were designed thoughtfully and are extensible etc.

      fwiw Whiteboard is our stab at helping to fix this problem. we put a lot of effort into the diff viewer, tying the diagrams into the actual code, etc. so you can make sure you're not shipping slop. the point is to not have the agent "explain" it to you with a wall of slop, but instead to give you the tools so the diffs themselves feel approachable. the Whiteboard surface is meant as a springboard into the code underneath.

      At least spiritually, this tool is definitely NOT meant for folks to let go of understanding the code. It's meant at tackling precisely the opposite problem - understanding the code still while still working with your agents.

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.