I'm actively watching understanding slip away from developers, code review getting paired down to no comment checkmarks, and codebases go to bloated messes that nobody can read. Axioms like engineers must understand and take responsibility for the code they ship are getting torn down, and the products coming out are reflecting conway's law, becoming impenetrably obtuse and always "so complex there are no obvious deficiencies" (as opposed to "so simple there are no obvious deficiencies" which used to be the aim).
The one thing plan mode helped is for the humans to get an understanding of the strategy, and be able to poke around and look at the design and architecture. You can achieve this with some self discipline and keeping shorter leashes on agents, but it feels like a losing battle. The best devs still put out good code, but the poor devs are learning nothing while their metrics look great. I can't help but think we are racking up immense amounts of debt that will very soon become due.
> The best devs still put out good code, but the poor devs are learning nothing while their metrics look great. I can't help but think we are racking up immense amounts of debt that will very soon become due.
I agree with this, but the reality is that it's only the result of models empowering devs, and power in good hands amplifies positive results while power in mediocre hands amplifies technical debt.
It's a good time to choose wisely who you work with.
> It's a good time to choose wisely who you work with.
Very true, but this also makes me think what kind of ridiculous obstacle course future hiring process would look like.
In a land where anyone with a pulse can prompt AI to make an app for them - how would future hiring managers and team leads figure out who will drag codebase down with tech debt and who wouldn't?
Probably the same way they have for the last 30 years: poorly, in a dozen different ways, depending on what that particular hiring manager thinks has correlated with successful hiring in the past
I can imagine a code review where you're asked to implement and merge 10 PR in a sample codebase and the codebase is littered with the sorts of mistakes and slop that vibe coders put in when they're careless and you're asked to correct the mess and make it work.
Future hiring will select for people that shipped the most, plain and simple.
The tech debt concerns are much ado about nothing. Use the next model to clean it up, big deal. Code is cheap.
The people that sat around handwringing about tech debt and trying to read every line of LLM code will really struggle to find a job. The profession fundamentally changed, and these people did not catch up.
Of course you shouldn't evaluate people by tokens, you should evaluate them by what they ship. Did it matter to the business? Did it ship fast? Did they build what was needed?
> The people that sat around handwringing about tech debt and trying to read every line of LLM code will really struggle to find a job. The profession fundamentally changed, and these people did not catch up.
I'm inclined to agree - the latest models seem to have crossed a threshold where trying to review by hand becomes akin to a manager insisting on reviewing PRs.
taurath · · focus · HN ↗
The one thing plan mode helped is for the humans to get an understanding of the strategy, and be able to poke around and look at the design and architecture. You can achieve this with some self discipline and keeping shorter leashes on agents, but it feels like a losing battle. The best devs still put out good code, but the poor devs are learning nothing while their metrics look great. I can't help but think we are racking up immense amounts of debt that will very soon become due.
Daishiman · · focus · HN ↗
I agree with this, but the reality is that it's only the result of models empowering devs, and power in good hands amplifies positive results while power in mediocre hands amplifies technical debt.
It's a good time to choose wisely who you work with.
Ronsenshi · · focus · HN ↗
Very true, but this also makes me think what kind of ridiculous obstacle course future hiring process would look like.
In a land where anyone with a pulse can prompt AI to make an app for them - how would future hiring managers and team leads figure out who will drag codebase down with tech debt and who wouldn't?
jmb99 · · focus · HN ↗
Daishiman · · focus · HN ↗
solenoid0937 · · focus · HN ↗
The tech debt concerns are much ado about nothing. Use the next model to clean it up, big deal. Code is cheap.
The people that sat around handwringing about tech debt and trying to read every line of LLM code will really struggle to find a job. The profession fundamentally changed, and these people did not catch up.
Ronsenshi · · focus · HN ↗
I think there has to be a better rubric by which person would be evaluated, not just amount of tokens they managed to waste.
solenoid0937 · · focus · HN ↗
not_kurt_godel · · focus · HN ↗
I'm inclined to agree - the latest models seem to have crossed a threshold where trying to review by hand becomes akin to a manager insisting on reviewing PRs.