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The Normalization of Inexplicable Failures

277 points · 124 comments · pxx

  1. adamddev1 · · focus · HN ↗
    Excellent post. People always defend agentic/LLM-driven development by saying, "Well it's good enough", or "It works most of the time."

    That may be tolerable for some user-facing app. But what if we start normalizing failures in the libraries, the infrastructure, and the compilers? Everything descends into a mess of unreliability, and that slows EVERYTHING and EVERYONE down.

    1. Root_Denied · · focus · HN ↗
      Banking/Finance is the one industry I've seen push back against this type of thinking. Transactions must be handled in a perfect and repeatable way, or the system is unusable as far as the company is concerned.

      There's definitely still AI/LLM integration happening, but is kept out of specific areas of the business.

      1. torben-friis · · focus · HN ↗
        I've been seeing the very opposite. Fintech companies treating design of financial systems with the casualness of a frontend aesthetic change. And tons of business people integrating their vibecoded POCs with financially sensitive data sources.
        1. Root_Denied · · focus · HN ↗
          Fintech != banking/finance, at least not necessarily.
          1. someonebaggy · · focus · HN ↗
            Would Fintech include orgs like Yotta Bank, Robinhood, Revolut that tried to do finance things with a tech attitude, whereas banking/finance is your more traditional HSBC, Deutsche Bank, etc?
            1. Root_Denied · · focus · HN ↗
              Yeah, Fintech is specifically the kind of startup and post-startup space. Companies that predate the DotCom Bust and GFC would be a decent delineator for banking/finance companies that aren't fintech.
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