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Coding is not solved

584 points · 544 comments · firstSpeaker

  1. efficax · · focus · HN ↗
    Reading the code does not mean you understand the code. One lesson that experience in software gave me: I never understood the code. You think it works a certain way, until you find out that it doesn't.

    What LLMs make possible is for me to say: find out all the ways this thing works. Analyze the different ways we can run this software, build a fuzzer, build property tests, and run this software in every scenario possible. Log full traces. Log all the outputs. Now, analyze each scenario for bugs. You can't do that by hand.

    If we are committed to it, if we put the resources towards it and dedicate the time to it (and we could do this just by saying: it will take half as long as it used to take!), software built by llms in healthcare, finance, automotive, defense, power plans, aviation, manufacturing can all be made MORE reliable and better with LLMs... without ever reading a single line of code. The LLMS are very good at logic, by the way.

    Anyway all of this reads like someone who is not actually using LLMs to build software or hasn't tried them in a while. I felt the same way in 2025. I've written 100s of thousands of lines of difficult code. You, the person reading this, has probably interacted with software I've written. For a time you would've interacted with it every time you made a debit card transaction in the united states, for example. I understand code, and care about quality, and that's why I'm all in on LLMs for code.

    1. 12ag5a · · focus · HN ↗
      Strange that the world worked before 2024 and software gets worse now. Your debit card transactions for example worked.

      This sounds like a typical testimonial whose mind has become captive to Claude. It is like Scientology.

      1. MattDamonSpace · · focus · HN ↗
        Yeah no one wrote buggy code before 2024 right
        1. lazystone · · focus · HN ↗
          And after 2024 all bugs cease to exist, right.
          1. ofjcihen · · focus · HN ↗
            No, but we’re spending insane amounts of money to essentially end up where we started.

            How can you not see the progress?!

            1. bluGill · · focus · HN ↗
              Huh? We are spending a lot of money. (which we were doing before). However we are fixing a lot of bugs. 2024 was not that long ago, it is insane to think we might have fixed all the bugs in that time. I have personally used an LLM to fix a few long standing rare bugs that were hard to figure out. Those bugs are now gone, but there are still many more that we haven't discovered.

              LLMs are a great thing for bug fixing. However they are not a miracle. You still need to do all the other things about finding, testing and fixing bugs.

              You also need to care about bugs - vibe coding rarely cares about bugs.

              1. ofjcihen · · focus · HN ↗
                Well sure, on the customer side. My money comment was regarding the incestuous spending circle going on that’s directly affecting the economy.
        2. [deleted] · · focus · HN ↗

          [deleted]

        3. quatotor · · focus · HN ↗

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