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.
> Your debit card transactions for example worked.
I've built payment rails. Six nines SLA, high capacity, resilient distributed systems.
I haven't written a single line of code since February, and I don't think I ever will again. These systems are incredibly good at replacing much of our work. They're only going to get better.
Rather than debating if these models are good (they are), we should be trying to figure out if most of us will still be around in three years. You don't need a two pizza team anymore.
"Look to the person to your left and to your right. Only one of you will remain by graduation" kind of energy. I'm not sure all of us is going to be in this career much longer. We'll have to see what the demand side looks like.
On the other, my local pool company is hiring a software engineer and hardware engineer because with AI, they can replace a 2 pizza team as you so succinctly put it. So no two pizza teams but that doesn't mean all the pizzas are gone, they're maybe going to be spread out and not concentrated in CA, between orgs you might not have thought as "tech" before.
efficax · · focus · HN ↗
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.
12ag5a · · focus · HN ↗
This sounds like a typical testimonial whose mind has become captive to Claude. It is like Scientology.
echelon · · focus · HN ↗
I've built payment rails. Six nines SLA, high capacity, resilient distributed systems.
I haven't written a single line of code since February, and I don't think I ever will again. These systems are incredibly good at replacing much of our work. They're only going to get better.
Rather than debating if these models are good (they are), we should be trying to figure out if most of us will still be around in three years. You don't need a two pizza team anymore.
"Look to the person to your left and to your right. Only one of you will remain by graduation" kind of energy. I'm not sure all of us is going to be in this career much longer. We'll have to see what the demand side looks like.
ModernMech · · focus · HN ↗
On the other, my local pool company is hiring a software engineer and hardware engineer because with AI, they can replace a 2 pizza team as you so succinctly put it. So no two pizza teams but that doesn't mean all the pizzas are gone, they're maybe going to be spread out and not concentrated in CA, between orgs you might not have thought as "tech" before.