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0 pointsjoshstrange9mo ago0 comments

> Yeah... My company is making these tools mandatory and I suspect they are collecting metrics to see who is using them and how much

I'm sorry to hear this. I have encouraged the developers I manage to try out the tools but we're no where close to "forcing" anyone to use them. It hasn't come up yet but I'll be pushing back hard on any code that is clearly LLM-generated, especially if the developer who "wrote" it can't explain what's happening. Understanding and _owning_ the code the LLMs generate is part of it, "ChatGPT said..." or "Cursor wrote..." are not valid sentence starters to question like "Why did you do it this way?". LLM-washing (or whatever you want to call it) will not be tolerated, if you commit it, you are responsible for it.

> It's been very stressful and overall an extremely negative experience for me, which is made worse when I read the constant cheerleading online, and the "You're just using it wrong" criticisms of my negative experience

I hate hearing this because there are plenty of people writing blog posts or making youtube videos about how they are 10000x-ing their workflow. I think most of those people are completely full of it. I do believe it can be done (managing multiple Claude Code or similar instance running) but it turns you into a code reviewer and because you've already ceded so much control to the LLM it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking "One more back and forth and the LLM will get it" (cut to 10+ back and forths later when you need to pull the ripcord and reset back to the start).

Copilot and short suggestions (no prompting from me, just it suggesting in-line the next few lines) are the sweet spot for me. I fear many people are incorrectly extrapolating LLM capability. "Because I prompted my way to a POC then clearly an LLM would have no problem adding a simple feature to my existing code base" - Not so, not by a longshot.

0 comments

bluefirebrand9mo ago

> it turns you into a code reviewer

Yes. Not only is this the least enjoyable part of the job in general for me, I think it is a task that a lot of devs, even pretty diligent ones, wind up half assing

I personally don't mind reviewing coworkers code because I think it is an opportunity to mentor and learn, but that is not really the case with LLM generated code. That code review becomes purely "Does this do what I want and does it match the style guide"

I would much rather LLMs review my code than the other way around. Unfortunately even that workflow is more annoying than anything, because the LLM is often not a good reviewer either

I think I just expect more reliability out of the tools I use.

joshstrangeOP9mo ago

I completely agree, I’m not anti-code review but it’s by far the least enjoyable part of my job. It’s never going to give you same understanding that getting into the code will.

That’s acceptable when there is another human who _does_ understand the code (they wrote it) and someone who can learn and grow via the code review process.

None of that applies for LLM-generate code.

In many cases if it fails at the task, it’s much easier for me to just do it myself than to go a couple more rounds with the LLM (cause it’s almost never as easy as a normally code review, you have to prompt better and be more explicit).

That my biggest annoyance with Claude Code/Aider, always feeling like I’m 1 prompt away from everything slotting into place. When, in reality, each time I get back on the merry-go-round it might fix 1 thing and then break another. Or it’s “fix” might be absurd (“I’ll just cast this so it’s the right type” :facepalm:).

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