David BeazleyFeb 26

So, I wonder which is harder to understand?

In one corner: A million lines of code from a CMM Level 4 organization generated by Rational Rose.

In the other corner: A million lines of code vibe-generated by four levels of agents.

LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE!!! .... Ding!

Show threadDavid BeazleyFeb 26

Hearing about developers becoming exhausted by reading the output of LLMs has me wondering if it's exposed the fallacy of that whole "programmers spend more time reading code than writing it" trope.

No, they don't. And they never have.

Oh, sure, developers spend a lot more time "seeing" code than writing it. I'll give you that. Kind of in the same way that someone looking out the window while riding on a train is going to see far more gardens than they'll personally ever plant.

Show threadDavid Beazley
Sometime people ask me why I don't want to do any more "expert witness" gigs. The main reason is that it was entirely focused on reading code. Actually *reading* code that I didn't write and trying to understand what it was doing. It was exhausting as all hell. No. I don't need that kind of day-to-day stress.
Feb 26 at 11:50amWeb
Show threadDavid BeazleyFeb 26

This seems interesting and relevant to my exhaustion comment.

Source: https://jenniferplusplus.com/what-is-a-token/

Show threadDavid BeazleyFeb 26

If I install a third party package on a project, I'm probably not going to look at its code at all. Similarly, for a coworker, I'm probably not going to look all that closely at their code either.

In both situations, I'm starting from a place of "trust" which is very different than starting from a place of "suspicion."

In any case, having to keep an eagle-eye on everything all of the time doesn't seem very enjoyable to me.

Show threadRobert BrewerFeb 26
@dabeaz This is all I've really ever wanted from a job (mostly lucky to have found it). It takes work to maintain a high-trust environment, the most important and difficult being fighting off the religions that want to turn you into a low-trust environment.
Show threada wandering happenstanceFeb 26
@dabeaz it’s a very libertarian mode of victim blaming. “Harmed by a bug in someone else’s code? You shoulda reviewed it. Poisoned by salmonella in your lettuce? You shoulda had it tested. Chump.”
Show threadDavid BeazleyFeb 26
@joXn Those who don't heat their lettuce to 165F get what they deserve to be honest.
Show threadMarcos DioneFeb 27
@dabeaz in my recent experience, we do read a lot of code, based on all the cross reviews we do. This allows us to build that trust (or lack thereof) more rapidly.
Show threadOmar AntolínFeb 26
@dabeaz I can understand that, it definitely sounds exhausting. But hey, at least you got one the best programming talks ever given out of that kind of work! You know what? I'm gonna go rewatch it right now. https://youtu.be/RZ4Sn-Y7AP8
David Beazley: Discovering Python - PyCon 2014

Speaker: David BeazleySo, what happens when you lock a Python programmer in a secret vault containing 1.5 TBytes of C++ source code and no internet connectio...

YouTube
Show threadOmar AntolínFeb 26
@dabeaz I finished rewatching it and confirmed my opinion: it's a great story very well told and there's lots of wisdom sprinkled throughout.10/10, will watch again.
Show threadOwen NelsonFeb 26
@dabeaz I'm impressed that people are asking this
Show threadChristopher NeugebauerFeb 26
@dabeaz that naur paper I've been ranting about lately suggests that the most important act of programming is *modification* -- the understanding lies in what the program does, rather than just how it's written
Show threadCalebFeb 26
@dabeaz I have to do a lot of reviews of ai-assisted changes in an older codebase where I wrote a lot of the code. Surprisingly, but in hindsight understandable, the coding agents mimic the style of the surrounding code when they make changes. So it turns out the code sometimes feels like mine. I didn't expect that.