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Coding is NOT solved

Disclaimer: you are about to read a lot of opinions, many of them have references but some are the result of my own experience building with AI and building AI systems in the past 4 years. Regardless, beware of the straw-man fallacy: just because one argument doesn’t map to your belief system, it doesn’t mean the rest are invalid. I should also say upfront that I’m not anti-AI. If you’ve been following my work, you know that I was an early adopter of not only using LLM-powered coding tools, but building my own harness, teaching these topics and building LLM-powered products. It’s not about fear of AI but rather challenging the brain-dead narrative that asserts “coding is solved” and engineering is about “taste” now. Update: someone put this on Hackernews. Tell me you don’t understand software without literally using those words!!!

People who claim “LLMs can write decent code”

People who claim “LLMs can write decent code” don’t understand how code works. Sure, creation is much cheaper, but anyone who has run software in production at scale knows that maintenance, reliability, security, scalability, etc. is the majority of the cost. These are commonly known as NFR (non-functional requirements).

In my experience even the Functional Requirements (what

In my experience even the Functional Requirements (what the code is supposed to do) is NOT a solved problem yet. There’s a bit of Dunning-Kruger effect at place where the people who don’t read the output are more confident in it.

As a veteran developer holding 2 engineering degrees

As a veteran developer holding 2 engineering degrees (hardware and systems engineering), I can list 3 types of products that do not strictly require reading the code: Personal software: scratching an itch, automation, DIY patches, etc. Personal software: scratching an itch, automation, DIY patches, etc. POC (proof of concept): demonstrating technical feasibility and product viability POC (proof of concept): demonstrating technical feasibility and product viability Weaponized AI: acknowledge the risk and deliberately point it at a target to cause harm Weaponized AI: acknowledge the risk and deliberately point it at a target to cause harm Notice the commonality: the first 2 have high risk tolerance while the last one weaponizes the inherent risk.

Most software that requires hiring and paying software

Most software that requires hiring and paying software engineers has low risk tolerance: …wherever a mistake can cost money, lives or legal consequences you need accountability.

AI cannot be held accountable. It cannot suffer

AI cannot be held accountable. It cannot suffer any consequences. The worst thing you can do to AI is to unplug it. And although it mimics human emotions (due to training data), it couldn’t care less. AI doesn’t die either. It cannot suffer a prison sentence or fines. You cannot punish AI, therefore it can never be held accountable.

You cannot be responsible for what you can’t

You cannot be responsible for what you can’t control either. That understanding is key to reasoning about system behavior and fixing it when the AI inevitably fails.

If you’re toying around, LLMs do a great

If you’re toying around, LLMs do a great job. That’s why some of the most aggressive proponents of the “coding is solved” narrative have nothing to show for it. Anthropic accidentally leaked Claude Code (which on further study turned out to have many flaws) and their status page shows orange is the new green! Why coding is NOT solved?

Contrary to common narrative, coding is actually one

Contrary to common narrative, coding is actually one of the last areas for the current generation of LLMs to take over!!!

Coding is about logic. Anyone who has dealt

Coding is about logic. Anyone who has dealt with compiler errors knows that computers don’t give a f*** about how right you think you are. If it’s logically wrong, it doesn’t compile. Even if the syntax is fine, there are runtime errors.

News

Coding is NOT solved

Disclaimer: you are about to read a lot of opinions, many of them have references but some are the result of my own experience building with AI and building AI systems in the past 4 years.

@spots

Source: Hacker News

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