> The trick to getting good at using LLMs for software is to learn how to make _all_ projects low-stakes.

this doesn't really work in the real world. There are many things that actually matter, engineering is fundamentally about handling them.

> I am becoming a better architect with AI, because I am spending more mental energy in that lane, getting less embroiled in the nitty-gritty of the code.

I don't believe this, every architect ive ever worked with that was not regularly in the weeds on various things in the codebase were universally terrible and out of touch.

I will pick the software not existing at all every time. Easily without a thought.

I think that's an absurd thing to believe, but if we've moved beyond "I don't understand" to "I don't agree" then my post served its purpose.

I'm not following what "I dont understand" would entail here. The choice is fairly binary.

Then ask the guy I was replying to and not me.

> More people building things is straightforwardly good

No it's not, its the opposite actually its very bad and leads to far far more noise in the system to sort through to find value as someone who's competent.

Ya it's definitely been an ongoing process. LLMs have just accelerated it.

I am not joking when I say that software craftsmen lost the war when tabs vs spaces was obviated as a point of contention by CI enforced formatting and linting around broader community standards.

Do you ever actually think during this process? or could I train a monkey to do this same activity with the same outcomes?

Of course I think. I have 20 years of coding experience and knowledge of the codebase and business. That’s why I’m keenly aware of how strange the process is.

What I’d like to know is how you’d train a monkey to read and judge output from an llm on a pull request.

Here we go again

I read this as im "reviewing" a 100% claude generated ten page incident RCA report. It's mostly wrong but bringing that up is not useful so just rubber stamp and move on.

we as a culture will gradually find a resting place here in regards to "proof of work" but it will be a painful decade in the meantime.

I’m finding that companies are starting to be way less lenient to that.

Nobody wants to consume slop.

"Created the nuke" is the best framing. Detonated a WMD on the field of rigorous practice.