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AI makes tech debt more expensive

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466 points 0x63_Problems | 4 comments | 14 Nov 24 16:01 UTC | HN request time: 0.602s | source
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mkleczek ◴[14 Nov 24 18:19 UTC] No.42139318[source]▶
It is a self-reinforcing pattern: the easier it is to generate code, the more code is generated. The more code is generated, the bigger the cost of maintenance is (and the relationship is super-linear).

So every time we generate the same boilerplate we really do copy/paste adding to maintenance costs.

We are amazed looking at the code generation capabilities of LLMs forgetting the goal is to have less code - not more.

replies(1): >>42139365 #
1. madeofpalk ◴[14 Nov 24 18:22 UTC] No.42139365[source]▶
My experience is the opposite - I find large blobs of generated code to be daunting, so I tend to pretty quickly reject them and either write something smaller by hand, or reprompt (in one way for another) for less, easier to review code.
replies(2): >>42139414 #>>42140053 #
2. mkleczek ◴[14 Nov 24 18:26 UTC] No.42139414[source]▶
And what do you do with the generated code?

Do you package it in a reusable library so that you don't have to do the same prompting again?

Or rather - just because it is so easy to do - you don't bother?

If that's the later - that's exactly the pattern I am talking about.

3. munk-a ◴[14 Nov 24 19:20 UTC] No.42140053[source]▶
You are an excellent user of AI code generation - but your habit is absolutely not the norm and other developers will throw in paragraphs of AI slop mindlessly.
replies(1): >>42141501 #
4. ◴[14 Nov 24 21:37 UTC] No.42141501[source]▶