AI makes tech debt more expensive

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466 points 0x63_Problems | 2 comments | 14 Nov 24 16:01 UTC | HN request time: 0.416s | source

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inSenCite ◴[14 Nov 24 22:47 UTC] No.42142037[source]▶

On one hand I agree with this conceptually, but on the other hand I've also been able to use AI to rapidly clean up and better structure a bunch of my existing code.

The blind copy-paste has generally been a bad idea though. Still need to read the code spit out, ask for explanations, do some iterating.

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1. physicles ◴[15 Nov 24 01:53 UTC] No.42143257[source]▶

>>42142037 #

Do you mind getting into specifics about how you've been using AI to restructure your code? What tools are you using, and how large is the code base you're working with?

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2. inSenCite ◴[16 Nov 24 03:44 UTC] No.42153961[source]▶

>>42143257 (TP) #

Using a combination of both chatgpt and claude/sonnet. Codebase is not very complex or cutting edge (e.g., data pipeline to maintain a local db, and an analytics system). These are not enterprise or even public facing applications.

For additional context I have not been a software engineer professionally for over a decade but still am in the engineering field.

Usually I will feed in a few functions (or just 1), sometimes a whole module if it small enough, and prompt it for general performance, and maintainability improvements. I just kinda iterate from there. I also restart chats often

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