alt Hacker NewsI also wrote a recipe simplifying website, so this is a fun project to see. Incredible work!
Probably the main value engineers have for a maintenance project is context. I wonder what happens when we fully cede context to the machines...
Today, I got a request at work for a feature ("let's offer coupons!") that I thought would take a week. That was until I found out that another engineer wrote most of the code last year, and it'd take him a day to dust off.
I'm totally onboard with, and grateful for, larger-scale experiments like this...thanks for putting the effort in. I wonder how well Cursor (or similar) would handle a situation in which large amounts of code are _almost_ being used. What if 3k LOC accidentally get duplicated? Can our automated systems understand that and fix it? Because if they can't, a human is going to spend a _long_ time trying to figure out what happened.
Over the next 18 months, I expect we'll hear a few stories of the LLM accidentally reimplementing an entire feature in a separate code path. It's a whole new class of bugs! :D
I have similar thoughts and I have come to conclusion that that's the beauty and the curse of this technology. If one relies too much on it - it's gonna be a curse. However, if technology is used with care - it's a beauty. Not only does it keep SWE jobs "secure" - it really helps a lot for those who know what they are doing.
I think in the end AI will be more advanced tool, but a tool nonetheless. Like methodologies and principles, good practises etc. - they only work if you use it with care and added thought and adaptation to your case. DRY it a great principle. But sometimes it's better if you repeat yourself. For one reason or another. And these are the the tradeoffs that human in the loop should be making imho.