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structurallast Tuesday at 6:26 PM2 repliesview on HN

Yes, but my junior coworkers also don't reliably do edge case testing for user errors either unless specifically tasked to do so, likely with a checklist of specific kinds of user errors they need to check for.

And it turns out the quality of output you get from both the humans and the models is highly correlated with the quality of the specification you write before you start coding.

Letting a model run amok within the constraints of your spec is actually great for specification development! You get instant feedback of what you wrongly specified or underspecified. On top of this, you learn how to write specifications where critical information that needs to be used together isn't spread across thousands of pages - thinking about context windows when writing documentation is useful for both human and AI consumers.


Replies

sksishbslast Tuesday at 8:28 PM

The best specification is code. English is a very poor approximation.

I can’t get past that by the time I write up an adequate spec and review the agents code, I probably could have done it myself by hand. It’s not like typing was even remotely close to the slow part.

AI, agents, etc are insanely useful for enhancing my knowledge and getting me there faster.

ncruceslast Tuesday at 10:31 PM

How will those juniors ever grow up to be seniors now?

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