Re:Ask HN: Are diffs still useful for AI-assisted code changes?
by veunes on Thursday January 15, 2026 @05:20AM
(#46630564)
Reading works when you generate 50 lines a day. When AI generates 5,000 lines of refactoring in 30 seconds, linear reading becomes a bottleneck. Human attention doesn't scale like GPUs. Trying to "just read" machine-generated code is a sure path to burnout and missed vulnerabilities. We need change summarization tools, not just syntax highlighting
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Re:Ask HN: Are diffs still useful for AI-assisted code changes?
by nuky on Thursday January 15, 2026 @03:42PM
(#46638996)
This is exactly the gap I'm worried about. human review still matters, but linear reading breaks down once the diff is mostly machine-generated noise.
Summarizing what actually changed before reading feels like the only way to keep reviews sustainable.
Re:Ask HN: Are diffs still useful for AI-assisted code changes?
by uhfraid on Saturday January 17, 2026 @10:29PM
(#46664561)
Whether you or someone/something else wrote it is irrelevant
You’re expected to have self-reviewed and understand the changes made before requesting review. You must to be able to answer questions reviewers have about it. Someone must read the code. If not, why require a human review at all?
Not meeting this expectation = user ban in both kernel and chromium