Re:AI usage generates a fragile codebase
by thisisnotgreat on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @07:24AM
(#50439333)
Well, it's a nice thought-stopper by now, but IME it requires more and I can see the oldschool devs struggling with it every day.
Every once in a while I go "manual". It's restful and entertaining to write syntax by hand. It has this peculiar dare I say autistic delight, sorting the colored blocks and getting a little kick out of it. I understand the nostalgia but the progress is breathtakingly slow - as expected. You cannot do 6502 assembly by hand and expect to be fast in any meaningful sense of the word.
I usually juggle four, five active projects at a time and make days worth of manual progress on them in a morning. Support calls and colleagues questions interject occasionally. It's much more work than before, but I like it because dev work is super boring and now it's getting more interesting.
Like many people try to say AI is raising the bar. What we call normal software now will be childrens' toys tomorrow. The world expects ambitious projects, stuff that is hard and stands out.
Every once in a while I go "manual". It's restful and entertaining to write syntax by hand. It has this peculiar dare I say autistic delight, sorting the colored blocks and getting a little kick out of it. I understand the nostalgia but the progress is breathtakingly slow - as expected. You cannot do 6502 assembly by hand and expect to be fast in any meaningful sense of the word.
I usually juggle four, five active projects at a time and make days worth of manual progress on them in a morning. Support calls and colleagues questions interject occasionally. It's much more work than before, but I like it because dev work is super boring and now it's getting more interesting.
Like many people try to say AI is raising the bar. What we call normal software now will be childrens' toys tomorrow. The world expects ambitious projects, stuff that is hard and stands out.