Comment by smaudet
> But no template based generator could write that code, even though it's fairly trivial
Not true at all, in fact this sort of thing used to happen all the time 10 years ago, code reading APIs and generating clients...
> He doesn't need to make the AI written code work, and so he doesn't need to spend a lot of time reading the AI written code - he can skim it for any sign it looks even faintly off and just kill it if that's the case instead of spending more time on it.
I think you are missing the point as well, that's still review, that's still being on the hook.
Words like "skim" and "kill" are the problem here, not a solution. They point to a broken process that looks like its working...until it doesn't.
But I hear you say "all software works like that", well, yes, to some degree. The difference being, one you hopefully actually wrote and have some idea what's going wrong, the other one?
Well, you just have to sort of hope it works and when it doesn't, well you said it yourself. Your code was garbage anyways, time to "kill" it and generate some new slop...
> Not true at all, in fact this sort of thing used to happen all the time 10 years ago, code reading APIs and generating clients...
Where is this template based code generator that can read my code, understand it, and generate a full client including a CLI, that include knowing how to format the data, and implement the required protocols?
I'm 30 years of development, I've seen nothing like it.
> I think you are missing the point as well, that's still review, that's still being on the hook.
I don't know if you're being intentionally obtuse, or what, but while, yes, you're on the hook for the final deliverable, you're not on the hook for fixing a specific instance of code, because you can just throw it away and have the AI do it all over.
The point you seem intent on missing is that the cost of throwing out the work of another developer is high, while the cost of throwing out the work of an AI assistant is next to nothing, and so where you need to carefully review a co-workers code because throwing it away and starting over from scratch is rarely an option, with AI generated code you can do that at the slightest whiff of an issue.
> Words like "skim" and "kill" are the problem here, not a solution. They point to a broken process that looks like its working...until it doesn't.
No, they are not a problem at all. They point to a difference in opportunity cost. If the rate at which you kill code is too high, it's a problem irrespective of source. But the point is that this rate can be much higher for AI code than for co-workers before it becomes a problem, because the cost of starting over is orders of magnitude different, and this allows for a very different way of treating code.
> Well, you just have to sort of hope it works and when it doesn't
No, I don't "hope it works" - I have tests.