Guys, you can laugh at a joke. The AI doesn't win just because someone upvoted a meme. Maintainability of codebases has been a joke for longer than LLMs have been around because there's a lot of truth to it.

Even the most well intentioned design has weaknesses that we didn't see coming. Some of its abstractions are wrong. There are changes to the requirements and feature set that they didn't anticipate. They over engineered other parts that make them more difficult to navigate for no maintainability gain. That's ok. Perfectly maintainable code requires us to be psychics and none of us are.

[–] harsh3466@lemmy.ml 3 points 22 hours ago

I actually laughed out loud at this meme.

[–] GreenBeanMachine@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yes, but only I can maintain it.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 2 points 22 hours ago

I can maintain it. But I won't.

[–] SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works 34 points 1 day ago

No, so let's vibe unmaintainable code together!

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

10 PRINT 'Hello World!'

20 GOTO 10

[–] sexual_tomato@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

Infinite loop and hard coded magic constant; this should have a configurable timeout and a resource file the string is read from so we can internationalize the application. Additionally, the use of a goto with a hard coded line number is a runtime bug waiting to happen after unrelated refactors; it's best to use a looping construct that has more deterministic bounds.

[–] Shady_Shiroe@lemmy.world 32 points 1 day ago (10 children)

I might not be the best, but I can still do a better job than AI

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[–] PM_me_your_doggo@lemmy.world 2 points 22 hours ago

Yes. Also, my llms can do it too

[–] ViatorOmnium@piefed.social 207 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Yes, and so can most experienced developers. In fact unmaintainable human-written code is more often caused by organisational dysfunctions than by lack of individual competence.

[–] sexual_tomato@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 23 hours ago

Every bad decision in my code bases were because I didn't have enough time to do things the right way

[–] Samskara@sh.itjust.works 99 points 2 days ago (1 children)

In my experience there’s usually a confluence of individual and institutional failures.

It usually goes like this.

hotshot developers is hired at company with crappy software
hotshot dev pitches a complete rewrite that will solve all issues
complete rewrite is rejected
hotshot dev shoehorns a new architecture and trendy dependencies into the old codebase
hotshot new dev leaves
software is more complex, inconsistent, and still crappy

[–] ViatorOmnium@piefed.social 19 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

That's one of the failure modes, good orgs would have design and review processes to stop it.

There are other classics like arbitrary deadlines, conflicting and shifting requirements and product direction, perverse incentives, etc.

I would even say that the AI craze is a result of the latter.

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[–] jardee@ohpossum.ooo 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not in my case. I dont write spaghetti code, i write fettuchini code

[–] kindnesskills@literature.cafe 1 points 3 hours ago

I want to write gnocchi code, where each little nugget is good on its own and they still blend together perfectly in the sauce. But I still end up with mashed potato-code if I don't watch myself.

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 day ago

Yes. But the important thing is that now disfunctional organizations have access to tools to write unmaintainable code really fast.

[–] neukenindekeuken@sh.itjust.works 58 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I mean, yes, absolutely I can. So can my peers. I've been doing this for a long, long time, as have my peers.

The code we produce is many times more readable and maintainable than anything an LLM can produce today.

That doesn't mean LLMs are useless, and it also doesn't mean that we're irreplaceable. It just means this argument isn't very effective.

If you're comparing an LLM to a Junior developer? Then absolutely. Both produce about the same level of maintainable code.

But for Senior/Principal level engineers? I mean this without any humble bragging at all: but we run circles around LLMs from the optimization and maintainability standpoint, and it's not even close.

This may change in the future, but today it is true (and I use all the latest Claude Code models)

[–] sexual_tomato@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

With LLMs I get work done about 3-5x faster. Same level of maintainability and readability I'd have gotten writing it myself. Where LLMs fail is architecting stuff out- they can't see the blind alleys their architecture decisions being them down. They also can't remember to activate python virtual environments, like, ever.

[–] neukenindekeuken@sh.itjust.works 1 points 22 hours ago

I think it depends on what you're writing code for. For greenfield/new features that don't touch legacy code or systems too much? Sure, I agree with that assessment.

Unfortunately that's a small fraction of the kind of work I am required to do as most of the work in most places doing software dev are trying to add shit to bloated and poorly maintained legacy systems.

Working in those environments LLMs are a lot less effective. Maybe that'll change some day. But today, they don't know how to code reuse, refactor methods across classes/design patterns, etc. At least, not very well. Not without causing side effects.

[–] SparroHawc@lemmy.zip 19 points 1 day ago (3 children)

The biggest problem with using AI instead of junior developers is that junior developers eventually become senior developers. LLMs .... don't.

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[–] terabyterex@lemmy.world 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)

sir, this is programmer_humor

[–] staircase@programming.dev 1 points 18 hours ago

and some jokes just aren't funny

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[–] grueling_spool@sh.itjust.works 48 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Maybe the real slop was the code we wrote along the way

[–] TomArrr@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

But, I didn't check any of mine in?

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[–] hperrin@lemmy.ca 80 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

Pretty sure I can, considering I’m still maintaining a project I originally started in 2009, which is a core component of my email service.

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[–] Electricd@lemmybefree.net 42 points 1 day ago (1 children)

When that coworker tells you "hah you must have generated this" but you coded this yourself 👀

[–] beejboytyson@lemmy.world 21 points 1 day ago

"You need to try your best" "This was my best...."

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago

yes. yes I can. been doing it for 25 years.

[–] Avicenna@programming.dev 3 points 1 day ago

ouch

[–] Tja@programming.dev 42 points 2 days ago (8 children)

ITT: AI induced dunning-kruger. Everybody can write maintenable code, just somehow it happens that nobody does.

[–] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 50 points 2 days ago (12 children)

Most of the unmaintainable code I've seen is because businesses don't appreciate the need to occasionally refactor/rewrite or do anything to maintain code. They only appreciate piling more on. They'd do away with bug fixing too if they could.

[–] errer@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago

This is why AI coding is being pushed so hard. Guess what’s great at piling on at 30x speed? If piling on is all companies appreciate then that’s what they’ll demand.

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[–] sexual_tomato@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Every decision I've made to write code with poor maintainability was driven by time pressure to deliver

[–] Tja@programming.dev 1 points 22 hours ago

Which is the norm, not the exception. Really good devs (which I'm not) are capable of delivering clean, modular, readable and maintainable code under pressure, working in a team with other people, with unclear requirements.

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[–] dfyx@lemmy.helios42.de 44 points 2 days ago

Yes. That's literally the first point in my job description.

[–] Carighan@piefed.world 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I could.

I choose not to! Take that, LLM!

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[–] 30p87@feddit.org 29 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yes.

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[–] BlackRoseAmongThorns@slrpnk.net 27 points 2 days ago

Yes.

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