The mental load of understanding code we didn't write(eduardmoldovan.com)
eduardmoldovan.com
The mental load of understanding code we didn't write
https://eduardmoldovan.com/posts/the-mental-load-of-taking-responsibility-for-code-you-didnt-write
5 comments
I wasn't familiar with the quote -- so contextual in today's world.
I have been feeling more and more tired recently. For a while, I didn't really understand why, given that with AI tools i code, so I thought of it as unusual.
Then I realized that is the actual cause. I don't vibe code, I care how the code looks like, so i read and understand most of it, fix it, review it, etc.
but the amount of code I go through in a day is astonishing, that creates the problem for me.
Anyone else experiencing similar?
Then I realized that is the actual cause. I don't vibe code, I care how the code looks like, so i read and understand most of it, fix it, review it, etc.
but the amount of code I go through in a day is astonishing, that creates the problem for me.
Anyone else experiencing similar?
Notoriously it takes serious mental effort to look at open source code or do any kind of code review.
It's systems of abstraction and layering that make software engineering possible. Coding is a medium for a given layer of abstraction.
Yet by definition "vibe coding" ignores abstraction and substitutes software engineering for wish fulfillment.
The elephant-sized hazard with vibe coding is "how do I know if my wish is fulfilled?" It should be obvious to the most inexperienced coder that "running code" is not a satisfactory assessment of it's correctness.
However, once you have adopted wish fulfillment as your primary development technique, it seems completely natural to try to resolve problems with borked code made by wishing with fixes made by more wishing.
There's a hackneyed quote from the days of Algol that captures today's sad state of software development: If engineers built buildings the way programmers write programs civilization would be destroyed by a woodpecker.
Although this sage quote was regarded as a cliche around 1990, it's now a definitive comment on the world's most powerful industry.
Based on the preponderance of the news about programming posted on HN, wishful thinking is considered a primary approach and great wave of the future, while discussions about engineering have disappeared.
Not that software engineering ever had much academic representation in silicon valley: there's been an unhealthy confusion of computer science and vendor certification exams with software engineering since the late 1980s.
What's presented here reads like horse whispering.
--
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