I’m certainly on the lookout for something like this and I’m happy to see your account has published software from before the LLM boom as well. I guess I’d like some kind of LLM-use-statement attached to projects: did you use an LLM to generate this, and if so, how much and what stages (design, build, test)? How carefully did you review the output? Do you feel the quality is at least what you could have produced by yourself? That sort of thing.
Not casting aspersions on you personally, I’d really like this from every project, and would do the same myself.
I’m sorry this sounds a bit too entitled - no one is putting a gun to your head to use this project and you know you can always read the code and review it yourself and make an educated decision on whether you want to use it or not
I don’t think I’m entitled to what I suggested, I don’t see how you’re reading that.
This is a fair question, but not one I feel we can let people self answer.
I doubt many people will honestly admit they did no design, testing and that they believe the code is sub par.
It does give me an idea that maybe we need a third party system which can try and answer some of the questions you are asking… of course it too would be LLM driven and quite subjective.
> I doubt many people will honestly admit they did no design, testing and that they believe the code is sub par
I'd doubt any engineer that doesn't call most of their own code subpar after a week or two after looking back. "Hacking" also famously involves little design or (automated) testing too, so sharing something like that doesn't mean much, unless you're trying to launch a business, but I see no evidence of that for this project.
> I doubt many people will honestly admit they did no design, testing and that they believe the code is sub par.
Well no, but if people want to see a statement like this, and given that most people will want to be at least halfway honest and not admit to slop, maybe it will help nudge things in the right direction.
There are many ways to use an LLM to generate a piece of software. I base most of my projects these days around sets of Markdown files where I use AI first to research, then plan and finally track the progress of implementation (which I do step-wise with the plan, always reviewing as I go along). If I was asked to provide documentation for my workflow those files would be it. My code is 99% generated, but I take care to ensure the LLM generates it in a way that I am happy with. I'd argue the result is often better than what I'd have managed on my own.
Yep pretty much same, although if I’m lax at any point of the reviewing (in-progress or final), I’d say the quality quickly drops to below my average manual effort, and then I don’t even have the benefit of thinking it all through as directly. I think getting really quality results out of LLM code generation for non-trivial projects still needs quite a bit of discipline and work.
What's the point? You can make good or bad software, with or without LLMs. Do you ask a carpenter if they use a hammer or nail gun? Did they only use the nail gun for the roof and the deck?
If you care that much and don't have a foundation of trust, you need to either verify the construction is good, or build it yourself. Anything else is just wishful thinking.
We do ask whether it's handmade or factory.
We even ask when cakes are made in house or frozen even though they look and taste great (at first).
It’s not all-or-nothing: a statement like what I want would be part of the assurance, not the whole thing.