Post #2036585

2026-04-29 12:06 UTC

Fun story from this week, we had a chore for the frontend to refresh to a new version of the UI framework. Fairly simple task, so off to a junior developer. Within a couple hours there was a merge request ready to go. Ok, a fairly normal amount of time to change version and at least do a sniff test and find nothing changed so I go in assuming I’ll look at a few version bumps, maybe one or two tweaks… I see the junior dev was proposing over 1,000 lines of code to be added… WTF… I crack it open and there was just a firehose of css rules, all marked ‘!important’. Looking at one examlpe, it repeated the same classifier with the same exact bunch of rules 5 times in a row. It was like it found every possible derived css class combination with tag and defined !important CSS for most everything about it. So I find out that the junior dev asked it to rebase and it did what he expected, just change some version and went. He tried it and due to a framework change, one element was misaligned by a little bit. So he gave the feedback to the LLM and tried again… and it failed, and he tried again and it failed and after 5 rounds, it finally got the element aligned and hit ‘merge request’. For fun I opened up his proposed change and just so much was just a bit dodgy css wise because it screwed with so much stuff, but the junior dev only concerned himself with the page as it opened. So I said screw it, I’ll do it myself, and added the singular rule that was needed to adapt to the framework change, making it overall about a 5 line change including versioning and such. Depressingly, I suspect an executive would consider me far less productive because I only did 5 lines of change and the junior dev would have done thousands…

Replies (4)

@Jankatarch@lemmy.world 2026-04-29 16:32

That last sentence hits me where it hurts rofl.

Open ##2036584
@inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 2026-04-29 16:10

Yup. AI might, and I mean might, be a force multiplier for senior developers but this whole “Everyone can just let AI code” is bullshit that will lead to a giant mess of unmanageable code when your developers your maturing don’t understand the underlying code or good software architecture. Oh and also I’m right there with you with the fuck that whole ELOC bullshit as a metric.

Open ##2042561
@foo@feddit.uk 2026-04-29 18:24

Depressingly, I suspect an executive would consider me far less productive because I only did 5 lines of change and the junior dev would have done thousands… Probably the very same execs that use phrases like “Do more with less!” and then completely miss the point when true efficiency stares them in the face.

Open ##2050457
@luciferofastora@feddit.org 2026-04-29 16:13

> Depressingly, I suspect an executive would consider me far less productive because I only did 5 lines of change and the junior dev would have done thousands... The first question I ask about any analytics requests is what you're trying to do with the results, what _business_ question you want to answer. The second is how the analytics question relates to that business question. It's very easy to ask a question, look for a way to measure the answer, find something you can measure and start looking for the best way to ask for that measure. It implicitly assumes that "I need to measure an answer -> I can measure this -> this is the answer", but as you point out, this isn't a valid implication. My worst enemy is the sentiment "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it." Curse every MBA that repeats it like a mantra, in the name of the Stocks and the Shareholder Value and the Holy KPI. Yes, some measures can be valuable indicators, if contextualised correctly, but not everything that has to be managed can be measured effectively. To grasp for measures anyway twists your sight away from the actual, non-measured facts.

Open ##2902735