Agents hand you five working versions. How do you pick the one that ships?
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Any coding agent gives you a working version of a feature in minutes. Ask again and you get another one, also working, slightly different. Working stopped being the filter.
My rule is simple: I ship the version with the fewest moving parts, because I'm the one debugging it at 2am. Speed of writing means nothing against speed of fixing.
What's your filter? Curious if anyone has a better rule than simplest one wins
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I always ask myself one thing would I be happy debugging this on Friday night? @bickov If not i keep looking for a simpler solution.
SlimSnap
@ameliajoyn6 Friday night is the honest version of my 2am rule. Same test, worse timing
i have a simple rule too. if i need to explain the code for ten minutes before someone understands it's probably more complex than it needs to be.
@vincentbanzpk4 my rule is that if I cannot explain why the code works in a minute or two, I probably should not ship it yet.
i think AI gives me plenty of working options now but I still believe the final decision belongs to the developer. i usually choose the version that feels the most natural to read and maintain.
Funny how we've gone from struggling to write code to struggling to choose between multiple working solutions. That's a much better problem to have, but it's still a problem.
SlimSnap
@amard_sonal A better problem is still a problem sums up the whole AI era
My deciding factor is usually the test coverage. a simple implementation without confidence checks can still hurt you later. The winner is the one I can safely change not just the one that works today.
SlimSnap
@ashir_murtaza1 Test coverage is a different kind of filter, it measures whether you can change the thing, not just whether it runs. Do you let the agent write those tests too, or is that the part you keep for yourself?
I like this rule because simple code usually survives longer. How do you measure simplicity when two versions solve the same problem differently?
SlimSnap
@advin_jadis No metric, a quick gut check of a UX person with a technical background and 20 years in. Fewer files touched, fewer dependencies, and I can explain the change in one sentence. Same rule I use for interfaces: if it needs explaining, it lost
me choosing the simplest version has saved many future fixes. have you tried tracking bug counts after release to see whether simpler implementations actually reduce maintenance over time?
SlimSnap
@alheri_murya No real tracking, my scale is too small for bug stats to mean much. My signal is cruder, which versions I end up reopening. The simple ones mostly stay closed
This really resonates. AI has changed the bottleneck from writing code to making good engineering decisions. I'd rather maintain something boring and predictable than something brilliant but fragile.
simplicity is underated, especially with AI generated code. i have seen agents produce beautiful solution that become nightmare once requirements change. fewer abstractions usally means fewer surprises.
Love this perspective. Shipping is only half the job. Living with the code afterward is where the real cost shows up.