> which basically read as satire to most engineers I talked to

Seemingly engineers get this wrong too. I'm reminded of when Cursor bragged about how many lines of code a group of agents could produce, with the underwhelming results of a barely working browser, when the same could be built with much less code.

But they highlighted the amount of code as they were proud over how much slop their constellation of agents had shit out, and these were supposedly engineers, really strange to see.

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bee_rider 27 minutes ago | parent [-]

“Less is better” is sort of… the position of the engineer who enjoys the craft of programming, right? I don’t think this is universally believed.

And anyway, I’m pretty sure what people really mean by this “less is better” mantra is: the lowest amount of code that still accomplishes the goal and is still readable is preferred. Linux apparently has 40M lines of code, and I bet most of it is better than mine. Some things just take lots of code.

Which seems to leave room for these agent salesmen to pitch SLoC as a plus. We just have to believe those lines are all good ones. I that case, it would be impressive. I don’t believe it, but they are probably pitching to people who do.

	▲	the_af 14 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> “Less is better” is sort of… the position of the engineer who enjoys the craft of programming, right? I don’t think this is universally believed. I think it is (or should be) a goal & business-oriented concern as well, not just an engineer's who enjoys their craft. More complex systems are worse than simpler systems (that accomplish the same), in cost, maintenance, fragility, ease of understanding, etc. Fewer moving parts usually result in higher reliability, fewer things that can break down or fail to interact properly, etc. That's a business concern too, not just engineering craftmanship or whatever. Business people should care about this too. I don't think this is the same as bikeshedding over irrelevant details, something we software engineers are often prone to. Monstrous complexity does impact the business!