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When writing about Property-Based testing, I found they were much more solid and comprehensive than usual tests, due to their more general (properties vs examples). They weren’t used because they felt more complex and time-intensive to write, despite being shorter and having to change them less.

Fred Hebert

@ferd.ca

I’m still interested to see how it’ll unfold, but despite shipping code faster and using more general forms of specs when engineering with LLMs, the testing methods used never made use of the gained time nor of the more general spec. Instead the trend is to just generate more examples and review.

18/1/26, 5:47 pm0 reposts8 likes

Fred Hebert

@ferd.ca

18 Jan

I’m not sure what may lie behind these observations, which goals and pressure gradients shape them, but it feels funny/interesting that the gains appear to be “reinvested” in specific ways that reinforce existing tradeoffs, rather than seizing opportunities for a new balance.

Fred Hebert

@ferd.ca

18 Jan

Part of it just makes me feel the stuff I wished I could see grow never really mattered to the “group” (see how nobody even looks that way even when there’d be more room now than ever!) and it’s a very funny feeling to contend with. A bit disconcerting to see the distance grow, but better to know?

Fred Hebert

@ferd.ca

18 Jan

The other thing might just be a “chop wood, carry water” mindset where you push for what you care for, and rather than aligning with what you see you just multiply your capacity to advance the things you want to see happen. Might be both at once?

skeet shooting

@saemg.bsky.social

18 Jan

I think some people are just slow to learn, at least if this paper is to be believed arxiv.org/pdf/2511.04427 eventually people will realize that greater volumes of lower quality code will need a revisiting of priorities

arxiv.orgarxiv.org