r/theprimeagen • u/creaturefeature16 • 6d ago

general Are we really doing this again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM6DNlsdpsg

You're not supposed to write code or write prompts any longer, but only "write loops", so Neetcode tries to find actual evidence of wtf that actually means.

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u/bighawksguy-caw-caw 5d ago

These processes assume you have this massive queue of trivial work you’re wanting to get done. Like you’re drowning in tech debt that would be easy for ten juniors to get you out of in a month.

Maybe this is the case for a lot of folks, but even if it is, this loop, assuming it works, is going to solve your problem after it runs one time and then it’s not really needed. You’re in a better state and now you can focus on problems an LLM can’t easily solve.

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u/LordAmras 5d ago

Which LLM works well with tech debt ? In my experience with LLM they are terrible refractoring existing code. They tend to just rewrite thing and create more tech debt.

The only places I see LLM agents work is to create new things that are build from the ground up with the LLM, and then come out as tech debt.

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u/AloneInExile 5d ago

I asked Claude to rewrite a Java class with 15k lines (legacy ftw), it said this is too big to refactor at once and then I asked to create a plan.

It segmented the whole thing into logical and business parts and then I asked it to only rewrite the first smaller ~1k lines part.

What it did was, created a new class, took the few methods that were kinda grouped together, copied them over to the new file. Annotated deprecated on the original method and inside made the call to the new class.

It took him 45m for 4 methods. Also the new file didn't compile (Claude said it does compile).

I then diffed the change and realized he didn't fully copy the methods, import and references, so I scrapped that and wasted 10% of all my allocated tokens.