Hacker News Reader

Comment by makeitdouble | Hacker News Reader

> bridge/skyscraper/cathedral

> Those details matter, yes, but they’re the type of detail that I can delegate now

No...

If you're building a skyscraper, there's no world where you can delegate where the steel or bolts come from. Or you'll at least need to care about what properties that exact steel has and guarantee every bit used on your project matches these constraints.

If you don't want to care about those, build residential houses with 1000x less constraints and can be rebuilt on a dime comparatively.

You might be thinking about interior decoration or floor arrangement ? Those were always a different matter left to the building owner to deal with.

View on HN

In the world of construction there’s generally an owner, who then works with three groups: an architect, an engineer, and a general contractor.

Depending on what you’re building, you might start with an architect who brings on a preferred engineering firm, or a GC that brings on an architect, etc.

You’re right to question my bridge/bolt combo, as the bolts on a suspension bridge are certainly a key detail!

However, as a programmer, it feels like I used to spend way too much time doing the work of a subcontractor (electrical, plumbing, hvac, cement, etc.), unless I get lucky with a library that handles it for me (and that I trust).

Software creation, thus always felt like building a new cathedral, where I was both the architect and the stone mason, and everything in-between.

Now I can focus on the high-level, and contract out the minutia like a pre-fab bridge, quality American steel, and decorative hinges from Restoration Hardware, as long as they fit the requirements of the project.

I think you're taking a metaphor a bit too literally.

No, it's perfectly apt. One comment is stating that using LLMs allows them to gloss over the details. The responding comment is saying that glossing over details is not a great idea, actually. I think that statement holds up very well on both sides of the analogy. You can get away with glossing over certain details when building a little shed or a throwaway python script. If you're building a skyscraper or a full-fledged application being used in the real world by thousands or millions of people, those details being glossed over are the foundation of your entire architecture, will influence every other part of the decision-making process, and will cause everything to crumble if handled carelessly.

Look at my beautiful cathedral

Look at my cathedral of tailwind ui

I’m sure they put locks on the doors

> If you're building a skyscraper, there's no world where you can delegate where the steel or bolts come from.

ah yes, I'm sure the CEO of Walsh (https://www.walshgroup.com/ourexperience/building/highrisere...) picks each bolt themselves directly without delegation

Reply on news.ycombinator.com