Level of Detail

Article about graphics, look inside - LLM.

Let's start adding [AI] or [LLM] to clickbaity titles like these

1. This is a compelling argument beyond the author’s scope (code). For example, consider cognition, consider language. LoD is the crucial variable.

2. It has been a long time since most of us were bottle-necked by producing more code. Maybe that happened during my first year programming, but pretty quickly the crucial variable became organization and architecture (including LoD choices). That has not changed. While yes there is value to code composition and understanding becoming more liquid, the fundamental dynamics are largely unchanged since pre-LLM days (again, for MOST of us). LLMs are game-changers at the edges (emerging transformational dynamics almost only ever appear at edges), and far less relevant where the intersections are not being redefined.

Making games is hard. Look at the amount of AAA titles that still have LOD popping issues. It's jarring, you can't unsee it, and it's a difficult problem to solve.

This all makes a lot of sense. It is worth pointing out that AI isn't terrible at cleaning up tech debt. I've absolutely used it cleanup code sprawl and to correct design missteps. It gets a lot of well-deserved blame for generating way too much code that's a lot more complicated than it needs to be, but probably not enough credit for making a lot of the cleanup effort around that sort of code a lot more tractable.