this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2026
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do we need documentation in the age of AI? (thelemmy.club)
submitted 3 weeks ago by bruh@thelemmy.club to c/programming@programming.dev
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recently I gave AI a task to configure a software and the software didn't have any docs of how it works only the source code. the agent went through all the files and generated a summary of how it works and why it's not working for my particular scenario and suggested edits to my docker-compose.yml file. I couldn't believe it since the bug was very hard to find and it used headless firefox to find why it wasn't working.

made me realize do we still need documentation of how a software work when a AI can easily explain it?

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[–] spartanatreyu@programming.dev 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

E.g. for one-off web page design it’s been good enough for a long time.

In just the last two months, I've been handed the following web projects:

  • A page filled with bootstrap style div-soup
  • A page filled with tailwind style class-soup
  • A slideshow webapp that has duplicated state and three different ways to change slides (navigate(), goTo(), and changeSlide()).
  • A slop-grenade of a chatbot interface for navigating a user through a flow chart, documentation of the flow chart, and documentation of the logic of the flow chart, all of which conflict with each other.

I think the effect you’re seeing is that different people have different levels of “good enough”

I think the effect that I'm seeing is twofold:

  1. People don't realise that every line of code is a liability.
  2. People think that once they have something on the screen that looks finished, the project is finished. They haven't thought about support or maintainability at all, and since they are completely inexperienced about such things: they aren't qualified enough to when when a project is "even done", let alone "good enough".
[–] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

People think that once they have something on the screen that looks finished, the project is finished.

For .one-off web page that is true. You and I might not like that under the hood it's a mess but we have to accept that if it works anyway and nobody is going to need to change it, that's fine.

Also the latest models don't even make a mess any more.

[–] spartanatreyu@programming.dev 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

For .one-off web page that is true

There's not really any such thing as a one off web page.

It's eventually going to need to be updated or reused for something else.

The only exceptions being if your company goes under, force majure, or if you have something with the same requirements but choose to make the same thing again from scratch for no real reason , which is just being inefficient and unreasonable.

Also the latest models don’t even make a mess any more.

Yeah.... I'm calling bullshit on that, all four projects I was handed was made by the latest models and it will continue being an issue for the foreseeable future. (see a previous comment of mine for reasoning: https://programming.dev/post/57569685/26398217)

[–] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 0 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

There’s not really any such thing as a one off web page.

Of course there is. What an absurd thing to say. A very obvious example is event websites, e.g. for weddings.

I’m calling bullshit on that

Maybe it depends on the language but I've recently vibe coded two tools in Rust and I've skimmed the code and it's perfectly good Rust. I would accept it in a PR - even if I was being as picky as I'd really like to be in reviews. I don't think that would have been the case 3 months ago though.

[–] spartanatreyu@programming.dev 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

There’s not really any such thing as a one off web page.

Of course there is. What an absurd thing to say. A very obvious example is event websites, e.g. for weddings.

Why would you not reuse event pages for the next event?

Maybe it depends on the language but I’ve recently vibe coded two tools in Rust and I’ve skimmed the code and it’s perfectly good Rust. I would accept it in a PR - even if I was being as picky as I’d really like to be in reviews. I don’t think that would have been the case 3 months ago though.

I'd expect that the code would be almost exactly the same as other code that already exists, in which case, why not use that code?

[–] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Why would you not reuse event pages for the next event?

How many times are you getting married? 😄

I’d expect that the code would be almost exactly the same as other code that already exists, in which case, why not use that code?

Uhm, because it's not the same? Why would I vibe code an app that's almost exactly the same as an existing one?

[–] spartanatreyu@programming.dev 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Why would you not reuse event pages for the next event?

How many times are you getting married? 😄

Let me fix that for you: How many times are people getting married?

The answer: Lots.

There are already wedding websites out there, in every variation possible.

Why reinvent the wheel when we have so many wheels that they're treated as disposable?

I’d expect that the code would be almost exactly the same as other code that already exists, in which case, why not use that code?

Uhm, because it’s not the same? Why would I vibe code an app that’s almost exactly the same as an existing one?

Because a vibecoded app is going to be a ripoff of its training data anyway. LLMs can't produce creative or novel works, all they can do is stochastically regurgitate what they've already seen in their training data. So why deal with risk of injection attacks hidden in the training data when you can just use the original source instead?

[–] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Maybe you want your wedding website to look different to other people's? You really want to believe AI is useless don't you...

(I mean it would be nice if it was so I get to keep my job but I'm not going to lie to myself.)

Because a vibecoded app is going to be a ripoff of its training data anyway. LLMs can’t produce creative or novel works

Dude it's 2026 not 2024. I know things are changing rapidly but that has been very obviously not true for at least 6 months. You need to spend a little dough and try out the latest models - I would recommend Argon because it seems to be as good as Astra and Opus 5.5 but is cheaper. Have a go at vibe coding something. Make architectural decisions but then let it cook. You're going to be shocked.

[–] spartanatreyu@programming.dev 1 points 2 weeks ago

Maybe you want your wedding website to look different to other people’s?

Unless you're drawing a massive illustration or specifically going with a non-wedding themed wedding, there's only so many variations you're going to end up with.

Dude it’s 2026 not 2024. I know things are changing rapidly but that has been very obviously not true for at least 6 months.

Since this is such a cookie cutter argument, see last week's response about the same thing: https://programming.dev/post/57569685/26396986.

You’re going to be shocked.

I'm constantly shocked at the bad code I get from other using the latest models. See one of my parent comments in the same linked comment, each of the four projects came from people using the latest models.