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Addy Osmani
addyo.substack.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2024
Addy Osmani, a Google engineer, writes on AI-assisted coding, agentic workflows, and software engineering practice.
What HN saysCommenters often cite his 'The 70% Problem' to argue that LLMs get you only part way on coding tasks, and link his newer posts.
44HN people shared it
6linked it in comments
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Most-shared posts
- 1The 70% problem: Hard truths about AI-assisted coding4 people · 649 points · first shared 2024 · 433 comments on HN
- 2Death of the IDE?4 people · 8 points · first shared 2026 · 1 comments on HN
- 3The 80% Problem in Agentic Coding – Addy Osmani4 people · 5 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 4Prompt engineering playbook for programmers3 people · 484 points · first shared 2025 · 169 comments on HN
- 5The AI-Native Software Engineer3 people · 4 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 6Avoiding skill atrophy in the age of AI2 people · 373 points · first shared 2025 · 317 comments on HN
- 7Vibe Coding is not an excuse for low-quality work2 people · 262 points · first shared 2025 · 200 comments on HN
- 8I Use Cline for AI Engineering2 people · 103 points · first shared 2025 · 30 comments on HN
- 9Beyond the 70%: Maximizing the human 30% of AI-assisted coding2 people · 17 points · first shared 2025 · 23 comments on HN
- 10How Modern Browsers Work2 people · 5 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 11The reality of AI-Assisted software engineering productivity2 people · 5 points · first shared 2025 · 1 comments on HN
- 12Personal Software: The Unbundling of the Programmer?2 people · 5 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 13Leading Effective Engineering Teams in the Age of GenAI2 people · 3 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 1421 Lessons from 14 Years at Google2 people · 3 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 15Stick to boring architecture for as long as possible2 people · 3 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
bhackett · 2025-03-04
Yes, that's all true. Even so, vibe coding empowers anyone who can write clear instructions to build software, but the limits of the technology get hit pretty quickly by non-developers and they have little recourse. This blog post https://addyo.substack.com/p/the-70-problem-hard-truths-about is a great overview.
The tech will get better and better (I couldn't imagine we'd be doing this a year ago) but to be truly useful it has to reliably produce reasonably well engineered code, and effective debugging is a key piece of that.
igorpcosta · 2025-11-02
Addy Osmani also wrote today about this https://addyo.substack.com/p/conductors-to-orchestrators-the-future
buovjaga · 2025-06-08
> But that doesn't mean that I have to lay any more credence to the guys who have, since time immemorial, said "this new thing makes something easier; it will make us worse because we do not slog as much".
I don't use LLMs myself, but the anecdotes about skill atrophy seem credible. From the OP: "Even for me it shows. I tried to write some test code recently and I absolutely forgot how to write table tests because I generate all that. And it’s frightening."
An article about the topic that tries to stay positive: https://addyo.substack.com/p/avoiding-skill-atrophy-in-the-age
trinix912 · 2025-01-26
Which has been proved again and again to only get you 70% there [1].
[1] https://addyo.substack.com/p/the-70-problem-hard-truths-about
kirso · 2025-01-05
Yep a good article about this: https://addyo.substack.com/p/the-70-problem-hard-truths-about
LLMs are good for the first 70% (I'd argue probably 50%).
ChrisArchitect · 2024-01-02