About whether AI tools that explain codebases to humans provide real value.
Has this happened?
Yes 72 (69%)Not sure 19 (18%)No 14 (13%)
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
Hacker News has set AI a lot of challenges over the years. Which ones has it met?
About whether AI tools that explain codebases to humans provide real value.
Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.
Even if the LLM never writes a line of code - this is still valuable, because helping humans understand software faster means you can help humans write software faster.
IMHO, Ai text additions are generally not valuable and I assume, until proven wrong, that Ai text provides little to no value.
I have seen so many startups fold after they made some ai product that on the surface level appeared impressive but provided no substantial value.
Now, I will be impressed by the ai that can remove code without affecting the product.