Whether you should read AI-generated code is entirely situational — if it's a project you care about or production code, you must read it, but for throwaway personal scripts it's fine to auto-accept; and 'it works' is never sufficient justification for not reading code, since working code isn't necessarily good code.
Scott argues the 'should you read the code' debate has a nuanced, situational answer: read it for projects/production code you care about, skip it for disposable scripts, and never accept 'it works' as proof the code is good. ✦ AI generated
Scott Tolinski · Syntax · 2026-07-06 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 16:00
the most exhausting answer and the correct answer to this is it depends if it's something you care about it's absolutely worth still reading the code and if the question that well if it works does it matter? Well just because something works doesn't mean it's good. Lots of works that's no good. So works is not the bar and works has never been the bar.
verbatim transcript · starts at 16:00
16:00tried to learn 800 times uh to write shaders myself and I'm not good at it. So, when it worked and it was done, I said fine, that's fine. That's a-okay with me. So I think the most exhausting answer and the correct answer to this is it depends if it's something you care about it's absolutely worth still reading the code and if the question that well if it works does it matter?
16:21Well just because something works doesn't mean it's good. Lots of works that's no good. So works is not the bar and works has never been the bar. Um but again dev's going to be arguing about stuff when they should be talking about what their users need and want. Definitely. >> Yes. Okay, I think we can get off this one. CJ, let's keep it moving here. Syntax live weekly every single week.
16:44Wes is at the cottage probably just hanging out on a do. Actually, I think he might be in New York. He's doing something with his family. So, he's not here today. He's on vacation as CJ and myself. We're talking all things new on the web here. CJ, what else you got for us today? >> I have for you something very exciting. It is a brand new HTTP method. So, if
17:04you're not familiar, the HTTP methods are like get, post, put, delete. Um, well, give me some other ones, Scott. Uh, patch. >> I I only I only use uh get [laughter] I only use get and post. Those are the only two cuz I because the other ones just kind of are there and I never even consider them. I don't know why. >> Yeah. Well, they Yeah. So, they exist
17:24and the thing is they've existed for a very long time. So, the idea that there would be a new HTTP method is kind of interesting. But uh this is RFC10008. It's currently a proposed standard. It hasn't made it into any web browsers yet. Uh but Node.js has actually implemented this in their serverside HTTP module. So if you're implementing a server, you could actually listen for it. Uh but the idea is so it's called
17:49query. So now in the long list of methods, so you've got get, put, post, patch, delete, and now query would be a new one. Um but the idea is sometimes you might have a request that you're you're uh cramming data into the query string because you want it to be a get request. So in the example here in the introduction the common query pattern is like slashfeed which is some
- ·Nuanced answer: it depends on the project
- ·Care about it or production code? Read it
- ·Throwaway personal script? Fine to auto-accept
- ·Working code isn't necessarily good code
- ·Plenty of code works but is no good
- ·'Works' has never been the bar
- ·Working code isn't necessarily good code
- ·Plenty of working code is still bad
- ·'Works' has never been the real bar