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I've been working on generating a large code base for the last couple of weeks. Finally got around to generating a sort of code-duplication report and have spent the last week just having it de-duplicating logic that had been strewn all over the place (eg 11 different functions all doing date math to add x days to a date). dozens of items that had each been similar functions duplicated numerous times. crazy. (opus-5-utracode)

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LLMs love duplicating logic. Unfortunately they are not formal systems so we actually have to read their output

Can LLMs not do this for you? Or would they go too far?

They add and add new code to the point when adding more is going to become very messy and then spagetti

What I was suggesting is to ask the LLM to compare function usage across files to identify overlap/redundancy.

The idea is to use the LLM to analyse the code base first before taking any action.

I think I'm suggesting a centaur approach.

No, the problem is they're still really dumb, and lack the ability to make logical connections that are obvious to us. "should I walk or drive to the carwash" being a very recent example of the larger problem.

But they are very good at identifying patterns though. This task requires little logic IMO. So why not leverage LLM to perform redundancy analysis?

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