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Ask HN: Are the newest LLMs better than you at programming?

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Re: Ask HN: Are the newest LLMs better than you at programming?

#11

Post by valentinconan »

In my opinion, AI agents are currently just as capable as novice developers. Their main advantage is that they’re much faster than we are when the task involves generating a lot of code.

If the task is simple, I spend more time telling it what to do than doing it myself. But if the task is complex, I use certain skills/commands and create intermediate files (more than necessary) between each step (analysis, planning, design, workflow, and implementation) and clear the context between each of them. The result is fairly accurate, but not perfect.

My take is, we remain the architects of our code, and AI agents are an excellent tool that we need to master.

Re: Ask HN: Are the newest LLMs better than you at programming?

#12

Post by multidude »

par1970 wrote: post #6
multidude wrote: post #4

I don't use ChatGPT, but i've been using an agent with Claude Sonnet 4. My answer may not be useful to you, but i'll talk about my experience with that and hope it may help you. So this AI Agent... It is much faster at doing code when given specific instructions. But it keeps loosing context on architecture, and i cant really let it build complex things with interdependencies that build on each other. At times it fee…

> I don't use ChatGPT, but i've been using an agent with Claude Sonnet 4. Are you using Sonnet 4.6? > So this AI Agent... It is much faster at doing code when given specific instructions. But it keeps loosing context on architecture, and i cant really let it build complex things with interdependencies that build on each other. I've only built small things ( Is it better than you at building small self-contained thing…

i started working with this two weeks ago, so im learning as i go (or should i say stumble and fall). Weird as it may sound what i found so trustworthy at the beginning, it sounded so rational and logic as it really knew better and i liked letting it do. Obviously it dis not go so well, and i had to correct a lot. But i am learning, what can i say? And yes, i gave it many commandements like "thouh shalt always test before releasing" and it sounded so convincing when it confirmed what an excellent idea that was that i was surprised at least -imagine that- when something did not go as planned on prod because of , well you know...

Re: Ask HN: Are the newest LLMs better than you at programming?

#13

Post by chiengineer »

drrob wrote: post #8
par1970 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which models + versions are you using? Can you give a specific problem that you found them to be bad at?

The most recent logic I tried getting it to code for me was to make me some recursive C# functions to reverse navigate a node map (a Microsoft Project plan with various feeding chains) to calculate all possible paths, and return them as a list of objects. It kept producing code that looked to eye that it might work, but each time I ran it it would just throw schoolboy exceptions. I got tired of telling it to correct…

Your prompts are zero out of 10 quality

Learn how to prompt better you'll be fine

Re: Ask HN: Are the newest LLMs better than you at programming?

#14

Post by par1970 »

valentinconan wrote: post #11

In my opinion, AI agents are currently just as capable as novice developers. Their main advantage is that they’re much faster than we are when the task involves generating a lot of code. If the task is simple, I spend more time telling it what to do than doing it myself. But if the task is complex, I use certain skills/commands and create intermediate files (more than necessary) between each step (analysis, planning,…

If your project requires the solution of a tricky algorithmic issue, then is the AI system able to solve that part, or do you have to give it the solution?

Re: Ask HN: Are the newest LLMs better than you at programming?

#15

Post by drrob »

chiengineer wrote: post #13
drrob wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most recent logic I tried getting it to code for me was to make me some recursive C# functions to reverse navigate a node map (a Microsoft Project plan with various feeding chains) to calculate all possible paths, and return them as a list of objects. It kept producing code that looked to eye that it might work, but each time I ran it it would just throw schoolboy exceptions. I got tired of telling it to correct…

Your prompts are zero out of 10 quality Learn how to prompt better you'll be fine

I think I'm doing just fine, thanks for your concern.

Re: Ask HN: Are the newest LLMs better than you at programming?

#17

Post by par1970 »

yibers wrote: post #16

Opus 4.6 (high) is doing for me things that i don't know to do myself. Moreover, I don't understand enough what it did after it did it. But it works. The domain is automated debugging and RE.

How much domain experience do you have? Is it helping you solve problems for paying customers?

Re: Ask HN: Are the newest LLMs better than you at programming?

#18

Post by par1970 »

multidude wrote: post #12
par1970 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't use ChatGPT, but i've been using an agent with Claude Sonnet 4. Are you using Sonnet 4.6? > So this AI Agent... It is much faster at doing code when given specific instructions. But it keeps loosing context on architecture, and i cant really let it build complex things with interdependencies that build on each other. I've only built small things ( Is it better than you at building small self-contained thing…

i started working with this two weeks ago, so im learning as i go (or should i say stumble and fall). Weird as it may sound what i found so trustworthy at the beginning, it sounded so rational and logic as it really knew better and i liked letting it do. Obviously it dis not go so well, and i had to correct a lot. But i am learning, what can i say? And yes, i gave it many commandements like "thouh shalt always test b…

Did you tell it that it should test, or did you have it generate actual tests that you could run if you wanted to?

Re: Ask HN: Are the newest LLMs better than you at programming?

#19

Post by valentinconan »

par1970 wrote: post #14
valentinconan wrote: post #11

In my opinion, AI agents are currently just as capable as novice developers. Their main advantage is that they’re much faster than we are when the task involves generating a lot of code. If the task is simple, I spend more time telling it what to do than doing it myself. But if the task is complex, I use certain skills/commands and create intermediate files (more than necessary) between each step (analysis, planning,…

If your project requires the solution of a tricky algorithmic issue, then is the AI system able to solve that part, or do you have to give it the solution?

I haven't yet tried to solve truly complex algorithmic problems.

Generally speaking, if the problem is common, the model has likely already been trained to solve it.

If it's truly complex and/or specific to my needs, I can try using a reasoning model to think through a solution before moving on to implementation.

I use the agent to conduct research, find resources to understand the complexity, best practices, feedback, etc., and to write a Markdown analysis file on the topic.

Then I can use this file as a basis to precisely define what I want to do and brainstorm with the agent in thinking mode. The more the task is described and defined, the more accurate the result will be.

Re: Ask HN: Are the newest LLMs better than you at programming?

#20

Post by yibers »

par1970 wrote: post #17
yibers wrote: post #16

Opus 4.6 (high) is doing for me things that i don't know to do myself. Moreover, I don't understand enough what it did after it did it. But it works. The domain is automated debugging and RE.

How much domain experience do you have? Is it helping you solve problems for paying customers?

I have plenty of domain experience but I won't define myself as an expert. It helped me solve real business problems.
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