Don’t!
Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?
211–220 of 491 posts
Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?
#212AI programming, for me, is just a few simple rules: 1. True vibe coding (one-shot, non-trivial, push to master) does not work. Do not try it. 2. Break your task into verifiable chunks. Work with Claude to this end. 3. Put the entire plan into a Markdown file; it should be as concise as possible. You need a summary of the task; individual problems to solve; references to files and symbols in the source code; a work li…
> it should be as concise as possible What’s more concise than code? From my experience, by the time I’ve gotten an English with code description accurate enough for an agent I could have done it myself. Typing isn’t a hard part. LLMs/agents have many other uses, but if you’re not offloading your thinking you’re not really going any faster wrt letting them write code via a prompt.
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Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?
#213Using voice transcription is nice for fully expressing what you want, so the model doesn't need to make guesses. I'm often voicing 500-word prompts. If you talk in a winding way that looks awkward when in text, that's fine. The model will almost certainly be able to tell what you mean. Using voice-to-text is my biggest suggestion for people who want to use AI for programming (I'm not a particularly slow typer. I can…
> I'm not a particularly slow typer. I can go 70-90 WPM on a typing test. However, this speed drops quickly when I need to also think about what I'm saying. Typing that fast is also kinda tiring, whereas talking/thinking at 100-120 WPM feels comfortable. This doesn't feel relatable at all to me. If my writing speed is bottlenecked by thinking about what I'm writing, and my talking speed is significantly faster, that…
I prefer writing myself, but I could see the appeal of producing a first draft of a prompt by dumping a verbal stream of consciousness into ChatGPT. That might actually be kind of fun to try while going on a walk or something.
Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?
#214Soft plug: take a look at https://github.com/tilework-tech/nori-profiles I've spent the last ~4 months figuring out how to make coding agents better, and it's really paid off. The configs at the link above make claude code significantly better, passively. It's a one-shot install, and it may just be able to one-shot your problem, because it does the hard work of 'knowing how to use the agents' for you. Would love to k…
How does it compare to Claude Code's skills [1] ?
Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?
#215what really got me moving was dusting off some old text about cognitive styles and team work. Learning to treat agents like a new team-member with extreme tendencies. Learning to observe both my practices and the agents' in order to understand one another's strengths and weaknesses, indicating how we might work better together. I think this perspective also goes a long way to understanding the very different results…
> what really got me moving was dusting off some old text about cognitive styles and team work
It would be great if you could provide a summary of these points.
Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?
#216You can using a single simple step: don't The more you use IA, the more your abilities decreases, the less you are able to use IA This is the law of cheese: the more cheese, the more holes; The more holes, the less cheese; Thus, the more cheese, the less cheese;
This is the fastest way to unemployment benefits (if that is the goal).
Have we really reached the point where a candidate gets outright rejected for not using AI tools, without taking personal aptitudes into consideration?
Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?
#217Hey, Boris from the Claude Code team here. A few tips: 1. If there is anything Claude tends to repeatedly get wrong, not understand, or spend lots of tokens on, put it in your CLAUDE.md. Claude automatically reads this file and it’s a great way to avoid repeating yourself. I add to my team’s CLAUDE.md multiple times a week. 2. Use Plan mode (press shift-tab 2x). Go back and forth with Claude until you like the plan b…
Hey Boris, I couldn't agree more. And using Plan mode was a major breakthrough for me. Speaking of Plan Mode... I was previously using it repeatedly in sessions (and was getting great results). The most recent major release introduced this bug where it keeps referring back to the first plan you made in a session even when you're planning something else ( https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/12505 ). I fin…
Why don’t you reset context when working on something else?
Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?
#218Hey, Boris from the Claude Code team here. A few tips: 1. If there is anything Claude tends to repeatedly get wrong, not understand, or spend lots of tokens on, put it in your CLAUDE.md. Claude automatically reads this file and it’s a great way to avoid repeating yourself. I add to my team’s CLAUDE.md multiple times a week. 2. Use Plan mode (press shift-tab 2x). Go back and forth with Claude until you like the plan b…
Hey Boris, can you teach CC how to use cd?
Personally, CLAUDE_BASH_MAINTAIN_PROJECT_WORKING_DIR=1 made all my cd problems go away (which were only really in cmake-based projects to begin with).
Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?
#219If anyone knew the answer to this question, Anthropic would be profitable.
Currently they project they might break even in 2028.
That means that right now, every time you ask an AI a question, someone loses money.
That of course means no-one knows if you can get better at AI programming, and the answer may be "you can't."
Only time will tell.
Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, adherence is a hard problem. It should be feeling much better in newer models, especially Opus 4.5. I generally find that Opus listens to me the first time.
Have been using Opus 4.5 and can confirm this is how it feels, it just works.
It also works your wallet