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Ask HN: Anyone struggling to get value out of coding LLMs?

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Re: Ask HN: Anyone struggling to get value out of coding LLMs?

#281

Post by jz2dlimit »

bird0861 wrote: post #204

I would put myself in the 100x camp but my start in AI (and programming) was symbolic approaches in lisp/scheme, then I put that away for about a decade and got into NLP and then got into question answering and search/information retrieval. I have read probably at least 20 papers on LLMs a week every week since December 2022. So I have some familiarity with the domain but I also would not exactly call myself an exper…

First responder who put themselves into the 100x category. Do you mind sharing what setup you use on your local RTX4090? Like what models you run and what kinds of prompt you feed it? I'm contemplating building an LLM rig to do some experimentation.

It also sounds like you've read a lot of papers (20 per week since 2022 December would equate to 2000 by today). Do you have any favorites that really stood out to you?

Re: Ask HN: Anyone struggling to get value out of coding LLMs?

#282

Post by viridian »

Jensson wrote: post #67
bobxmax wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go look at the latest YC batch. 30% of them were built with 90% of the code being written by LLMs.

Where did you see that stat? And why just 30%, shouldn't almost all of them be built by LLM if LLM is that much better? Edit: This says a quarter, where did you get the 30% figure from? https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/06/a-quarter-of-startups-in-y...

Perhaps bobxmax should have asked an LLM what the exact number was instead of relying on his outdated & error prone human memory.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone struggling to get value out of coding LLMs?

#283

Post by GBintz »

I don't understand the hesitation with existing large codebases. Maybe everything I work on is just easy compared to yall.

It has been unimaginably helpful in getting me up to speed in large existing codebases.

First thing to do in a codebase is to tell it to "analyze the entire codebase and generate md docs in a /llmdocs directory". Do this manually in a loop a few times and try a few different models. They'll build on each other's output.

Chunk embed and index those rather than the code files themselves. Use those for context. Get full code files through tool calls when needed

Re: Ask HN: Anyone struggling to get value out of coding LLMs?

#285

Post by jf22 »

gyomu wrote: post #13

There are two kinds of engineers. Those who can’t stop raving about how much of a superpower LLMs are for coding, how it’s made them 100x more productive, and is unlocking things they could’ve never done before. And those who, like you, find it to be an extremely finicky process that requires extreme amount of coddling to get average results at best. The only thing I don’t understand is why people from the former gro…

There is a gradient in here. The difference between the two isn't that extreme.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone struggling to get value out of coding LLMs?

#286

Post by soraminazuki »

infecto wrote: post #253
soraminazuki wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP didn't "construct made-up examples" anywhere in this thread as of the time of writing this post. Where did you hallucinate that from? Seriously, why is every comment hyping up AI generated code like this. No concrete evidence, just turtles all the way down. But when actual examples do show up, it's a complete clown show [1][2]. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44050152 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/it…

He definitely crafted the narrative he wanted, you see that just as much from skeptics as from the hype crowd. I still stand by what I said: there are always three camps in any LLM discussion. No hallucinations here, I can see where you land. I’m here for a constructive argument, and I believe there’s a real middle ground where LLMs are creating tangible value, even for experienced engineers. Your links about GitHub…

So you shifted from "constructing made-up examples" to "crafting narratives." In plainer terms, your accusation downgraded from calling someone a liar to merely suggesting that they are making an argument. Is the latter accusation supposed to be a bad thing in discussions?

Anyways if you want to hear my direct experience, I reviewed AI generated code. It couldn't get a simple map, reduce, and filter right. I personally wouldn't waste my coworker's time with such slop. I'm happier coding with existing tools for boilerplate generation and code completion, along with my own brain. Much more predictable and reliable.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone struggling to get value out of coding LLMs?

#287

Post by l33tman »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #158
l33tman wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see why you would chime in to say that in your experience you don't get any value out of it, but to chime in to say that the millions of people who do are "inexperienced" is pretty offensive. In the hands of skilled developers these tools are a complete gamechanger.

> In the hands of skilled developers these tools are a complete gamechanger. This is where both sides are basically just accusing the other of not getting it The AI coders are saying "These tools are a gamechanger in the hands of skilled developers" implying if you aren't getting gamechanging results you aren't skilled The non-AI coders are basically saying the same thing back to them. "You only think this is gamecha…

Sorry for the late reply here, but let me develop a bit more what I meant. I have a long and vast programming experience, but am also an entrepreneur with many projects that I switch between. I could have focused full-time on, say, React Native, and then I could churn out my monkey code all day long. But I don't spend full-time on RN and then suddenly 12 months passed where I didn't write any at all so my specific knowledge of that domain is always a bit behind.

But something like o4-mini-high is a domain expert in all versions of React, Redux, RN etc. and knows every internal SDK change over the last 10 years (or goes out and reads the changelogs and code itself). Countless times I've had it port old code to new and it figures it out 100%. It formulates good modern canonical ways to solve stuff. It knows all the stupid tricks you have to do to get RN stuff run well on Android and iOS that I would never be able to keep in my head unless I work full-time on that. And it does the eye-watering boring styling code that nobody likes, you can even just upload a screenshot of another app or a sketch on paper and it will correctly output code for the style in a matter of seconds.

The end result is that I can, without investing a full-time of keeping myself current, do a professional RN dual Android/iOS app development cycle because I have the general skill to understand what to ask it and how to merge its output properly. This leaves me time to do other stuff and generally be more productive.

My guess is that many who gave up on the AI coding stuff tried the bad tools like the default chatgpt 4o-mini (or tried the tools available 2 years ago) and got a bad experience. There are light-years of differences between these and something like o4-mini-high.

TL;DR: use the correct model for the job, and it doesn't really need to be an argument - if it makes you more productive it's a good tool, if it doesn't, nobody is forcing you to use it. But I don't think you should imply that everybody who likes these tools are stupid.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone struggling to get value out of coding LLMs?

#288

Post by l33tman »

mattmanser wrote: post #278
l33tman wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see why you would chime in to say that in your experience you don't get any value out of it, but to chime in to say that the millions of people who do are "inexperienced" is pretty offensive. In the hands of skilled developers these tools are a complete gamechanger.

Where are these millions, and where is their output? You're in an echo chamber mate, there aren't millions of people using AI to do significant amounts of work. Indie hackers just did an article on 4 vibe coded Startups and they all seem like a joke. And they could only find 4! I didn't look at them all, but the flight sim is spectacularly bad, the revenue numbers obviously unsustainable and it looks like something m…

It's sort of a slow-motion avalanche. For example the price of outsourcing app development is really coming down now because it's one of the areas where the AI coding tools really excel. It's a lot of boiler-plate style code, pretty canonical stuff, no rocket science and, to be frank, not really that much that has to be clever. You can give the tools a screenshot of an UI and it gladly outputs correct styling code for it in seconds. It supercharges already skilled developers. And if you needed 6 in-house app developers before, now you only need 2. It isn't an immediate effect, but it is an effect that is slowly going to run though the business.

The question is, are companies going to use fewer people to do the same, or the same amount of people and just create better products?

For prototyping new ideas this is also an invaluable turbocharge for startups who can't really afford to have hordes of developers trying out alternative solutions.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone struggling to get value out of coding LLMs?

#289

Post by reg_dunlop »

Philip-J-Fry wrote: post #41
gyomu wrote: post #13

There are two kinds of engineers. Those who can’t stop raving about how much of a superpower LLMs are for coding, how it’s made them 100x more productive, and is unlocking things they could’ve never done before. And those who, like you, find it to be an extremely finicky process that requires extreme amount of coddling to get average results at best. The only thing I don’t understand is why people from the former gro…

I find LLMs 100x more productive for greenfield work. If I want to create a React app with X amount of pages, some Redux stores, Auth, etc. then it can smash that out in minutes. I can say "now add X" and it'll do it. Generally with good results. But when it comes to maintaining existing systems, or adding more complicated features, or needing to know business domain details, a LLM is usually not that great for me. T…

> What I tend to do is write stubbed out code in the design I like, then I'll get an LLM to just fill in the gaps.

This seems like an interesting approach, though to me it begs the question: what does "stubbed out code" look like? How much stubbing is done? Have you considered using pseudocode as comments within a larger "stubbed out" portion?

The importance of rules and context has begun to elevate its significance (...that is, if context wasn't always very important), and finding ways to articulate that context seems to be a skill of greater importance...

Re: Ask HN: Anyone struggling to get value out of coding LLMs?

#290

Post by ivape »

l33tman wrote: post #287
bluefirebrand wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the hands of skilled developers these tools are a complete gamechanger. This is where both sides are basically just accusing the other of not getting it The AI coders are saying "These tools are a gamechanger in the hands of skilled developers" implying if you aren't getting gamechanging results you aren't skilled The non-AI coders are basically saying the same thing back to them. "You only think this is gamecha…

Sorry for the late reply here, but let me develop a bit more what I meant. I have a long and vast programming experience, but am also an entrepreneur with many projects that I switch between. I could have focused full-time on, say, React Native, and then I could churn out my monkey code all day long. But I don't spend full-time on RN and then suddenly 12 months passed where I didn't write any at all so my specific kn…

Stop telling everyone the secret.
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