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Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?

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Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?

#391

Post by owendarko »

What a lot of people don’t mention here is the choice of an AI model.

The key word in the OP post is “Claude”. Anthropic has 2 amazing AI models (Sonnet, Opus), however they’re just a part of a much bigger picture.

When using AI for programming, you’re essentially interacting with AI models. The quality of output you get really depends on the model at the end of the day. Claude Code is optimized for models from Anthropic. You also have model-agnostic agents like Cursor and Kilo Code (disclaimer: I work at Kilo) where you can easily switch up models and see which one works the best for you converting an old jQuery + Django project into SvelteKit.

This area is moving at a crazy rate. Just the last 2 weeks alone, there were 3 main AI model versions released (first Gemini 3, then Opus 4.5, then GPT-5.2). I wrote a piece comparing their performance across 3 coding tasks [1]

So my advice is to also experiment a lot with the models because the quality can vary wildly depending on your stack.

[1] https://blog.kilo.ai/p/we-tested-gpt-52pro-vs-opus-45-vs

Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?

#392

Post by BoorishBears »

lifeformed wrote: post #384
BoorishBears wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, how modern technology works is not really the part I'm selling: that's just how it works. Coding languages haven't been describing even a fraction of the rules and state they encapsulate since what? Punch cards? It wasn't long until we started to rely on exponential number of layered abstractions to do anything useful with computers, and very quickly we traded precision and determinism for benefits like being con…

Name a single programming language that is probabilistic in any way?

- A text prompt isn't probabilistic, the output is.

- https://labs.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=LABS:0:5033606075766:AP...

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_(software)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probabilistic_programming

I explained in the most clear language possible why a fixation on the "programming language" part of the original comment is borderline non-sequitur. But if you're insistent on railroading the conversation regardless... at least try to be good at it, no?

Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?

#393

Post by shsush »

yonaguska wrote: post #246
shsush wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real secret to agent productivity is letting go of your understanding of the code and trusting the AI to generate the proper thing. Very pro agent devs like ghuntley will all say this. And it makes sense. For most coding problems the challenge isn’t writing code. Once you know what to write typing the code is a drop in the bucket. AI is still very useful, but if you really wanna go fast you have to give up on you…

This is sarcasm right?

[dead]

Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?

#394

Post by filoeleven »

udfalkso wrote: post #237
thfuran wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that documentation shouldn’t need to be updated nearly every other day.

Same thing happens every time a new hire joins the team. Lots of documentation is stale and needs updating as they onboard.

But that documentation shouldn’t need to be updated nearly every other day.

Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?

#395

Post by thfuran »

jm4 wrote: post #67
thfuran wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that documentation shouldn’t need to be updated nearly every other day.

It does if it’s incomplete or otherwise doesn’t accurately convey what people need to know.

And something is terribly wrong if it is constantly in that state despite near daily updates.

Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?

#396

Post by thfuran »

bitwize wrote: post #156
thfuran wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that documentation shouldn’t need to be updated nearly every other day.

Have you never looked at your work's Confluence? Worse, have you never spent time at a company where the documentation wasn't frequently updated?

Do you have nothing but onboarding material on yours and somehow still need to update it several times a week?

Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?

#397

Post by pbasista »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #129
dboon wrote: post #124

AI 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…

100% concur with this as owner of multiple 20k+ LOC repos with between 10-30% unmodified AI code in production If you treat it like a rubber duck it’s magic If you think the rubber duck is going to think for you then you shouldn’t even start with them.

> 10-30% unmodified AI code in production

That is an interesting metric but I think it is not that important.

I would be careful with (AI-generated) code that no one at the team understands well. If that kind of code is put into production, it might become a source of dragging technical debt that no one is able to properly address.

In my opinion, putting AI-generated code to production is okay, as long it has been reviewed and there is a human who can understand it well, debug it and fix it if needed.

Or, alternatively, if it is a throwaway code that does not need to be understood well and no one cares about its quality or maintainability because it would not need to be maintained in the first place.

Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?

#398

Post by victorbjorklund »

johnfn wrote: post #15
bogtog wrote: post #10

Using 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…

That's a fun idea. How do you get the transcript into Claude Code (or whatever you use)? What transcription service do you use?

I do the same. On Mac I use macwhisper. The transcription does not have to be correct. Lots of times it writes the wrong word when talking about technical stuff but Claude understands which word I mean from context

Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?

#399

Post by lifeformed »

BoorishBears wrote: post #392
lifeformed wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name a single programming language that is probabilistic in any way?

- A text prompt isn't probabilistic, the output is. - https://labs.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=LABS:0:5033606075766:AP... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_(software) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probabilistic_programming I explained in the most clear language possible why a fixation on the "programming language" part of the original comment is borderline non-sequitur. But if you're insistent on railroading the con…

I skimmed your comment since you were making the strange comparison that modern coding is basically probabilistic to a degree that prompting is, so I see now you weren't the one to say it's "probabilistic programming". But you are still trying to say that normal programming is basically probabilistic in some relevant way, which I think is quite ridiculous. I don't see how anything about normal engineering is probabilistic other than mistakes people make.

Re: Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?

#400

Post by 9rx »

handoflixue wrote: post #382
shsush wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> What’s more concise than code? The word "Tetris" is significantly more concise than the source code for Tetris. "Create a Tetris clone" is a valid four-word prompt. It's not going to produce a perfect one shot, but it'll get you 90% of the way there. > I could have done it myself. Typing isn’t a hard part. No, but it is slow. Claude can put together Tetris in 5 minutes. I most definitely cannot.

A traditional programming language still wins there. "git clone $TETRIS_CLONE_REPO" is fewer words, gets you 100% of the way, and only takes seconds to produce the result.

But the topic at hand is about novel problems. Can you describe your novel solution to an LLM in a natural language with less effort than a programming language that is already designed for describing novel solutions as clearly and concisely as possible?

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