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Ask HN: How have you integrated LLMs in your development workflow?

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Re: Ask HN: How have you integrated LLMs in your development workflow?

#71

Post by forgotlastlogin »

I am currently working on a side project. I am not very familiar with the domain, and I am using a language I am not very proficient at. Claude has been a great help, discussing different approaches to a problem, sometimes writing (and explaining) a function or two. Or explaining an error.

On top of that, I have configured a chatgpt code reviewer on my github repos. Most of the comments I get from it on PRs are useless but from time to time it does spot a problem or suggest an improvement.

Re: Ask HN: How have you integrated LLMs in your development workflow?

#72

Post by lawls »

daghamm wrote: post #39
lawls wrote: post #5

I enjoy using the Projects feature of Claude. You have a workspace to add knowledge (file/image/text) that you are able to update and maintain throughout multiple discussions.

How is Claude performing when project grows and things get more complicated? I had some issues with both gpt4 and sonnet getting slower and doing pointless refactors as project grows

It's easy, you just remove the old content and add the updated files. There is Project level Workspace and Chat level Workspace. Each have their own size limit. Once one chat has accomplished my task, I add whatever relevant Artifacts it produced to the Project Workspace and move on to a new chat.

Re: Ask HN: How have you integrated LLMs in your development workflow?

#73

Post by jimcollinswort1 »

I've been using the cursor editor (vs code clone with LLM) for 6 months and it definitely improves productivity. Biggest gains are for writing/refactoring just a few lines at a time, where I can understand and test the new code easily.

Working with multiple products, Python and many different libraries and frameworks I have to constantly look up commands and usage. With the LLM I select a line or two, and ask 'sort by region, exclude pre 2023' and it writes (or adds) the necessary Pandas calls to the dataframe. The LLM has my code, tools documentation and more as context, so I don't have to say much to get the right code, but the questions are important, have to converse with a programmer mindset still.

It has almost completely replaced using Google for helping with code. Often I waste too much time in Slashdot looking at a dozen possible similar situations, but not what I need. The LLM immediately gives me something right in my own code. Usually have to give it some followup commands to tweak the code or take a different approach.

Re: Ask HN: How have you integrated LLMs in your development workflow?

#74

Post by kutenai »

I use Tabnine - https://www.tabnine.com/ It supports multiple LLM's and it has it's own internal one, and it can be secure for a company and their codebase, unlike the generic OpenAI, Claude, etc.

I do have OpenAI keys and Claude, and I use them both (just as the mood fits, to see which works best).

I'm been coding for decades, so I"m quite experienced. I find that an LLM is no substitute for experience, but it definitely helps with progress. I work regularly in a range of languages: Java, Javascript with Typescript, Javascript pure ESM, Python, SQL. It's great to have a quick prototype tool.

One key takeaway - learning to "drive the LLM" is a skill by itself. I find that some people are "hesitant" to learn this, and they usually complain about how bad the LLM is at generating code.. but, in reality, they are bad at "driving" the LLM.

If I put you in an F1 car, the car would perform perfectly, but unless you had the skills to handle the car, you will not win any races.. might not get around the track one time..

Also, I'm in my 60's so, this is all "new" tech. I've just never been afraid of "new" tech. I'd hate for some 30 year old hot-shot to show my up because they learned to master using that LLM Tool and I just blew it off as "new tech".

Anyway, my $0.02

Re: Ask HN: How have you integrated LLMs in your development workflow?

#76

Post by JohnFen »

resonious wrote: post #6
vander_elst wrote: post #2

Code autocompletion. I think it works around 60% of the cases, sometimes it saves some tipping. Performance increase: small. Additionally, I don't learn the API as good as if I were to type it, considering moving back.

I stopped using autocomplete and I don't really miss it. It was really impressive for simple repetitive stuff, but it's an active nuisance when I'm working on something more complex.

This was my experience. Code autocomplete disrupts and derails me much more than it helps me.

Re: Ask HN: How have you integrated LLMs in your development workflow?

#77

Post by kbrecordzz »

I have not, LLM is generative and can only create generic stuff and if your project contains lots of generic stuff, is it really interesting? I want to spend time on the parts I find interesting to think thoughts about with my human brain. Problems that have a quick answer in ChatGPT but a more interesting and personal answer after thinking about it for hours and trying 3 different versions of it before deciding on one. Then if I want to quickly test how to create an X11 window I might generate the code and work backwards from that. But… I’m not really in a hurry and if you aren’t you don’t really need LLM

Re: Ask HN: How have you integrated LLMs in your development workflow?

#78

Post by swah »

aeze wrote: post #17

I use Cursor primarily with Claude 3.5 Sonnet. Overall a solid productivity increase depending on the task. I have a few observations: - I vastly prefer Cursor's Copilot++ UX for autocomplete compared to GitHub's in VSCode, which I used until a few months ago. - The Composer multi-file editor (cmd+i) is easily its most powerful feature and what I use most often, even when I'm working on single files. It just works be…

Hadn't even picked on the composer, was happy with Cmd+k/cmd+L for weeks!
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