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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?

#71
Seconded! I'm using LLMs in many different ways—like you—starting with small troubleshooting tasks, quick shell scripts, coding, or simply asking questions.

I use a wide variety of tools. For more private or personal tasks, I mostly rely on Claude and OpenAI; sometimes I also use Google or Perplexity—whichever gives the best results. For business purposes, I either use Copilot within VSCode or, via an internal corporate platform, Claude, OpenAI, and Google. I’ve also experimented a bit with Copilot Studio.

I’ve been working like this for about a year and a half now, though I haven’t had access to every tool the entire time.

So far, I can say this:

Yes, LLMs have increased my productivity. I’m experimenting with different programming languages, which is quite fun. I’m gaining a better understanding of various topics, and that definitely makes some things easier.

But—regardless of the model or its version—I also find myself getting really, really frustrated. The more complex the task, the more I step outside of well-trodden paths, and the more it's not just about piecing together simple components… the more they all tend to fail. And if that’s not enough: in some cases, I’d even say it takes more time to fix the mess an LLM makes than it ever saved me in the first place.

Right now, my honest conclusion is this: LLMs are useful for small code completion tasks, troubleshooting and explaining —but that’s about it. They’re not taking our jobs anytime soon.

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

#72
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get similar results by downloading a boilerplate template project for that though. LLM makes that a bit easier and faster to do, but is also a bit more error prone than a template project.

I’m not sure that LLM makes it easier to do. Pain points I’ve seen: 1. You have to remember all the technologies you need included, my company template already has them. 2. LLM doesn’t have a standardized directory structure, so you end up with different projects having different structures and file naming conventions. This makes later refactoring or upgrades across multiple projects less automatable (sometimes this…

I agree, initial comment was basically that, and seeing a lot of folks (especially those with debatable technical skills) being very impressed with LLMs for boilerplate generation, e.g. "I build a WHOLE APP", etc.

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

#73
i haven't used cursor or codex or any system that says "agentic coding experience"

i speak in thoughts in my head and it is better to just translate those thoughts to code directly.

putting them into a language for LLMs to make sense and understanding the output is oof... too much overhead. and yeah the micromanagement, correcting mistakes, miscommunications, its shit

i just code like the old days and if i need any assistance, i use chatgpt

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

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? I didn't bother to check as it wasn't too relevant. I wasn't stuck anymore. Worst-case it's a memnonic that is untrue. Best case: it is. For actual derivations I check the work. This is what it wrote by the way. I posted an image and asked: Why is this m m for angle mangle? ChatGPT: In geometry we often need to distinguish the angle itself (a geometric object) from the numerical size of that angle (a real-numb…

See slope: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slope It isn't customarily used for angles (those get Greek letters). The m stands for mystery. Edit: ah, but I see that this prefixed m for "measure" is also used sometimes. It appears at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angle#Combining_angle_pairs though I'm not sure why it's necessary. Maybe because you want to clarify absolute magnitude is meant, to avoid adding negative valu…

yes, it's the equivalent of |AB| for a line segment and is not uncommon in high school maths texts in some parts of the world

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

#76
post #2

I use this analogy. In the early 90's I had been programming in assembler and sometimes in pure hex codes. I had been very good at that, creating really effective code, tight, using as little resources as possible. But then resources became cheap and it stoped matter. Yeah, the tight well designed machine code is still some sort of art expression but for practical purpose it makes sense to write a program in higher l…

I don't agree. It may be true that most code is throwaway. But you trust a C compiler, or a Python intepreter, to do their job in a deterministic way. You will never be able to trust Copilot telling you that "this should be the code you are using". It may suggest you using AWS, or Google, or Microsoft, or Tencent infrastructure. An LLM can even push you a specific style, or political agenda, without even you realizin…

I think you probably need a multimodal LLM to align a table with a monospace font. Blind human programmers using screenreaders will also have difficulty with that particular task. It doesn't mean they're bad at programming; it just means they can't see.

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

#78
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…

Not really my case. Found that Codebase with good code benefit more with LLM, but it's not the prerequisite.

I just rewrote 300ish advanced PostgreSQL queries to mysql queries. The process is not magical, but it will take me 1 week rather than 3 days. Now I'm on testing phase, seems promising.

The point is if we can find a work to work along with the agent, can be very productive.

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

#79
I have seen two apparently contradictory things.

Firstly, there absolutely are people popping up in certain domains with LLM assisted developed products that could not have managed it otherwise, with results you would not suspect were made that way if you were not told.

However, I share the same problem myself. The root of it is "analysis is harder than synthesis". i.e. if you have to be sure of the correctness of the code it's far easier to write it yourself than establish that an LLM got it right. This probably means needing to change how to split things out to LLMs in ways human co-workers would find intolerable.

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

#80
post #67
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...

Are you seriously pointing out the difference between 25% and 30% as meaningful?
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