Why agents are bad pair programmers
justin.searls.co
Why agents are bad pair programmers
1–10 of 239 posts
Re: Why agents are bad pair programmers
#2Pair programming is also not suitable for all cases
Maybe not for many cases
I mentioned this elsewhere but I find it absolutely impossible to get into a good programming flow anymore while the LLM constantly interrupts me with suggested autocompletes that I have to stop, read, review, and accept/reject
It's been miserable trying to incorporate this into my workflow
Re: Why agents are bad pair programmers
#3Pair programming is also not suitable for all cases Maybe not for many cases I mentioned this elsewhere but I find it absolutely impossible to get into a good programming flow anymore while the LLM constantly interrupts me with suggested autocompletes that I have to stop, read, review, and accept/reject It's been miserable trying to incorporate this into my workflow
Code regularly, and use ai to get unblocked if you do so or review code for mistakes.
Or have the ai write the entire first draft for some piece and then you give it a once over, correcting it either manually or with prompts.
Re: Why agents are bad pair programmers
#4Pair programming is also not suitable for all cases Maybe not for many cases I mentioned this elsewhere but I find it absolutely impossible to get into a good programming flow anymore while the LLM constantly interrupts me with suggested autocompletes that I have to stop, read, review, and accept/reject It's been miserable trying to incorporate this into my workflow
Second this. My solution is to have a 'non-AI' IDE and then a Cursor/VS Code to switch between. Deep work cannot be achieved by chatting with the coding bots, sorry.
Re: Why agents are bad pair programmers
#5>LLM agents make bad pairs because they code faster than humans think
This is why I strongly dislike all of the terminal based tools and PR based stuff. If you're left to read through a completed chunk of code it is just overwhelming and your cycle time is too slow. The key to productivity is using an IDE based tool that shows you every line of code as it is being written, so you're reading it and understanding where it's going in real time. Augmentation, not automation, is the path forward. Think of it like the difference between walking and having a manual transmission car to drive, not the difference between having a car and having a self driving car.
Re: Why agents are bad pair programmers
#6Pair programming is also not suitable for all cases Maybe not for many cases I mentioned this elsewhere but I find it absolutely impossible to get into a good programming flow anymore while the LLM constantly interrupts me with suggested autocompletes that I have to stop, read, review, and accept/reject It's been miserable trying to incorporate this into my workflow
Code regularly, and use ai to get unblocked if you do so or review code for mistakes. Or have the ai write the entire first draft for some piece and then you give it a once over, correcting it either manually or with prompts.
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Re: Why agents are bad pair programmers
#7I use an LLM as a reference (on-demand), and don't use agents (yet). I was never into pair programming, anyway, so it isn't a familiar workflow for me.
I will admit that it encourages "laziness," on my part, but I'm OK with that (remember when they said that calculators would do that? They were right).
For example, I am working on a SwiftUI project (an Apple Watch app), and forgot how to do a fairly basic thing. I could have looked it up, in a few minutes, but it was easier to just spin up ChatGPT, and ask it how to do it. I had the answer in a few seconds. Looking up SwiftUI stuff is a misery. The documentation is ... a work in progress ...
Re: Why agents are bad pair programmers
#8Pair programming is also not suitable for all cases Maybe not for many cases I mentioned this elsewhere but I find it absolutely impossible to get into a good programming flow anymore while the LLM constantly interrupts me with suggested autocompletes that I have to stop, read, review, and accept/reject It's been miserable trying to incorporate this into my workflow
I recently got a new laptop and had to setup my IDE again.
After a couple hours of coding something felt "weird" - turns out I forgot to login to GitHub Copilot and I was working without it the entire time. I felt a lot more proactive and confident as I wasn't waiting on the autocomplete.
Also, Cursor was exceptional at interrupting any kind of "flow" - who even wants their next cursor position predicted?
I'll probably keep Copilot disabled for now and stick to the agent-style tools like aider for boilerplate or redundant tasks.
Re: Why agents are bad pair programmers
#9Pair programming is also not suitable for all cases Maybe not for many cases I mentioned this elsewhere but I find it absolutely impossible to get into a good programming flow anymore while the LLM constantly interrupts me with suggested autocompletes that I have to stop, read, review, and accept/reject It's been miserable trying to incorporate this into my workflow
Second this. My solution is to have a 'non-AI' IDE and then a Cursor/VS Code to switch between. Deep work cannot be achieved by chatting with the coding bots, sorry.
Thirded. It was just completely distracting and I had to turn it off. I use AI but not after every keystroke, jeez.
Re: Why agents are bad pair programmers
#10>LLM agents make bad pairs because they code faster than humans think This is why I strongly dislike all of the terminal based tools and PR based stuff. If you're left to read through a completed chunk of code it is just overwhelming and your cycle time is too slow. The key to productivity is using an IDE based tool that shows you every line of code as it is being written, so you're reading it and understanding where…
If I have a 20 line function in my mind and the LLM injects 20 lines for me to accept or reject, I have two problems
First I have to review the 20 lines the LLM has produced
Second, if I reject those lines, it has probably shoved the function I had in mind out of my head
It's enormously disruptive to my progress