171–180 of 464 posts
It would be interesting to see which is faster/better in competitive coding, the human coder or the human using AI to assist in coding.
Apparently models are not doing great for problems out of distribution.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can read code much faster than I can write it. This might be the defining line for Gen AI - people who can read code faster will find it useful and those that write faster then they can read won’t use it.
I think that's wrong. I only have to write code once, maybe twice. But when using AI agents, I have to read many (5? 10? I will always give up before 15) PRs before finding one close enough that I won't have to rewrite all of it. This nonsense has not saved me any time, and the process is miserable. I also haven't found any benefit in aiming for smaller or larger PRs. The aggregare efficiency seems to even out becaus…
It’s interesting some folks can use them to build functioning systems and others can’t get a PR out of them.
> For every new task this "AI intern" resets back to square one without having learned a thing! I guess the author is not aware of Cursor rules, AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, etc. Task-list oriented rules specifically help with long term context.
To some degree, traditional coding and AI coding are not the same thing, so it's not surprising that some people are better at one than the other. The author is basically saying that he's much better at coding than AI coding. But it's important to realize that AI coding is itself a skill that you can develop. It's not just , pick the best tool and let it go. Managing prompts and managing context has a much higher ski…
Is it a skill worth learning though? How much does the output quality improve? How transferable is it across models and tools of today, and of the future? From what I see of AI programming tools today, I highly doubt the skills developed are going to transfer to tools we'll see even a year from now.
No offense intended, but this is written by a guy who has the spare time to write the blog. I can only assume his problem space is pretty narrow. I'm not sure what his workflow is like, but personally I am interacting with so many different tools, in so many different environments, with so many unique problem sets, that being able to use AIs for error evaluation, and yes, for writing code, has indeed been a game chan…
> rise of IDEs, or Google search, or AWS. None of these things introduced the risk of directly breaking your codebase without very close oversight. If LLMs can surpass that hurdle, then we’ll all be having a different conversation.
You could argue that AI-generated code is a black box, but let's adjust our perspective here. When was the last time you thoroughly reviewed the source code of a library you imported? We already work with black boxes daily as we evaluate libraries by their interfaces and behaviors, not by reading every line. The distinction isn't whether code comes from AI or humans, but how we integrate and take responsibility for i…
> When was the last time you thoroughly reviewed the source code of a library you imported? Doesn't matter, I'm not responsible for maintaining that particular code The code in my PRs has my name attached, and I'm not trusting any LLM with my name
If you consider that AI code is not code any human needs to read or later modify by hand, AI code is modified by AI. All you want to do is just fully test it, if it all works, it's good. Now you can call into it from your own code.
I'm fine with anybody saying AI agents don't work for their work-style and am not looking to rebut this piece, but I'm going to take this opportunity to call something out. The author writes "reviewing code is actually harder than most people think. It takes me at least the same amount of time to review code not written by me than it would take me to write the code myself". That sounds within an SD of true for me, to…
Commenter Doug asks:
> > what AI coding tools have you utilized
Miguel replies:
> I don't use any AI coding tools. Isn't that pretty clear after reading this blog post?
Doug didn't ask what tools you use, Miguel. He asked which tools you have used. And the answer to that question isn't clear. Your post doesn't name the ones you've tried, despite using language that makes clear you that you have in fact used them (e.g. "my personal experience with these tools"). Doug's question isn't just reasonable. It's exactly the question an interested, engaged reader will ask, because it's the question your entire post begs.
I can't help but point out the irony here: you write a great deal on the meticulousness and care with which you review other people's code, and criticize users of AI tools for relaxing standards, but the AI-tool user in your comments section has clearly read your lengthy post more carefully and thoughtfully than you read his generous, friendly question.
And I think it's worth pointing out that this isn't the blog post's only head scratcher. Take the opening:
> People keep asking me If I use Generative AI tools for coding and what I think of them, so this is my effort to put my thoughts in writing, so that I can send people here instead of having to repeat myself every time I get the question.
Your post never directly answers either question. Can I infer that you don't use the tools? Sure. But how hard would it be to add a "no?" And as your next paragraph makes clear, your post isn't "anti" or "pro." It's personal -- which means it also doesn't say much of anything about what you actually think of the tools themselves. This post won't help the people who are asking you whether you use the tools or what you think of them, so I don't see why you'd send them here.
> my personal experience with these tools, from a strictly technical point of view
> I hope with this article I've made the technical issues with applying GenAI coding tools to my work clear.
Again, that word: "clear." No, the post not only doesn't make clear the technical issues; it doesn't raise a single concern that I think can properly be described as technical. You even say in your reply to Doug, in essence, that your resistance isn't technical, because for you the quality of an AI assistant's output doesn't matter. Your concerns, rather, are practical, methodological, and to some extent social. These are all perfectly valid reasons for eschewing AI coding assistants. They just aren't technical -- let alone strictly technical.
I write all of this as a programmer who would rather blow his own brains out, or retire, than cede intellectual labor, the thing I love most, to a robot -- let alone line the pockets of some charlatan 'thought leader' who's promising to make a reality of upper management's dirtiest wet dream: in essence, to proletarianize skilled work and finally liberate the owners of capital from the tyranny of labor costs.
I also write all of this, I guess, as someone who thinks commenter Doug seems like a way cool guy, a decent chap who asked a reasonable question in a gracious, open way and got a weirdly dismissive, obtuse reply that belies the smug, sanctimonious hypocrisy of the blog post itself.
Oh, and one more thing: AI tools are poison. I see them as incompatible with love of programming, engineering quality, and the creation of safe, maintainable systems, and I think they should be regarded as a threat to the health and safety of everybody whose lives depend on software (all of us), not because of the dangers of machine super intelligence but because of the dangers of the complete absence of machine intelligence paired with the seductive illusion of understanding.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What makes you think those without that kind of scratch are supposed to keep up?
For the past 10 years we have been telling everyone learn to code, now it’s learn to build AI prompts. Before a poor kid with a computer access could learn to code nearly for free, but if it costs $1k just to get started with AI that poor kid will never have that opportunity.
I'm not sure I get this one. When I'm learning new tech I almost always have questions. I used to google them. If I couldn't find an answer I might try posting on stack overflow. Sometimes as I'm typing the question their search would finally kick in and find the answer (similar questions). Other times I'd post the question, if it didn't get closed, maybe I'd get an answer a few hours or days later.
Now I just ask ChatGPT or Gemini and more often than not it gives me the answer. That alone and nothing else (agent modes, AI editing or generating files) is enough to increase my output. I get answers 10x faster than I used to. I'm not sure what that has to do with the point about learning. Getting answers to those question is learning, regardless of where the answer comes from.