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Generative AI coding tools and agents do not work for me

blog.miguelgrinberg.com

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Re: Generative AI coding tools and agents do not work for me

#191

Post by benediktwerner »

didibus wrote: post #176
bluefirebrand wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Exactly, that's what I'm saying. Commit AI code under its own name. Then the code under your name can use the AI code as a black box. If your code that uses AI code works as expected, it is similar to when using libraries. 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 ca…

I don't see what that does. The AI hardly cares about it's reputation and I also can't really blame the AI when my boss or a customer asks me why something failed, so what does committing under its name do?

I'm ultimately still responsible for the code. And unlike AI, library authors but their and their libraries reputation on the line.

Re: Generative AI coding tools and agents do not work for me

#192

Post by dr_dshiv »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #105
waprin wrote: post #19

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…

The skill ceiling might be "high" but it's not like investing years of practice to become a great pianist. The most experienced AI coder in the world has about three years of practice working this way, much of which is obsoleted because the models have changed to the point where some lessons learned on GPT 3.5 don't transfer. There aren't teachers with decades of experience to learn from, either.

It’s mostly attitude that you are learning. Playfulness, persistence and a willingness to start from scratch again and again.

Re: Generative AI coding tools and agents do not work for me

#193

Post by suddenlybananas »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #192
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The skill ceiling might be "high" but it's not like investing years of practice to become a great pianist. The most experienced AI coder in the world has about three years of practice working this way, much of which is obsoleted because the models have changed to the point where some lessons learned on GPT 3.5 don't transfer. There aren't teachers with decades of experience to learn from, either.

It’s mostly attitude that you are learning. Playfulness, persistence and a willingness to start from scratch again and again.

>persistence and a willingness to start from scratch again and again.

i.e. continually gambling and praying the model spits something out that works instead of thinking.

Re: Generative AI coding tools and agents do not work for me

#194

Post by Zaylan »

I've had a similar experience. These tools are pretty helpful for small scripts or quick utility code, but once you're working on something with a more complex structure and lots of dependencies, they tend to slow down. Sometimes it takes more effort to fix what they generate than to just write it myself.

I still use them, but more as a support tool than a real assistant.

Re: Generative AI coding tools and agents do not work for me

#195

Post by thedelanyo »

socalgal2 wrote: post #180

> Another common argument I've heard is that Generative AI is helpful when you need to write code in a language or technology you are not familiar with. To me this also makes little sense. 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 wo…

So AI is basically best as a search engine.

Re: Generative AI coding tools and agents do not work for me

#196

Post by [deleted] »

Zaylan wrote: post #194

I've had a similar experience. These tools are pretty helpful for small scripts or quick utility code, but once you're working on something with a more complex structure and lots of dependencies, they tend to slow down. Sometimes it takes more effort to fix what they generate than to just write it myself. I still use them, but more as a support tool than a real assistant.

[deleted]

Re: Generative AI coding tools and agents do not work for me

#197

Post by groestl »

thedelanyo wrote: post #195
socalgal2 wrote: post #180

> Another common argument I've heard is that Generative AI is helpful when you need to write code in a language or technology you are not familiar with. To me this also makes little sense. 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 wo…

So AI is basically best as a search engine.

That's right.

Re: Generative AI coding tools and agents do not work for me

#198

Post by nikanj »

socalgal2 wrote: post #180

> Another common argument I've heard is that Generative AI is helpful when you need to write code in a language or technology you are not familiar with. To me this also makes little sense. 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 wo…

And ChatGPT never closes your question without answer because it (falsely) thinks it's a duplicate of a different question from 13 years ago

Re: Generative AI coding tools and agents do not work for me

#199

Post by dotancohen »

barsonme wrote: post #183
autobodie wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why use AI to do something so simple? You're only increasing the possibility that it gets done wrong. Multi-cursor editing wil be faster anyway.

Why not? I regularly have a couple Claude instances running in the background chewing through simple yet time consuming tasks. It’s saved me many hours of work and given me more time to focus on the important parts.

  > a couple Claude instances running in the background chewing through simple yet time consuming tasks.
If you don't mind, I'd love to hear more about this. How exactly are they running the background? What are they doing? How do you interact with them? Do they have access to your file system?

Thank you!

Re: Generative AI coding tools and agents do not work for me

#200

Post by dagw »

kenjackson wrote: post #172
autobodie wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I only generate the code once with GenAI and typically fix a bug or two - or at worst use its structure. Rarely do I toss a full PR. It’s interesting some folks can use them to build functioning systems and others can’t get a PR out of them.

It’s interesting some folks can use them to build functioning systems and others can’t get a PR out of them.

It is 100% a function of what you are trying to build, what language and libraries you are building it in, and how sensitive that thing is to factors like performance and getting the architecture just right. I've experienced building functioning systems with hardly any intervention, and repeatedly failing to get code that even compiles after over an hour of effort. There exists small, but popular, subset of programming tasks where gen AI excels, and a massive tail of tasks where it is much less useful.

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