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Ask HN: How is AI-assisted coding going for you professionally?

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Re: Ask HN: How is AI-assisted coding going for you professionally?

#581

Post by robeym »

I built an ERP system called PAX ERP mostly solo for small manufacturers in the USA.

Stack is React, Express, PostgreSQL, all on AWS with a React build pipeline through GitHub Actions. It handles inventory, work orders (MRP), purchasing, GAAP accounting, email campaigns, CRM, shipping (FDX or UPS), etc.

AI has been useful (I use Claude Code, mainly Haiku model), but only if I'm steering it carefully and reviewing everything. It is obviously not great at system design, so I still need to know exactly what I'm trying to do. If I don't it'll often make things overly complicated or focus on edge cases that don't really exist.

It helps a lot with: Writing/refactoring SQL, Making new API routes based on my CRUD template, Creating new frontend components from specs and existing templates, Debugging and explaining unexpected behavior, Integrating third-party APIs (Fedex for shipping, Resend for emails). It understands their documentation easily and helps connect the pieces.

In practice, it feels like a fancy copy/paste (new routes, components) or a helpful assistant. With careful guidance and review, it's a real efficiency boost, especially solo.

Re: Ask HN: How is AI-assisted coding going for you professionally?

#583

Post by lta »

tim-tday wrote: post #199
Izkata wrote: post #149

I don't use it. I know my mind fairly well, and I know my style of laziness will result in atrophying skills. Better not to risk it. One of my co-workers already admitted as much to me around six months ago, and that he was trying not to use AI for any code generation anymore, but it was really difficult to stop because it was so easy to reach for. Sounded kind of like a drug addiction to me. And I had the impression…

I’m the same way. But I took a bite and now I’m hooked. I started using it for things I hate, ended up using it everywhere. I move 5x faster. I follow along most of the time. Twice a week I realize I’ve lost the thread. Once a month it sets me back a week or more.

I repeatedly tried to use LLMs for code but god they suck. I've tried most tools and models and for me it's still way faster to write things by hand.

I'm a magical tool, it's almost like if I knew what I wanted to do ! Don't have to spend time explaining and correcting.

Also, a good part of the value of me writing code is that I know the code well and can fix things quickly. In addition, I've come to realize that while I'm coding, I'm mostly thinking about the project's code architecture and technical future. It's not something I'll ever want to delegate I think.

Re: Ask HN: How is AI-assisted coding going for you professionally?

#584

Post by lta »

threethirtytwo wrote: post #416
wg0 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This checks out logical speaking. The FANG code basis are very large and date back years might not necessarily be using open source frameworks rather in house libraries and frameworks none of which are certainly available to Anthropic or OpenAI hence these models have zero visibility into them. Therefore combined with the fact that these are not reasoning or thinking machines rather probabilistic (image/text) generat…

No it doesn't check out. I think it's becoming abundantly clear LLMs learn in real time as they speak to you. There's a lot of denial and people claiming they don't learn that their knowledge is fixed on the training data and this is not even remotely true at all. LLMs learn dynamically through their context window and this learning is at a rate much faster than humans and often with capabilities greater than humans…

It checks out if you take into account most developers are actually rather mediocre outside of places where they spend an insane amount of time and money to get good devs (including but not limited to FANG)

Re: Ask HN: How is AI-assisted coding going for you professionally?

#585

Post by lta »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #473
wg0 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This checks out logical speaking. The FANG code basis are very large and date back years might not necessarily be using open source frameworks rather in house libraries and frameworks none of which are certainly available to Anthropic or OpenAI hence these models have zero visibility into them. Therefore combined with the fact that these are not reasoning or thinking machines rather probabilistic (image/text) generat…

Huh? I have over a hundred services/repos checked out locally, ranging from 10+ years old to new. I have no problem leveraging AI to work in this large distributed codebase. Even internal stuff is usable by the model because it’s a pattern matching machine and there should be documentation available, or it can just study the code like a human.

Yeah that's still very far away from FAANG repos

Re: Ask HN: How is AI-assisted coding going for you professionally?

#586

Post by jasondigitized »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #553
viccis wrote: post #268

Haven't seen this mentioned yet, but the worst part for me is that a lot of management LOVES to use Claude to generate 50 page design documents, PRDs, etc., and send them to us to "please review as soon as you can". Nobody reads it, not even the people making it. I'm watching some employees just generate endless slide decks of nonsense and then waffle when asked any specific questions. If any of that is read, it is b…

I've been tasked with code reviews of Claude chat bot written code (not Claude code that has RAG and can browse the file system). It always lacks any understanding of our problem area, 75% of the time it only works for a specific scenario (the prompted case), and almost 100% of the time, when I comment about this, I'm told to take it over and make it work... and to use Claude. I've kind of decided this is my last job…

You got any land down there? I would like to be close to you and, post retirement, eat said french fries daily.

Re: Ask HN: How is AI-assisted coding going for you professionally?

#587

Post by dzonga »

I run a small data operation - mostly background jobs processing - with a small layer of CRUD stuff on top could be Django | Rails.

I have found A.I to be good when given guard-rails e.g I can write the initial models & functions by hand - then A.I (smarter autocomplete) completes the rest.

Also good - after the initial setup - if I prompt it I no longer have to spend time reading some library docs I won't likely use

Bad - it can create bad code or go off the rails (hence you've to be a skilled operator i.e skilled engineer before)

Bad - Vibecoding doesn't work when you're dealign with external data whose APIs are mostly undocumented etc (writing types | dataclasses is useful for the smarter autocomplete)

Re: Ask HN: How is AI-assisted coding going for you professionally?

#588

Post by therealdrag0 »

lta wrote: post #585
therealdrag0 wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? I have over a hundred services/repos checked out locally, ranging from 10+ years old to new. I have no problem leveraging AI to work in this large distributed codebase. Even internal stuff is usable by the model because it’s a pattern matching machine and there should be documentation available, or it can just study the code like a human.

Yeah that's still very far away from FAANG repos

In total LOC sure. This isn’t close to my companies total repos either… But surely a FAANG dev isn’t writing code across thousands of repos. In fact the people I know most at fang have less scope than this not more. So what is the relevant blocker here?

Re: Ask HN: How is AI-assisted coding going for you professionally?

#589

Post by __blockcipher__ »

rkagerer wrote: post #510
theshrike79 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you shove clearly AI generated content at me, I will use an AI to summarize it. Or I'll walk up to your desk and ask you to explain it.

If you shove content at me that I even suspect was AI generated I will summarily hit the delete button and probably ban you from sending me any form of communication ever again. It's a breach of trust. I don't care if you're my friend, my boss, a stranger, or my dog - it crosses a line. I value my time and my attention. I will willingly spend it on humans, but I most certainly won't spend it on your slop when you did…

I highly recommend you let your dog use LLMs. They have trouble composing long messages on human-centric keyboards.

Re: Ask HN: How is AI-assisted coding going for you professionally?

#590

Post by romperstomper »

viccis wrote: post #268

Haven't seen this mentioned yet, but the worst part for me is that a lot of management LOVES to use Claude to generate 50 page design documents, PRDs, etc., and send them to us to "please review as soon as you can". Nobody reads it, not even the people making it. I'm watching some employees just generate endless slide decks of nonsense and then waffle when asked any specific questions. If any of that is read, it is b…

And then you use AI to summarize those 50 pages :)
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