Using AI to write better code more slowly

I used LLM as a tutor to tackle unfamiliar terrain. That is, I write code that I know very likely doesn't work but is the best code that I could have written. The LLM will happily tirelessly show me what I did wrong and what the correct code actually look like. Then, at the end of it, I got code that running. That's a tight feedback loop.

It's still very slow. It took me two hours to write code that generate JSON data and then to write a web page that displays a knowledge graph.

One thing you have to be aware is that the LLM will happily generate code for you and you have to discipline it from time to time. I notice that my reading comprehension begins to suffer if I don't write the code myself and have to understand what the LLM wrote for me as opposed to the LLM correcting where I went wrong.

One thing I would like to try with an LLM is understanding a large and complex existing codebase like OpenSCAD that doesn't leverage my existing skillset(high level programming languages with OpenSCAD as primary language in the past year). That has always been a barrier to contribution for me.

I've hit this point with AI where it's not a simple process, but a long drawn out back and forth.

I'll use AI to design the implementation of a medium sized, cross cutting feature. Review all the details, maybe iterate on just that. Then implement with Claude 4.7 Max - which runs slower, but does a better job. Then review the implementation, then have Codex GPT 5.5 xhigh fast review it - which almost always finds corner cases. Have Claude fix those - Claude is better at writing intuitive maintainable code versus Codex overengineered/shortcut filled code. (Codex is better at finding/fixing bugs and doing reviews - it's annoyingly pedantic)

Then repeat with fresh Claude/Codex instances having them both review the current staged changes and getting feedback, handling the feedback. Then covering it in tests. I mean overall I still implement the feature faster than coding it manually, but I spend a majority of the time going back and forth with reviews, handling corner cases and at the finish end up with what I feel a really solid implementation of whatever feature I'm working on. The v1 feature feels more like a v3 given the amount of iteration it already went through.

Title of this article suggested more depth and I was expecting actual code examples. But it is like other opinion pieces. It suggests a prompt (ask AI to find bugs) that works for the author advising everyone to do it that way.

I use these tools at both work and for personal side projects and I was expecting to watch and learn. But these opinion pieces without examples are way too many now.

learn by considering critique

I use cheaper models (Deepseek is king, but GLM and Kimi as well) and do the planning myself. I often start a task myself, write some code to get the LLM on the right track, and then have it complete parts of the implementation that are kind of boring or repetitive. LLM's are just next token predictors, I don't mean that in a demeaning way, but I've found if I can get the LLM started on the right track with my own code, it completes what I want. Having the LLM write code just from a spec ends up with poor quality slop in my experience.

I'm not 100x'ing my output like some people claim, but using it as a augmentation rather than delegating my work to it results in better code, and I don't lose context / control over my codebases. I really have read 100% of the code, because the LLM is generating smaller pieces around and inside my own written code. Works well enough for me, and open models are already both cheap enough and good enough for this workflow. This is why the big companies are so desperate to push full-on agentic hands-off workflows and developer replacement - that's the only way they won't go bankrupt.