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Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

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Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#71

Post by jarodrh »

Orchestration works very well for me, but not in the way most people seem to be pushing for, with middlemen scoring and routing every request. For coding, the routing is mostly solved at the config level. The harness lets you pin models per role, and that covers most of what a per request router promises.

On your actual question though, I think the loop you're describing does break the flow and gets very frustrating, but it's been a long time since I've experienced this.

Three things happened to me in the past few months: I've become cost conscious, I wanted to get more done faster, and I wanted to be able to do a lot more at the same time (in parallel). With that I developed my own workflow that works well for me. It's a config-led setup routed by tiers: cheap fast models for mechanical work (lookups, log reads), mid models for implementing against written specs, strong models for judgement and review. It's config on top of a standard harness, nothing exotic.

For me...my flow state has moved from tackling code line by line to traversing the layers of the entire system design in my mind, and being able to clearly articulate this to a strong model.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#72

Post by OJFord »

jarodrh wrote: post #71

Orchestration works very well for me, but not in the way most people seem to be pushing for, with middlemen scoring and routing every request. For coding, the routing is mostly solved at the config level. The harness lets you pin models per role, and that covers most of what a per request router promises. On your actual question though, I think the loop you're describing does break the flow and gets very frustrating,…

Can you explain more how you 'pin models per role' 'at the config level'? And what a prompt looks like that uses that?

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#74

Post by npollock »

tombot wrote: post #73

"I haven't been able to enter flow state like I can when I hand write code." new flow state is having 10 terminal tabs in diff worktrees and trying to remember what each bit is

exactly, it's like Bobby Fischer playing 10 games of chess simultaneously

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#75

Post by Scroll_Swe »

avilay wrote: post #13

Not being able to enter flow state is a very interesting observation. I've felt it too to the extent that I went down a whole new rabbit hole of what it means to be in flow state. Let me know if anybody here wants to know more, happy to post some links. To answer your question - I discuss the approach with Claude Code (e.g., should I implement my own ACT model in JAX or PyTorch, Python or Rust or Julia, etc.). Then w…

>I've felt it too to the extent that I went down a whole new rabbit hole of what it means to be in flow state. Let me know if anybody here wants to know more, happy to post some links.

I'm not a programmer, but I very much enter a flow state working on tickets, or playing a video game on higher difficulties when everything "clicks"

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#76

Post by reactordev »

OJFord wrote: post #72
jarodrh wrote: post #71

Orchestration works very well for me, but not in the way most people seem to be pushing for, with middlemen scoring and routing every request. For coding, the routing is mostly solved at the config level. The harness lets you pin models per role, and that covers most of what a per request router promises. On your actual question though, I think the loop you're describing does break the flow and gets very frustrating,…

Can you explain more how you 'pin models per role' 'at the config level'? And what a prompt looks like that uses that?

define roles for your agents, add roles to config that have specific models, use those models for those roles. Not the author but this is how I did mine.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#78

Post by codybontecou »

tombot wrote: post #73

"I haven't been able to enter flow state like I can when I hand write code." new flow state is having 10 terminal tabs in diff worktrees and trying to remember what each bit is

It sounds silly but lately I've been able to hit flow states doing exactly this.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#79

Post by yogthos »

I was thinking how it would be interesting to make an environment where instead of LLM just crapping out a bunch of code really fast, it works more like a pair programming exercise going at human speed.

The LLM would explain what it's doing, then write a bit of code, then you have time to look at it and understand it, and go to the next step. At any point you can interject and discuss or change it.

I find the biggest problem is that once an LLM generates a bunch of code, it's really hard for a human to build up the context for what the code is doing and why. When you're coding normally or pairing, then you're gradually absorbing the context and what the code is doing throughout the process.

The reality is that writing code fast was never the bottleneck. It's understanding the code and making sure it's actually doing what's needed that's hard.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#80

Post by cuttothechase »

danmaz74 wrote: post #46

Yes, like many others I've been experimenting a lot. What I've got so far is a harness-of-harnesses - ie, a harness which sits on top of Claude Code, Codex or OpenCode. I still use Claude Code or Codex directly for the initial planning of features, to investigate issues, and for small fixes, but whenever there's something even just a bit complex to do, I use my second-level harness. Summarizing it a lot, what it does…

what is of really good use is a super factory. The super factory drives the factory which builds the harness of harnesses.
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