Earlier quoted context omitted.
LLMs are too flaky for high quality code. On tougher problems it's very common for an LLM to contradict itself and run in circles. It simply doesn't know what the right thing is, but on each turn it is super confident to do the right thing. Maybe I've chosen hardmode to learn C with LLM assistance, plus my pet project turned out to be a bit less trivial then anticipated. But I know that I have to think three times ab…
> Maybe I've chosen hardmode to learn C with LLM assistance May you speak a little more about how you're approaching this? I was thinking of doing similar
The progress is bottlenecked by how things are done with C. Most features went through an considerable LLM research phase to find the sweet spot how I want to solve it. In the feature phase I've coded more and more on my own and used the LLM as a reviewer on the critical parts.
I know a few things about C, but my knowledge is very passive, but there is already a path carved in my brain from influential C programmers you find on yt and blogs. That being said, LLMs will actively gatekeep and bullshit you about C and system architecture. You need to drill down hard, from different angles i.e. what is efficient and what is pragmatic or you question about how hardware actually works. They still may have blind spots and casually keeping things from you. Naively asking for code snippets will be tutorial style and often backfires, not unseen that they rant about their own code in another session. So you need to maintain a healthy balance of knowledge from trustworthy humans and the quickly available, but potentially inaccurate/incomplete LLM knowledge. Be critical, you are the captain.
LLMs are not bad at reviewing C code. They catch a lot of noob mistakes and are more helpful then compilers. But again they tend to produce tutorial solutions. They litter everything with malloc, which is something I am trying to avoid. I've not touched arenas yet, I want to fall flat on raw C to value them. They can teach you arenas, but I suggest to cross check with the real world, especially because you want ergonomics and correctness on that behalf.
Most C adjacent topics are easy to pick up on the go. Build systems, debugging, API vs ABI, static vs dynamic linking, macros, etc. A seasoned programmer can get a quick overview and ad hoc help, for things that are often buried in mediocre docs.
Also if you happen to come from more higher level languages or dynamic languages. Expect C to require easily 5x more code for literally anything.
If you prefer to learn the language more structured, work your way towards learning how to create data structures and algorithms in C. Make a clear distinction between static and dynamic allocation and learn along the road how C/hardware wants you to deal with memory.