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Claude AI built me a React app to compare maps side by side

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Re: Claude AI built me a React app to compare maps side by side

#171
post #159
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the projects I've been able to start and make progress in in the past year vs the ten years before that are substantive enough proof for me that you're wrong in pretty much all of your arguments. My direct experience proves statements like "the lower knowledge requirement is an illusion" and "it takes much more effort to review code than to write it" wrong. I do code reviews all the time. I write code all the tim…

Hey, I'm not trying to gaslight you into anything. I'm just arguing from my point of view, which you're free to disagree with. You're right that I've probably used these tools much less than you have. I use them ocasionally for minor things (understanding an unfamiliar API, giving me hints when web searching is unhelpful, etc.), but even in my limited experience with current state of the art services (Claude 3.5, GPT…

I'm not frustrated with you but I'll explain why you might be getting get the vibes here.

Its like people are learning about these new things called skis.

They fall on their face a few times but then they find "wow much better than good old snowshoes!"

Of course some people are falling every 2 feet while trying skis and then go to the top of the mountain and claim skis are fake and we should all go back to snowshoes because we don't know about snow or mountains.

They are insulting about it because its important to the ragers that, despite failing at skiing, they are senior programmers and everyone else doesn't know how to compile, test and review code and they must be hallucinating their ski journeys!

Meanwhile a bunch of us took the falls and learned to ski and are laughing at the ragers.

The frustrating thing though is that for all the skiiers we can't seem to get good conversations about how to ski because there is so much raging... oh well.

Re: Claude AI built me a React app to compare maps side by side

#172
post #148
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It also reduces the knowledge needed. I don't particularly care about learning how to setup and configure a web extension from scratch. With LLM, I can get 90% of that working in minutes, then focus on the parts that I am interested in. Eh, I would argue that the apparent lower knowledge requirement is an illusion. These tools produce non-working code more often than not (OpenAI's flagship models are not even corre…

All the projects I've been able to start and make progress in in the past year vs the ten years before that are substantive enough proof for me that you're wrong in pretty much all of your arguments. My direct experience proves statements like "the lower knowledge requirement is an illusion" and "it takes much more effort to review code than to write it" wrong. I do code reviews all the time. I write code all the tim…

This desire of deniers to prove to people who actually get tons of benefit of LLMs that they aren't getting it is becoming more ridiculous every time.

"You can't use LLMs for this or that because of this and that!!!".

But I AM using them. Every. Single. Day.

Re: Claude AI built me a React app to compare maps side by side

#173
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, I'm not trying to gaslight you into anything. I'm just arguing from my point of view, which you're free to disagree with. You're right that I've probably used these tools much less than you have. I use them ocasionally for minor things (understanding an unfamiliar API, giving me hints when web searching is unhelpful, etc.), but even in my limited experience with current state of the art services (Claude 3.5, GPT…

I'm not frustrated with you but I'll explain why you might be getting get the vibes here. Its like people are learning about these new things called skis. They fall on their face a few times but then they find "wow much better than good old snowshoes!" Of course some people are falling every 2 feet while trying skis and then go to the top of the mountain and claim skis are fake and we should all go back to snowshoes…

With your analogy I would be the one saying that I'm still not convinced that skis are faster than snowshoes.

I still use ChatGPT/Claude/Llama daily for both code generation and other things. And while it sometimes does do exactly what I want it to, and I feel more productive, it still seems to waste my time an almost an equal amount of time, and I have to give up on it and rewrite it manually or do a google search/read the actual documentation. It's good to bounce things off, it's good as starting point to learn new stuff, gives you great direction to explore new things and test things out quickly. My guess on a "happy path" it gives me 1.3 speed up, which is great when that happens, but the caveat is that you are not on a "happy path" most the time, and if you listen to the evangelists it seems like it should be 2x-5x speed up (skis). So where's the disconnect?

I'm not here to disprove your experience, but with 2 years of almost daily usage of skis, how come I feel like I'm still barely breaking even compared with snowshoes? Am I that bad with my prompting skills?

Re: Claude AI built me a React app to compare maps side by side

#174
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the projects I've been able to start and make progress in in the past year vs the ten years before that are substantive enough proof for me that you're wrong in pretty much all of your arguments. My direct experience proves statements like "the lower knowledge requirement is an illusion" and "it takes much more effort to review code than to write it" wrong. I do code reviews all the time. I write code all the tim…

This desire of deniers to prove to people who actually get tons of benefit of LLMs that they aren't getting it is becoming more ridiculous every time. "You can't use LLMs for this or that because of this and that!!!". But I AM using them. Every. Single. Day.

And of course every time such comments get downvoted. Folks, you can downvote as much as you want - I don't give a fuck even if my reputation goes negative. This won't make you right.

Re: Claude AI built me a React app to compare maps side by side

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not frustrated with you but I'll explain why you might be getting get the vibes here. Its like people are learning about these new things called skis. They fall on their face a few times but then they find "wow much better than good old snowshoes!" Of course some people are falling every 2 feet while trying skis and then go to the top of the mountain and claim skis are fake and we should all go back to snowshoes…

With your analogy I would be the one saying that I'm still not convinced that skis are faster than snowshoes. I still use ChatGPT/Claude/Llama daily for both code generation and other things. And while it sometimes does do exactly what I want it to, and I feel more productive, it still seems to waste my time an almost an equal amount of time, and I have to give up on it and rewrite it manually or do a google search/r…

I use -

Rust, aider.chat and

I thoughtfully limit the context of what I'm coding (on 2 of 15 files).

I ./ask a few times to get the context setup. I let it speculate on the path ahead but rein it in with more conservative goals.

I then say "let's carefully and conservatively implement this" (this is really important with sonnet as its way too eager).

I get to compile by doing ./test a few times, there is sometimes a doom loop though so -

I reset the context with a better footing if things are going off track or I just think "its time".

I do not commit until I have a plausible building set of functions (it can probably handle touching 2-3 functions of configs or one complete function but don't get too much more elaborate without care and experience).

I either reset or use the remaining context to create some tests and validate.

I think saying 1.3x more productive is fair with only this loop BUT you have to keep a few things in perspective.

I wrote specs for everything I did, in other words I wrote out in english my goals and expectations of the code, that was highly valuable and something I probably wouldn't have done.

Automatic literate programming!

Sheep shearing is crazy fast with an LLM. Those tasks that would take you off in the weeds do feel 5x faster (with caveats).

I think the 2x-5x faster is true within certain bounds -

What are the things that you were psychologically avoiding /dragging or just skipping because they were too tedious to even think of?

Some people don't have that problem or maybe don't notice, to me its a real crazy benefit I love!

That's were the real speedups happens and its amazing.

Re: Claude AI built me a React app to compare maps side by side

#176
post #5

Claude built me a simple react app AND rendered it in it's own UI - including using imports and stuff. I am looking forward to this type of real time app creation being added into our OSs, browsers, phones and glasses.

> I am looking forward to this type of real time app creation being added into our OSs, browsers, phones and glasses. What do you see that being used for? Surely, polished apps written for others are going to be best built in professional tools that live independently of whatever the OS might offer. So I assume you're talking about quick little scratch apps for personal use? Like an AI-enriched version of Apple's Aut…

Yeah I was talking about small apps/services for personal use rather than professional applications built to serve a business need.

Two ideas: "For every picture of food I take, create a recipe to recreate it so I can make it at home in the future" or "Create an app where I can log my food for today and automatically calculate the calories based on the food I put in".

Re: Claude AI built me a React app to compare maps side by side

#177

For years I've kept a list of apps / ideas / products I may do someday. I never made the time, with Cursor AI I have already built one, and am working on another. It's enabling me to use frameworks I barely know, like React Native, Swift, etc.. The first prompt (with o1) will get you 60% there, but then you have a different workflow. The prompts can get to a local minimum, where claude/gpt4/etc.. just can't do any be…

Good luck debugging it on production.

I mean i debug code other engineers wrote every single day... being good at that is part of the job. The biggest difference is i never have to deal with the LLM writing parts i don't want it to write.

Re: Claude AI built me a React app to compare maps side by side

#178
post #129
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For years I've kept a list of apps / ideas / products I may do someday. I never made the time, with Cursor AI I have already built one, and am working on another. This is one fact that people seem to severely under-appreciate about LLMs. They're significantly worse at coding in many aspects than even a moderately skilled and motivated intern, but for my hobby projects, until now I haven't had any intern that would…

I'm curious: what do you do when the LLM starts hallucinating, or gets stuck in a loop of generating non-working code that it can't get out of? What do you do when you need to troubleshoot and fix an issue it introduced, but has no idea how to fix? In my experience of these tools, including the flagship models discussed here, this is a deal-breaking problem. If I have to waste time re-prompting to make progress, and…

I have seen hallucinations in comments more than in code. In some of the code hallucinations, I can correct them myself. The hallucinations are obvious. try without finally blocks etc.

So my workflow is to just review every bit of code the assistant generates and sometimes I ask the assistant (I'm using Cody) to revisit a particular portion of the code. It usually corrects and spits out a new variant.

My experience has been nothing short of spectacular in using assistants for hobby projects, sometimes even for checking design patterns. I can usually submit a piece of code and ask if the code follows a good pattern under the constraints. I usually get a good recommendation that clearly points out the pros and cons of the said pattern.

Re: Claude AI built me a React app to compare maps side by side

#179

I think we're going to see a similar backlash to AI apps as we did with AI art. Not necessarily because users can identify AI apps, but more because due to the lower barrier of entry - the space is going to get hyper-competitive and it'll be VERY difficult to distinguish your app from the hundreds of nearly identical other ones. Another thing that worries me (because software devs in particular seem to take a very lo…

I hope not. I commend that software devs in particular seem to be adaptable to new technologies instead of trying to stop progress.

Take this very post for example. Imagine an artist forum having daily front-page articles on AI, and most of the comments are curious and non-negative. That's basically what HackerNews is doing, but with developers instead. The huge culture difference is curious, and makes me happy with the posters on this site.

You attribute it to the difficulty of using AI coding tools. But such tools to cut out the programmer and make it available to the layman has always existed: libraries, game engines, website builders, and now web app builders. You also attribute it to the flooding of the markets. But the website and mobile markets are famously saturated, and yet there we continue making stuff, because we want to (and because quality things make more money).

I instead attribute it to our culture of free sharing (what one might call "plagiarism"... of ideas?!), adaptability, and curiosity. And that makes me hopeful.

Re: Claude AI built me a React app to compare maps side by side

#180
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked Claude AI to make me an app and it refused and called it dangerous. I asked what kind of apps they could build and they suggested social media or health. So I asked it to make one but it refused too dangerous. I asked it to make anything.. anything app and it refused. I told it it sucked and it said it didn't. Then I deleted my account. I can't think of a worse llm than Claude.

There have been rumors of the system prompt changing for some services if the user had strikes on their account from earlier conversations. I wonder if you were impacted by this because what you described has not been my experience nor have I seen it discussed previously.

I signed up two weeks ago after a hackernews story. I wanted to see quality vs OpenAI. Completely new users first prompt.
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