The point is basically
> just do your own thing, but explore paths you've never walked before.
Yeah that's how people grow, no joke. It's kind of independent to the rest of the article shilling LLMs.
Up to 90% of my code is now generated by AI
21–30 of 50 posts
Re: Up to 90% of my code is now generated by AI
#22I'm interested but skeptical. I have not dived as deeply as you. Mostly I'm using ChatGPT. There is just no way it could generate 90% of my code. It is great at generating boilerplate for simple cases. I find it most useful for getting started on this I know nothing about. Like I was working with SVG recently, something I know nothing about. But is have to say chatgpt was helpful, but not, in the long run useful. Too…
I have not had good results and stopped trying. I have had some usable results, but on careful inspection there were subtle problems or needless convolutions that implied a different solution was being used than was actually the case. The sort of thing that works but is prone to misinterpretation by the next one working in the code. Based on this I'm very against using it for things the user doesn't have significant…
> Some coworkers seem to be having better success but I definitely get the sense they are reading and editing the results carefully.
Yes, you need to consider the AI as if it were a junior programmer that sometimes makes mistakes. I use it for boring work that can be quickly checked. For example, the other day I asked for a 'give me next workday' algorithm based on the code structure I had, and it worked fine.
It's just one more tool in the toolbox.
Re: Up to 90% of my code is now generated by AI
#23I don't think AI could generate 90% or even 40% of my code, but by god does it generate me a lot of boilerplate and comments. My work just gave us all Copilot and it's really good at creating useful comments (even for Pydocs), and writing out simple but mildly tedious things like the outline of a loop, simple functions etc. No risk really from either since they're all short enough for me to sanity check as the AI is writing them, but a very very useful little time saver IMO.
Re: Up to 90% of my code is now generated by AI
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have not had good results and stopped trying. I have had some usable results, but on careful inspection there were subtle problems or needless convolutions that implied a different solution was being used than was actually the case. The sort of thing that works but is prone to misinterpretation by the next one working in the code. Based on this I'm very against using it for things the user doesn't have significant…
> Some coworkers seem to be having better success but I definitely get the sense they are reading and editing the results carefully. Yes, you need to consider the AI as if it were a junior programmer that sometimes makes mistakes. I use it for boring work that can be quickly checked. For example, the other day I asked for a 'give me next workday' algorithm based on the code structure I had, and it worked fine. It's j…
If it's that straightforward I'd rather just write it. Like I said it hasn't been an overall time saver with the extra scrutiny I need to put it through. I'll try again in six months.
Also idk kinda tangent but you brought it up. I don't feel like my junior devs make easily found algorithmic mistakes like that. They're more likely to misjudge the scope of the problem or not be aware of a technical consideration or known solution. For that kind of work I'd rather... mentor a junior dev through it so they have the experience.
Re: Up to 90% of my code is now generated by AI
#25I'm interested but skeptical. I have not dived as deeply as you. Mostly I'm using ChatGPT. There is just no way it could generate 90% of my code. It is great at generating boilerplate for simple cases. I find it most useful for getting started on this I know nothing about. Like I was working with SVG recently, something I know nothing about. But is have to say chatgpt was helpful, but not, in the long run useful. Too…
Claude 3.5 Sonnet is pretty good at working with small/isolated pieces of code (think single file). But it's not fast. I did manage to get it to make a full feature by itself, but it took an entire evening of copy pasting code/error messages. The final code quality was pretty good.
Most of the time I just use it for getting started on features, small function, and debugging.
Re: Up to 90% of my code is now generated by AI
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or it is complicated, but the programmer ought to be using a library for it instead of bot-meditated copy paste.
Damn that’s a horrifying vision. Code by a bot that has no consistency in library preferences or the absence thereof. Peek under the hood and it’s made dozens and dozens of helper libraries that all do the same thing and get used one time. All with enormous volumes of mostly working tests.
"This way we don't have the process overhead and security problems of external dependencies." /s
Re: Up to 90% of my code is now generated by AI
#27This entire article lacks substance. It just feels like I'm reading a lot of vague nonsense.
> I have a habit of reaching for AI as the primary source of information, and I'm using Perplexity, Google, or StackOverflow less and less frequently.
In my experience, LLMs simplify and overgeneralize too much, lacking much of the context and insights from websites like stack overflow. I've been doing a lot of database work recently, something I'm not an expert in, and I've learned a lot by actually reading the actual source, not just blindly trusting the output of the AI. If I trusted AI as much as the author seems to, my database code would be much worse.
I look forward to the day when AI actually is good enough to generate 90% of my code. But as of today, it's just not.
Re: Up to 90% of my code is now generated by AI
#28I'm interested but skeptical. I have not dived as deeply as you. Mostly I'm using ChatGPT. There is just no way it could generate 90% of my code. It is great at generating boilerplate for simple cases. I find it most useful for getting started on this I know nothing about. Like I was working with SVG recently, something I know nothing about. But is have to say chatgpt was helpful, but not, in the long run useful. Too…
The second you get into a topic it doesn’t know, ChatGPT starts flailing around, unfortunately. I’ve had this happen in virtually anything of substance. Even if I paste in a whole tutorial and say “do this but in X language or with modification Y”.
Copilot on the other hand works great and is a huge improvement in productivity, probably because it’s only writing short snippets while I’m doing the algorithmic thinking. It reduces the brain -> keyboard lag substantially.
Re: Up to 90% of my code is now generated by AI
#29I don't think AI could generate 90% or even 40% of my code, but by god does it generate me a lot of boilerplate and comments. My work just gave us all Copilot and it's really good at creating useful comments (even for Pydocs), and writing out simple but mildly tedious things like the outline of a loop, simple functions etc. No risk really from either since they're all short enough for me to sanity check as the AI is…
> but by god does it generate me a lot of boilerplate and comments.
Why would you have it write comments? The core of most useful comments is understanding that's not directly reflected in the code (hence the comment), and things that capture your understanding of what you're doing.
Boilerplate comments are noise.
Re: Up to 90% of my code is now generated by AI
#30This entire article lacks substance. It just feels like I'm reading a lot of vague nonsense. > I have a habit of reaching for AI as the primary source of information, and I'm using Perplexity, Google, or StackOverflow less and less frequently. In my experience, LLMs simplify and overgeneralize too much, lacking much of the context and insights from websites like stack overflow. I've been doing a lot of database work…
> This entire article lacks substance. It just feels like I'm reading a lot of vague nonsense.
If the guy generates 90% of his code with AI, do you think he's doing anything else without it? His writing is probably AI slop too. His "hero image" certainly is.