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How to effectively write quality code with AI

heidenstedt.org

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Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#21

Post by wasmainiac »

OptionOfT wrote: post #2

I wonder at the end of this if it's the still worth the risk? A lot of how I form my thoughts is driven by writing code, and seeing it on screen, running into its limitations. Maybe it's the kind of work I'm doing, or maybe I just suck, but the code to me is a forcing mechanism into ironing out the details, and I don't get that when I'm writing a specification.

I also second this. I find that I write better by hand, although I work on niche applications it’s not really standard crud or react apps. I use LLMs in the same way i used to used stack overflow, if I go much farther to automate my work than that I spend more time on cleanup compared to if I just write code myself.

Sometimes the AI does weird stuff too. I wrote a texture projection for a nonstandard geometric primitive, the projection used some math that was valid only for local regions… long story. Claude kept on wanting to rewrite the function to what it thought was correct (it was not) even when I directed to non related tasks. Super annoying. I ended up wrapping the function in comments telling it to f#=% off before it would leave it alone.

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#22

Post by raphman »

Hi i5heu. Given that you seem to use AI tools for generating images and audio versions of your posts, I hope it is not too rude to ask: how much of the post was drafted, written or edited with AI?

The suggestions you make are all sensible but maybe a little bit generic and obvious. Asking ChatGPT to generate advice on effectively writing quality code with AI generates a lot of similar suggestions (albeit less well written).

If this was written with help of AI, I'd personally appreciate a small notice above the blog post. If not, I'd suggest to augment the post with practical examples or anecdotal experience. At the moment, the target group seems to be novice programmers rather than the typical HN reader.

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#23

Post by doug_durham »

agumonkey wrote: post #11
OptionOfT wrote: post #2

I wonder at the end of this if it's the still worth the risk? A lot of how I form my thoughts is driven by writing code, and seeing it on screen, running into its limitations. Maybe it's the kind of work I'm doing, or maybe I just suck, but the code to me is a forcing mechanism into ironing out the details, and I don't get that when I'm writing a specification.

I second this. This* is the matter against which we form understanding. This here is the work at hand, our own notes, discussions we have with people, the silent walk where our brain kinda process errors and ideas .. it's always been like this since i was a kid, playing with construction toys. I never ever wanted somebody to play while I wait to evaluate if it fits my desires. Desires that often come from playing. Ou…

I'll push it back against this a little bit. I find any type of deliberative thinking to be a forcing function. I've recently been experimenting with writing very detailed specifications and prompts for an LLM to process. I find that as I go through the details, thoughts will occur to me. Things I hadn't thought about in the design will come to me. This is very much the same phenomenon when I was writing the code by hand. I don't think this is a binary either or. There are many ways to have a forcing function.

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#24

Post by notpachet »

Akranazon wrote: post #13
einpoklum wrote: post #5

That sounds like the advice of someone who doesn't actually write high-quality code. Perhaps a better title would be "how to get something better than pure slop when letting a chatbot code for you" - and then it's not bad advice I suppose. I would still avoid such code if I can help it at all.

Man, you are really missing out of the biggest revolution of my life. This is the opinion of someone who has not tried to use Claude Code, in a brand new project with full permissions enabled, and with a model from the last 3 months.

> in a brand new project

Must be nice. Claude and Codex are still a waste of my time in complex legacy codebases.

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#25

Post by throwaway613746 »

OptionOfT wrote: post #2

I wonder at the end of this if it's the still worth the risk? A lot of how I form my thoughts is driven by writing code, and seeing it on screen, running into its limitations. Maybe it's the kind of work I'm doing, or maybe I just suck, but the code to me is a forcing mechanism into ironing out the details, and I don't get that when I'm writing a specification.

[dead]

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#27

Post by acedTrex »

agumonkey wrote: post #19
Akranazon wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you have said here is completely true, except for "not in that group": the cost-benefit analysis clearly favors letting these tools rip, even despite the drawbacks.

Oh I'm well aware of this. I admitted defeat in a way.. I can't compete. I'm just at loss, and unless LLM stall and break for some reason (ai bubble, enshittification..) I don't see a future for me in "software" in a few years.

Yep, its a rather depressing realization isnt it. Oh well, life moves on i suppose.

I think we realistically have a few years of runway left though. Adoption is always slow outside of the far right of the bell curve.

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#28

Post by atomic128 »

egrtah wrote: post #9

Too bad that software developers are carrying water for those who hate them and mock them for being obsolete in 6-12 months, while they are eating caviar (probably evading sanctions) and clink the champagne glasses in Davos: https://xcancel.com/hamptonism/status/2019434933178306971 And all that after stealing everyone's output.

Underground Resistance Aims To Sabotage AI With Poisoned Data

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46827777

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#29

Post by computerex »

whynotminot wrote: post #17
Akranazon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, you are really missing out of the biggest revolution of my life. This is the opinion of someone who has not tried to use Claude Code, in a brand new project with full permissions enabled, and with a model from the last 3 months.

This is a fading but common sentiment on hacker news. There’s a lot of engineers who will refuse to wake up to the revolution happening in front of them. I get it. The denialism is a deeply human response.

It's insane! We are so far beyond gpt-3.5 and gpt-4. If you're not approaching Claude Code and other agentic coding agents with an open mind with the goal of deriving as much value from them as possible, you are missing out on super powers.

On the flip side, anyone who believes you can create quality products with these tools without actually working hard is also deluded. My productivity is insane, what I can create in a long coding session is incredible, but I am working hard the whole time, reviewing outputs, devising GOOD integration/e2e tests to actually test the system, manually testing the whole time, keeping my eyes open for stereotypically bad model behaviors like creating fallbacks, deleting code to fulfill some objective.

It's actually downright a pain in the ass and a very unpleasant experience working in this way. I remember the sheer flow state I used to get into when doing deep programming where you are so immersed in managing the states and modeling the system. The current way of programming for me doesn't seem to provide that with the models. So there are aspects of how I have programmed my whole life that I dearly miss. Hours used to fly past me without me being the wiser due to flow. Now that's no longer the case most of the times.

Re: How to effectively write quality code with AI

#30

Post by gtowey »

Akranazon wrote: post #16
agumonkey wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second this. This* is the matter against which we form understanding. This here is the work at hand, our own notes, discussions we have with people, the silent walk where our brain kinda process errors and ideas .. it's always been like this since i was a kid, playing with construction toys. I never ever wanted somebody to play while I wait to evaluate if it fits my desires. Desires that often come from playing. Ou…

Everything you have said here is completely true, except for "not in that group": the cost-benefit analysis clearly favors letting these tools rip, even despite the drawbacks.

Maybe.

But it's also likely that these tools will produce mountains of unmaintainable code and people will get buried by the technical debt. It kind of strikes me as similar to the hubris of calling the Titanic "unsinkable." It's an untested claim with potentially disastrous consequences.

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