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How I code with AI on a budget/free

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Re: How I code with AI on a budget/free

#221

Post by aitchnyu »

3036e4 wrote: post #132

Maybe optimistic, but reading posts like this makes me hopeful that AI-assisted coding will drive people to design more modular and sanely organized code, to reduce the amount of context required for each task. Sadly pretty much all code I have worked with have been giant messes of everything being connected to everything else, causing the entire project to be potential context for anything.

Guess the name: In 2015 I was preaching that ____ simplfies the mental model of your web app, makes everything performant, the api will dominate and endure for decades. Answer: React. Soon, we were feeling the induced demand for features and timelines till we regressed to our natural "hair on fire" state. AI is (not just) a better footgun.

Re: How I code with AI on a budget/free

#225

Post by VagabundoP »

debian3 wrote: post #191
VagabundoP wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried Cline with chatgpt 4.1 and I was charged - there are some free credits when you sign up for Cline that it used. Not sure how you got it for free?

GH Copilot is my guess. Not free, but $10 a month or free for students

Ahh I think this is mentioned in the blog post proper. Probably just ommited from the text comment.

Iwill try the free Windsurf tier using the prompts created and see if it can do it similar to 4.1

Re: How I code with AI on a budget/free

#226

Post by Applejinx »

simonw wrote: post #152
ta1243 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't trust any AI company not to use and monetise my data, regardless how much I pay or regardless what their terms of service say. I know full well that large companies ignore laws with impunity and no accountability.

I would encourage you to rethink this position just a little bit. Going through life not trusting any company isn't a fun way to live. If it helps, think about those company's own selfish motivations. They like money, so they like paying customers. If they promise those paying customers (in legally binding agreements, no less) that they won't train on their data... and are then found to have trained on their data any…

I can't agree with a 'companies won't be evil because they will lose business if people don't like their evilness!' argument.

Certainly, going through life not trusting any company isn't a fun way to live. Going through life not trusting in general, isn't a fun way to live.

Would you like to see my inbox?

We as tech people made this reality through believing in an invisible hand of morality that would be stronger than power, stronger than the profit motives available through intentionally harming strangers a little bit (or a lot) at scale, over the internet, often in an automated way, if there was a chance we'd benefit from it.

We're going to have to be the people thinking of what we collectively do in this world we've invented and are continuing to invent, because the societal arbitrage vectors aren't getting less numerous. Hell, we're inventing machines to proliferate them, at scale.

I strongly encourage you to abandon this idea that the world we've created, is optimal, and this idea that companies of all things will behave ethically because they perceive they'll lose business if they are evil.

I think they are fully correct in perceiving the exact opposite and it's on us to change conditions underneath them.

Re: How I code with AI on a budget/free

#227

Post by Applejinx »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #60
lern_too_spel wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're thinking of Facebook. A lot of companies run on Gmail and Google Docs (easy to verify with `dig MX [bigco].com`), and they would not if Google shared that data with anybody.

It’s not really in either Meta or Google’s interests to share that data. What they do is to build super detailed profiles of you and what you’re likely to click on, so they can charge more money for ad impressions.

Honestly, there are plenty of more profitable things to do with such information. I think ad impressions being the sole motivator for anybody, is sorta two decades ago.

Re: How I code with AI on a budget/free

#228

Post by faangguyindia »

radio879 wrote: post #16

I am the person that wrote that. Sorry about the font. This is a bit outdated, AI stuff goes at high speed. More models so I will try to update that. Every month so many new models come out. My new fav is GLM-4.5... Kimi K2 is also good, and Qwen3-Coder 480b, or 2507 instruct.. very good as well. All of those work really well in any agentic environment/in agent tools. I made a context helper app ( https://wuu73.org/a…

How does your tool differ from this one? https://aider.chat/docs/usage/copypaste.html

If i am not wrong, aider uses repomap to select the context and pack it efficiently for LLM? this coupled with auto copy paste to and from chat web UI of AI provider?

Re: How I code with AI on a budget/free

#229

Post by saejox »

joshdavham wrote: post #40

> When you use AI in web chat's (the chat interfaces like AI Studio, ChatGPT, Openrouter, instead of thru an IDE or agent framework) are almost always better at solving problems, and coming up with solutions compared to the agents like Cline, Trae, Copilot.. Not always, but usually. I completely agree with this! While I understand that it looks a little awkward to copy and paste your code out of your IDE and into a w…

I also agree with this.

While the ai has less context, you have more context using the limited chat window. You know what you need from the ai.

Re: How I code with AI on a budget/free

#230

Post by simonw »

Applejinx wrote: post #226
simonw wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would encourage you to rethink this position just a little bit. Going through life not trusting any company isn't a fun way to live. If it helps, think about those company's own selfish motivations. They like money, so they like paying customers. If they promise those paying customers (in legally binding agreements, no less) that they won't train on their data... and are then found to have trained on their data any…

I can't agree with a 'companies won't be evil because they will lose business if people don't like their evilness!' argument. Certainly, going through life not trusting any company isn't a fun way to live. Going through life not trusting in general, isn't a fun way to live. Would you like to see my inbox? We as tech people made this reality through believing in an invisible hand of morality that would be stronger tha…

My argument here is not that companies will lose customers if they are unethical.

My argument is that they will lose paying customers if they act against those customer's interests in a way that directly violates a promise they made when convincing their customers to sign up to pay them money.

"Don't train on my data" isn't some obscure concern. If you talk to large companies about AI it comes up in almost every conversation.

My argument here is that companies are cold hearted entities that act in their self interest.

Honestly, I swear the hardest problem in computer science in 2025 is convincing people that you won't train on your data when you say "we won't train on your data".

I wrote about this back in 2023, and nothing has changed: https://simonwillison.net/2023/Dec/14/ai-trust-crisis/

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