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Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

worksonmymachine.substack.com

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Re: Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

#271

Post by tappio »

jen729w wrote: post #203
saadatq wrote: post #177

this isn’t vibe coding. This is something completely new. I call it “flex coding.” heck I built a full app in an afternoon AND I was a good dad? > I'd wander into my office, check what Claude had built, test it real quick. If it worked, great! Commit and push. "Now build the server connection UI," I'd say, and wander back out. Made breakfast. Claude coded. Played with my son. Claude coded. Watched some TV. Claude cod…

This is all very emotive and I'm sure is a dream many of us would love to live. But does Claude's code work? Does it work to the level where you'd depend on it yourself; where you'd bill customers for it; where you'd put your reputation behind it? I say no. And it's because I use Claude. Two events changed how I use Claude: now it's an advisor, and I mostly type the code myself. Because I don't trust it. First, I cau…

I feel that it is a commom thing. You just have to "keep an eye on it". There are several failure modes with Claude. Maybe the most annoying is that it often uses kind of defensive programming, so it is harder to detect that there is a fatal mistake somewhere. It can hide those really well. And it loves to fix linter issues with any type in typescript.

Im using it regardless. Ive just learnt to deal with these and keep an eye on them. When it creates a duplicate interface I roll back to earlier prompt and be more explicit that this type already exists.

I try to not argue whether something it does is wrong or right. There is not point. I will simply rollback and try with another prompt. Claude is not a human.

Re: Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

#272

Post by orangecat »

thegrim33 wrote: post #187

I know it's an analogy that's probably been done to death already, but it truly feels like Bitcoin 2.0. Back in the Bitcoin hype days, there were new posts here every single day about the latest and greatest Bitcoin thing. Everyone was using it. It was going to take over the world. Remember all the people on this very site that sincerely thought fiat currency was going away and we'd be doing all of our transactions w…

Dismissing any new technology because of Bitcoin makes exactly as much sense as dismissing any new medical advancements because of Theranos. Ok, some people said Bitcoin would change the world, and they were wrong. Some people also said the PC, Internet, and smartphones would change the world, and they were right.

And of course you'll have people replying to this trying to make the case for why AI coding is already a thing, when in reality those posts are once again going to be carbon copies of similar comments from the Bitcoin days

What is the actual argument here? Anyone claiming that AI has been useful for them is a lying shill?

Re: Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

#274

Post by Zacharias030 »

asadotzler wrote: post #112

I seem to have missed the part where he successfully prompted for security, internationalizability, localizability, accessibility, usability, etc., etc. This is a core problem with amateurs pretending to be software producers. There are others, but this one is fundamental to acceptable commercial software and will absolutely derail vibe coded products from widespread adoption. And if you think these aspects of qualit…

Isn’t that like „the dog speaks English, but makes occasional grammar mistakes“?

Give it two years.

Re: Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

#275

Post by lelanthran »

dangero wrote: post #263
lordnacho wrote: post #15

I'm loving the new programming. I don't know where it goes either, but I like it for now. I'm actually producing code right this moment, where I would normally just relax and do something else. Instead, I'm relaxing and coding. It's great for a senior guy who has been in the business for a long time. Most of my edits nowadays are tedious. If I look at the code and decide I used the wrong pattern originally, I have to…

Have you had the realization that you could never go back to dealing with all the minutia again? LLMs have changed me. I want to go outside while they are working and I am jealous of all the young engineers that won’t lose the years I did sitting in front of a screen for 12 hours a day while sometimes making no progress on connecting two black boxes.

Serious question: have you considered that dealing with all that minutiae and working through all that pain has made you capable to have the LLM write code?

Those young engineers, in 10 years, won't be able to fix what the LLM gave them,because they have not learned anything about programming.

They have all learned how to.micromanage an LLM instead.

Re: Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

#276

Post by heavyset_go »

ikerino wrote: post #78
lordnacho wrote: post #15

I'm loving the new programming. I don't know where it goes either, but I like it for now. I'm actually producing code right this moment, where I would normally just relax and do something else. Instead, I'm relaxing and coding. It's great for a senior guy who has been in the business for a long time. Most of my edits nowadays are tedious. If I look at the code and decide I used the wrong pattern originally, I have to…

Hot take: Junior devs are going to be the ones who "know how to build with AI" better than current seniors. They are entering the job market with sensibilities for a higher-level of abstraction. They will be the first generation of devs that went through high-school + college building with AI.

This is the same generation that falls for online scams more than their grandparents do[1].

[1] https://www.vox.com/technology/23882304/gen-z-vs-boomers-sca...

Re: Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

#277

Post by hgomersall »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #253
roxolotl wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The challenge is that clearly stating things is and always has been the hard part. It’s awesome that we have tools which can translate clear natural language instructions into code but even if we get AGI you’ll still have to do that. Maybe you can save some time in the process by not having to fight with code as much but you’re still going to have to create really clear specs which, again, is the hard part.

in my experience only a limited part of software can be done with just really clear specs, also at times in my career I have worked on things that became more "clear" what was really needed as time went on the more we worked on it, and in those cases really clear specs would have produced worse outcomes.

Which is the real reason agile is so much more effective than waterfall. The beginning of the project is when you know least about your project, so naturally you should be able to evolve the specification.

Re: Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

#278

Post by doug_durham »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #223
saadatq wrote: post #177

this isn’t vibe coding. This is something completely new. I call it “flex coding.” heck I built a full app in an afternoon AND I was a good dad? > I'd wander into my office, check what Claude had built, test it real quick. If it worked, great! Commit and push. "Now build the server connection UI," I'd say, and wander back out. Made breakfast. Claude coded. Played with my son. Claude coded. Watched some TV. Claude cod…

So like, why would I pay someone to work like this? Or why would I pay for software at all when I could just do this myself?

Because you can't do this yourself. You don't have the decades of experience to know how to ask the questions and when to steer the tool into a different direction.

Re: Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

#279

Post by LtWorf »

jon-wood wrote: post #121
lubujackson wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you miss is the constant need to refine and understand the bigger picture. AI makes everyone a lead architect. A non-coder can't do this or will definitely get lost in the weeds eventually.

It doesn’t make everyone a lead architect, it just makes everyone think they’re a lead architect. What makes people a lead architect is a decade or two of experience in designing software and learning what works and doesn’t.

What makes people a lead architect in my experience is an abnormal amount of arrogance and no capability to admit mistakes.

Re: Nobody knows how to build with AI yet

#280

Post by bryanrasmussen »

hgomersall wrote: post #277
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in my experience only a limited part of software can be done with just really clear specs, also at times in my career I have worked on things that became more "clear" what was really needed as time went on the more we worked on it, and in those cases really clear specs would have produced worse outcomes.

Which is the real reason agile is so much more effective than waterfall. The beginning of the project is when you know least about your project, so naturally you should be able to evolve the specification.

hmm right, in some ways could argue that AI based development is going against Agile development practices.
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