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Google gifts a Free AI Coding Assistant to the developer community

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Re: Google gifts a Free AI Coding Assistant to the developer community

#41

Post by mrtksn »

dmalik wrote: post #29
mrtksn wrote: post #21

I don't believe that this is the future of computer programming, all those coding assistants feel like companies trying to make mechanical horses and caravans when the combustion engine was invented. IMHO they should be inventing cars, planes and trains. Why? Because they write code using tools made to accommodate people and when you are taking out people from the loop keeping those is useless. It's especially eviden…

When is the last time you tried Cursor? It definitely doesn't import libraries. It can if you prompt it to but you have control. I find it works great it you prompt it one step at a time. It's still can be iterative but it allows you to tighten up the code as you go. Yes you can still go yolo mode and get some interesting prototypes if you just need to show someone something fast but if you know what you're doing it…

It has been some time since my last try but importing libraries isn't my core concern.

I still feel more comfortable with the chat interface where I talk to LLM and make it generate the code that I end up putting together in a dumb editor because I'm still writing code for human based analysis that will be interpreted by machine and my claim is that if the code is actually to be written by machine for the consumption of a machine, then the human should be out of the code creation loop completely and fully assume the role of someone who demands stuff and knows when its done right and doesn't bother with the code itself.

Re: Google gifts a Free AI Coding Assistant to the developer community

#42

Post by closewith »

Nullabillity wrote: post #32
closewith wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your goal is to become a fundamentally sound computer scientist, this may be good advice. However, if - like 99% of software developers in the workforce - your goal is to work on software until you earn enough that you no longer have to, then ignore this awful advice and focus on learning the tools that are becoming ubiquitous and mandatory is most roles. Otherwise you are pre-assigning yourself to irrelevance, eq…

[flagged]

> Do you not understand that, at the end of the day, you'll also still stuck living in the nightmarish hellscape you spend your days trying to usher in?

I live by the sea and spend most of my time with family or working in healthcare. Software for me pays the bills and the less time I spend on it, the better.

LLMs allow me to spend ~1/3rd the time I used to without impacting my remuneration. Of course I use them, in the same way I use email rather than snail, machine language rather than soldering, python rather assembly, git rather than _v244_FINAL, and any number of other abstractions and tools that separate me from the actual bits.

Re: Google gifts a Free AI Coding Assistant to the developer community

#44

Post by roenxi »

reducesuffering wrote: post #30
_mitterpach wrote: post #2

If you're a computer science student who is thinking of using this, don't. Don't use Copilot, Gemini, Cursor or any other code assisting tool for the several first years of your study or career. You will write code slower than others, sure, but what you'll learn and what you build will be a hundred times more useful for you than when you just copy and paste 'stuff' from AI. Invest in fundamentals, learn best practice…

Don't use garbage collection or high level dynamic typing when building web servers. It's important to understand what the machine is actually doing at a low-level. Implementing REST API's in C++ will write code slower than others, sure, but you'll gain so much in your fundamentals of how memory management and OS processes work.

The more direct comparison might be "don't use compilers for the first few years; learn assembly directly instead". LLMs aren't going away, it doesn't make sense to learn how to do things LLMs already do now and are only going to get better at.

Re: Google gifts a Free AI Coding Assistant to the developer community

#45

Post by DrScientist »

_mitterpach wrote: post #2

If you're a computer science student who is thinking of using this, don't. Don't use Copilot, Gemini, Cursor or any other code assisting tool for the several first years of your study or career. You will write code slower than others, sure, but what you'll learn and what you build will be a hundred times more useful for you than when you just copy and paste 'stuff' from AI. Invest in fundamentals, learn best practice…

Same sort of advice as don't copy verbatim to write your essays - ie for you to learn it has to flow through your brain.

However the above advice for essays doesn't include not looking at textbooks or papers - just not to blindly copy.

So perhaps you should use coding assistents - but always in a mode where you use as a source to write yourself rather than cut and paste/direct editing.

Re: Google gifts a Free AI Coding Assistant to the developer community

#46

Post by infecto »

pdimitar wrote: post #9
keyle wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting you write this. I have a long experience and I use these auto complete on drugs now... I can't see myself writing all the damn code myself anymore. I remember the days of using books, having to follow the code bits in the book as I typed them. I don't remember diddly squat about it. Same from years of stack overflow. I'd just alt-tab 12 times, read the comments, then read another answer, assess the b…

> But be sure to understand what you auto-completed. If not, stop and learn. But that's IMO exactly what your parent commenter says. Use LLMs only after you actually have a clue what are they producing. So if you are a beginner, basically don't because you'll not have any understanding.

Nope, the theme of the parent was...

>Don't use Copilot, Gemini, Cursor or any other code assisting tool for the several first years of your study or career.

I totally disagree with it too and think its no different than using a book or SO from the past. As a Junior you copy paste many more lines of codes that you don't full appreciate and sometimes it simply just takes time of doing that to absorb the knowledge.

Re: Google gifts a Free AI Coding Assistant to the developer community

#47

Post by nchagnet »

pdimitar wrote: post #9
keyle wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting you write this. I have a long experience and I use these auto complete on drugs now... I can't see myself writing all the damn code myself anymore. I remember the days of using books, having to follow the code bits in the book as I typed them. I don't remember diddly squat about it. Same from years of stack overflow. I'd just alt-tab 12 times, read the comments, then read another answer, assess the b…

> But be sure to understand what you auto-completed. If not, stop and learn. But that's IMO exactly what your parent commenter says. Use LLMs only after you actually have a clue what are they producing. So if you are a beginner, basically don't because you'll not have any understanding.

Agreed with you, although I'd say there is a spectrum between "do everything the hardest way" and "don't learn anything". I think LLM-based tools can be a great time-saver for boilerplate repetitive code, and they can sometimes help you get a first draft of some implementation you're not fully seeing yet, but you definitely should not rely on them to write the whole code for you if you want to learn.

Re: Google gifts a Free AI Coding Assistant to the developer community

#48

Post by hahn-kev »

skerit wrote: post #43

As usual for Google services, where other providers just make you sign in & you're set, Google requires you to create a specific "Cloud project" and then makes you look through the menus to specifically enable the "Gemini Code Assist" feature.

Not for the free tier. I set it up today and didn't have to do anything.

Re: Google gifts a Free AI Coding Assistant to the developer community

#49

Post by infecto »

skerit wrote: post #43

As usual for Google services, where other providers just make you sign in & you're set, Google requires you to create a specific "Cloud project" and then makes you look through the menus to specifically enable the "Gemini Code Assist" feature.

Look no further than the two different SDKs and APIs to access all the LLM tools.

Re: Google gifts a Free AI Coding Assistant to the developer community

#50

Post by MonkeyClub »

croes wrote: post #12

Timeō Danaōs et dōna ferentēs.

Well said.

Particularly, "Data excluded from training by default" is not available in the free and first paid tier.

Google was obviously irked that Microsoft got all this juicy training data since everyone is on their walled git garden, and tried to come up with a way to also dip some fingers into said data.

You should see the reviews in the JetBrains plugin page: https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/24198-gemini-code-assis...

People are all so "shut up and take my money", but the bloody thing won't even sign them in.

But it's still in beta, right? Perhaps it'll start working in a couple more months.

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