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After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain

albertofortin.com

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Re: After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain

#81

Post by mexicocitinluez »

infecto wrote: post #63
mritchie712 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How useful the various tools will be depends on the person and the problem. Take two hypothetical people working on different problems and consider if, for example, Cursor would be useful. IF you're a: * 10 year python dev * work almost entirely on a very large, complex python code base * have a pycharm IDE fine tuned over many years to work perfectly on that code base * have very low tolerance for bugs (stable produ…

These all-or-nothing takes on LLMs are getting tiresome. I get the point you’re trying to make, LLMs can be a force multiplier for less experienced devs, but the sweeping generalizations don’t hold up. If you’re okay with a higher tolerance for bugs or loose guardrails, sure, LLMs can feel magical. But that doesn’t mean they’re less valuable to experienced developers. I’ve been writing Python and Java professionally…

> I get the point you’re trying to make, LLMs can be a force multiplier for less experienced devs, but the sweeping generalizations don’t hold up. If you’re okay with a higher tolerance for bugs or loose guardrails, sure, LLMs can feel magical. But that doesn’t mean they’re less valuable to experienced developers.

Amen. Seriously. They're tools. Sometimes they work wonderfully. Sometimes, not so much. But I have DEFINITELY found value. And I've been building stuff for over 15 years as well.

I'm not "vibe coding", I don't use Cursor or any of the ai-based IDEs. I just use Claude and Copilot since it's integrated.

Re: After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain

#82

Post by abhisek »

I think getting the initial domain modeling, structure and opinions that build up a code base is more of an art than science. It’s highly opinionated. Sure you have SOLID but in my experience no one follows it to the book.

Once the code base structure and opinions are in place, I think LLMs are decent at writing code that are bounded to a single concern and not cross cutting.

LLM generated code bases work initially but so will code written by college kids for an initial set of requirements. Even a staff+ level engineer will struggle in contributing to a code base that is a mess. Things will break randomly. Don’t see how LLMs are any different.

Re: After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain

#84

Post by stef25 »

mritchie712 wrote: post #37
jclardy wrote: post #8

I don't get the whole "all-in" mentality around LLMs. I'm an iOS dev by trade, I continue to do that as I always have. The difference now is I'll use an LLM to quickly generate a one-off view based on a design. This isn't a core view of an app, the core functionality, or really anything of importance. It's a view that promotes a new feature, or how to install widgets, or random things. This would normally take me 30-…

How useful the various tools will be depends on the person and the problem. Take two hypothetical people working on different problems and consider if, for example, Cursor would be useful. IF you're a: * 10 year python dev * work almost entirely on a very large, complex python code base * have a pycharm IDE fine tuned over many years to work perfectly on that code base * have very low tolerance for bugs (stable produ…

Recently I tried getting ChatGPT to help me build a Wordpress site (which I know nothing about), starting from an Adobe design file. It spent hours thinking, being confused and eventually failed completely.

However it's great for simple "write a function that does X", which I could do myself but it would take longer, be boring and require several iterations to get it right.

Having said that, blindly copying a few lines of ChatGPT code did lead to automated newsletters being sent out with the wrong content.

Re: After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain

#85

Post by shahbaby »

Let's take a step back and think about how LLMs are trained.

Think about when chat gpt gives you the side-by-side answers and asks you to rate which is "better".

Now consider the consequence of this at scale with different humans with different needs all weighing in on what "better" looks like.

This is probably why LLM generated code tends to have excessive comments. Those comments would probably get it a higher rating but you as a developer may not want that. It also hints at why there's inconsistency in coding styles.

In my opinion, the most important skill for developers today is not in writing the code but in being able to critically evaluate it.

Re: After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain

#86

Post by CuriouslyC »

mritchie712 wrote: post #37
jclardy wrote: post #8

I don't get the whole "all-in" mentality around LLMs. I'm an iOS dev by trade, I continue to do that as I always have. The difference now is I'll use an LLM to quickly generate a one-off view based on a design. This isn't a core view of an app, the core functionality, or really anything of importance. It's a view that promotes a new feature, or how to install widgets, or random things. This would normally take me 30-…

How useful the various tools will be depends on the person and the problem. Take two hypothetical people working on different problems and consider if, for example, Cursor would be useful. IF you're a: * 10 year python dev * work almost entirely on a very large, complex python code base * have a pycharm IDE fine tuned over many years to work perfectly on that code base * have very low tolerance for bugs (stable produ…

16 year python dev who's done all that, lead multiple projects from inception to success, and I rarely manually code anymore. I can specify precisely what I want, and how I want it built (this is the key part), stub out a few files and create a few directories, and let an agent run wild but configured for static analysis tools/test suite to run after every iteration with the instructions to fix their mistakes before moving on.

I can deliver 5k LoC in a day easily on a greenfield project and 10k if I sweat or there's a lot of boilerplate. I can do code reviews of massive multi-thousand line PRs in a few minutes that are better than most of the ones done by engineers I've worked with throughout a long career, the list just goes on and on. I only manually code stuff if there's a small issue that I see the LLM isn't understanding that I can edit faster than I can run another round of the agent, which isn't often.

LLMs are a force multiplier for everyone, really senior devs just need to learn to use them as well as they've learned to use their current tools. It's like saying that a master archer proves bows are as good as guns because the archer doesn't know how to aim a rifle.

Re: After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain

#87

Post by voidhorse »

mexicocitinluez wrote: post #81
infecto wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These all-or-nothing takes on LLMs are getting tiresome. I get the point you’re trying to make, LLMs can be a force multiplier for less experienced devs, but the sweeping generalizations don’t hold up. If you’re okay with a higher tolerance for bugs or loose guardrails, sure, LLMs can feel magical. But that doesn’t mean they’re less valuable to experienced developers. I’ve been writing Python and Java professionally…

> I get the point you’re trying to make, LLMs can be a force multiplier for less experienced devs, but the sweeping generalizations don’t hold up. If you’re okay with a higher tolerance for bugs or loose guardrails, sure, LLMs can feel magical. But that doesn’t mean they’re less valuable to experienced developers. Amen. Seriously. They're tools. Sometimes they work wonderfully. Sometimes, not so much. But I have DEFI…

> Amen. Seriously. They're tools. Sometimes they work wonderfully. Sometimes, not so much. But I have DEFINITELY found value. And I've been building stuff for over 15 years as well.

Yes, but these lax expectation s are what I don't understand.

What other tools in software sometimes work and sometimes don't that you find remotely acceptable? Sure all tools have bugs, but if your compiler had the same failure rate and usability issues as an LLM you'd never use it. Yet for some reason the bar is so low for LLMs. It's insane to me how much people have indulged in the hype koolaid around these tools.

Re: After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain

#88

Post by jdiff »

JimDabell wrote: post #34

> I’ve never used Go or Clickhouse before > I have no concept of Go or Clickhouse best practices. > One morning, I decide to actually inspect closely what’s all this code that Cursor has been writing. It’s not like I was blindly prompting without looking at the end result, but I was optimizing for speed and I hadn’t actually sat down just to review the code. > I’m defaulting to coding the first draft of that function…

That is what vibe coding is. The tweet says "It's not too bad for throwaway projects" but that does not limit the definition, it only limits the advisable application of it.

Re: After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain

#89

Post by mritchie712 »

infecto wrote: post #63
mritchie712 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How useful the various tools will be depends on the person and the problem. Take two hypothetical people working on different problems and consider if, for example, Cursor would be useful. IF you're a: * 10 year python dev * work almost entirely on a very large, complex python code base * have a pycharm IDE fine tuned over many years to work perfectly on that code base * have very low tolerance for bugs (stable produ…

These all-or-nothing takes on LLMs are getting tiresome. I get the point you’re trying to make, LLMs can be a force multiplier for less experienced devs, but the sweeping generalizations don’t hold up. If you’re okay with a higher tolerance for bugs or loose guardrails, sure, LLMs can feel magical. But that doesn’t mean they’re less valuable to experienced developers. I’ve been writing Python and Java professionally…

my stance is the opposite of all-or-nothing. The note above is one example. How much value you get out of CURSOR specifically is going to vary based on person & problem. The Python dev in my example might immediately get value out of o3 in ChatGPT.

It's not all or nothing. What you get value out of immediately will vary based on circumstance.

Re: After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain

#90

Post by mritchie712 »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #86
mritchie712 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How useful the various tools will be depends on the person and the problem. Take two hypothetical people working on different problems and consider if, for example, Cursor would be useful. IF you're a: * 10 year python dev * work almost entirely on a very large, complex python code base * have a pycharm IDE fine tuned over many years to work perfectly on that code base * have very low tolerance for bugs (stable produ…

16 year python dev who's done all that, lead multiple projects from inception to success, and I rarely manually code anymore. I can specify precisely what I want, and how I want it built (this is the key part), stub out a few files and create a few directories, and let an agent run wild but configured for static analysis tools/test suite to run after every iteration with the instructions to fix their mistakes before…

were you immediately more productive in Cursor specifically?

my point is exactly inline with your comment. The tools you get immediate value out of will vary based on circumstance. There's no silver bullet.

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