Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AI coding

geohot.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 299 posts

Re: AI coding

#91

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

raincole wrote: post #61
onion2k wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love AI for speed running through all the boring stuff and getting to the good parts. In some cases, especially with the more senior devs in my org, fear of the good parts is why they're against AI. Devs often want the inherent safety of the boring, easy stuff for a while. AI changes the job to be a constant struggle with hard problems. That isn't necessarily a good thing. If you're actually senior by virtue of tim…

> AI changes the job to be a constant struggle with hard problems. Very true. I think AI (especially Claude Code) forced me to actually think hard about the problem at hand before implementing the solution. And more importantly, write down my thoughts before they fleet away from my feeble mind. A discipline that I wished I had before.

That's strange, I've never thought it can be done this way. Normally I'd read the docs, maybe sketch up some diagrams, then maybe take a walk while thinking on how to solve the problem, and by the time I got back to the screen I'd already have a good idea on how to do it.

These days the only difference is that I feed my ideas to a few different LLMs to have "different opinions". Usually they're crap but sometimes they present something useful that I can implement.

Re: AI coding

#92

Post by DrewADesign »

bdcravens wrote: post #25

I'm almost 50, and have been writing code professionally since the late 90s. I can pretty much see projects in my head, and know exactly what to build. I also get paid pretty well for what I do. You'd think I'd be the prototype for anti-AI. I'm not. I can build anything, but often struggle with getting bogged down with all the basic work. I love AI for speed running through all the boring stuff and getting to the goo…

Yes, unfortunately the boring parts are what junior devs used to do so the senior devs could work on the good stuff. Now that AI is doing the boring stuff nobody has to hire those pesky jr developers anymore. Yay?

The problem is that junior developers are what we make senior developers with— so in 15 years, this is going to be yet another thing that the US used to be really good at, but is no longer capable of doing, just like many important trades in manufacturing. The manufacturers were all only concerned with their own immediate profit and made the basic sustainability of their workforce, let alone the health of the trades that supported their industries, a problem for everyone else to take care of. Well, everyone else did the same thing.

Re: AI coding

#93

Post by roxolotl »

isaacremuant wrote: post #29
saejox wrote: post #17

> AI makes you feel 20% more productive but in reality makes you 19% slower. How many more billions are we going to waste on this? True in the long run. Like a car with a high acceleration but low top speed. AI makes you start fast, but regret later because you don't have the top speed.

People repeating articles or papers. I know myself. I know from my own experiences what the good and bad of practice A or database B is. I don't need to read a conclusion by some Muppet. Chill. Interesting times. Learn stuff, like always. Iterate. Be mindful and intentional and don't just chase mirrors but be practical. The rest is fluff. You know yourself.

The takeaway from the paper is you don’t know yourself. It’s one paper, and a small sample size, but attempting to refute its conclusion by stating it’s false doesn’t really get us anywhere.

Re: AI coding

#94

Post by roxolotl »

faangguyindia wrote: post #56

AI coding is working really good for us. My teammate shared 3 phase workflow we are using on our team to deliver project at rapid phase. It's shared on ClaudeCode subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/s/iy058fH4sZ I've been using it for months with great success

These workflows always surprise me. Isn’t this what you’ve been doing with humans all along? Write up a basic project plan likely following some structure the product team likes. Share it with the eng team. One to a few members of the eng team writes up a more specific plan. Everyone gets together again and goes through the specific plan to iron out the kinks. You the implement the plan.

I’ve seen at my workplace people are more willing to help Claude with a plan than their fellow humans. I pointed that out and one engineer replied with “well I know Claude will read the documentation”. It’s a depressing observation but I don’t know if it’s wrong.

Re: AI coding

#95

Post by hereme888 »

I'm a 100% vibe-coder. AI/CS is not my field. I've made plenty of neat apps that are useful to me. Don't ask me how they work; they just do.

Sure the engineering may be abysmal, but it's good enough to work.

It only takes basic english to produce these results, plus complaining to the AI agent that "The GUI is ugly and overcrowded. Make it look better, and dark mode."

Want specs? "include a specs.md"

This isn't a 20% more productive feeling. It's productivity beyond what I will ever do on my own, given this is not my field.

This is all possible because AI was trained on the outstanding work of CS engineers like ya'll.

But the article is highly opinionated. It's like saying only phD's can be called scientists, or only programmers can be computer hackers. But in reality every human is a scientist and a hacker in the real world. The guy in a street corner in India came up with novel ways to make and sell his product, but never wrote a research paper on it. The guy on his fourth marriage noted a statistical correlation in the outcome when meeting women at a bar vs. at a church. The plant that grew in the crevice of a rock noted sunlight absorption was optimal at an angle of 78.3 degrees and grew in that direction.

Re: AI coding

#96

Post by softwaredoug »

Instead of everyone telling their personal anecdote, we should look at the actual research.

Asking ChatGPT to summarize the state of AI coding research that’s not done by one of the providers, and I feel like I got the sanest summary of the actual state of things:

> If you weight independent work more heavily: current best evidence says don’t expect speedups for senior devs in complex, well-known codebases without process changes; expect security pitfalls unless you add guardrails. Gains look more reliable for novices, unfamiliar code, and templated tasks

Seems the most sane PoV on the actual benefits I’ve seen.

Actual link if you want to pick apart GPT-5s summary

https://chatgpt.com/share/68c56214-1038-8004-b1ed-359393eb15...

Re: AI coding

#97

Post by croes »

hereme888 wrote: post #95

I'm a 100% vibe-coder. AI/CS is not my field. I've made plenty of neat apps that are useful to me. Don't ask me how they work; they just do. Sure the engineering may be abysmal, but it's good enough to work. It only takes basic english to produce these results, plus complaining to the AI agent that "The GUI is ugly and overcrowded. Make it look better, and dark mode." Want specs? "include a specs.md" This isn't a 20%…

The crucial part is security.

If the apps runs locally it doesn’t matter, if it‘s connected to the net it could be the seed for the next Mirai bot network.

Re: AI coding

#98

Post by m_fayer »

DrewADesign wrote: post #92
bdcravens wrote: post #25

I'm almost 50, and have been writing code professionally since the late 90s. I can pretty much see projects in my head, and know exactly what to build. I also get paid pretty well for what I do. You'd think I'd be the prototype for anti-AI. I'm not. I can build anything, but often struggle with getting bogged down with all the basic work. I love AI for speed running through all the boring stuff and getting to the goo…

Yes, unfortunately the boring parts are what junior devs used to do so the senior devs could work on the good stuff. Now that AI is doing the boring stuff nobody has to hire those pesky jr developers anymore. Yay? The problem is that junior developers are what we make senior developers with— so in 15 years, this is going to be yet another thing that the US used to be really good at, but is no longer capable of doing,…

It’s yet another place where we know our own capacity as a society is shrinking and hoping that ??? (Ai? Robots? Fusion?) will fix it before it’s too late. I never thought programming would join elder-care in this category though, that came as a surprise.

Re: AI coding

#99

Post by chewz »

DrewADesign wrote: post #92
bdcravens wrote: post #25

I'm almost 50, and have been writing code professionally since the late 90s. I can pretty much see projects in my head, and know exactly what to build. I also get paid pretty well for what I do. You'd think I'd be the prototype for anti-AI. I'm not. I can build anything, but often struggle with getting bogged down with all the basic work. I love AI for speed running through all the boring stuff and getting to the goo…

Yes, unfortunately the boring parts are what junior devs used to do so the senior devs could work on the good stuff. Now that AI is doing the boring stuff nobody has to hire those pesky jr developers anymore. Yay? The problem is that junior developers are what we make senior developers with— so in 15 years, this is going to be yet another thing that the US used to be really good at, but is no longer capable of doing,…

> The problem is that junior developers are what we make senior developers with— so in 15 years

In 15 years senior developers will not be needed as well. Anyway no company is obliged to worry about 15 years timescale

Post reply on HN