I was a hand tool woodworker, but the first time I had to rip 56 6 foot boards into 7 strips I immediately purchased a table saw. Now I use hand tools rarely because I find the speed and quality of my cuts are better. I still use hand tools for things that require certain standards, but electric tools almost always produce better quality results.

It’s about the same for AI coding, I just get better results.

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steve_adams_86 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Similar to wood working, sometimes I use the LLM rough out the concept quickly then refine it. The initial roughing looks awful and this seems to bother some people a lot. It’s fine for me because I still have the correct tools to pull it all together. It saves me immense amounts of time.

Another analog is using power tools to make jigs for hand tools. I’m constantly rigging up test or data wrangling harnesses to improve my ability to verify and refine solutions. It’s so ridiculously useful for improving outputs, even if it isn’t writing the code that makes it to production.

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xigoi 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Does your saw require you to pay for each use?

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officialchicken 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Your power tools run out of tokens and you have to open yet another online account to get around the daily sawing limits in order to finish the task today?

	▲	steve_adams_86 10 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		You can use qwen 3.5 for genuinely useful stuff without worrying about subscriptions and tokens. The 35b model works well on my Mac Studio and does all kinds of menial tasks so I can use my subscriptions for more important or complex things. I don’t think it’ll be long until models comparable to Sonnet today will run on my machine. I have no idea what the frontier will look like in a few years but I don’t doubt local models like qwen will still be a staple of my workflows. And for what it’s worth, there are people out there who lose their sawing ability because a safety brake totals their blade and needs to be replaced for something like $100. Sometimes we pay extra for features we value. We can always pull out the hand tools if we have to. In the mean time, make hay I guess.
	▲	ok_dad 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		I’m a professional so I don’t mind paying for tools.
	▲	CaptainFever 10 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		local models exist

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globular-toast 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think we have to be careful with such analogies. One does not have to have sweated for years with hand tools to understand what an accurate rip cut through ply looks like. On the other hand, if you just gave someone some rough cut wood and an electric sander, how would they even understand what that wood could look like having never used a good, sharp hand plane?

With AI coding we're talking about people producing abstract artifacts that most people do not understand and do not know how to test. These aren't just strips of board. They are little machines. So you shouldn't be asking whether you'd trust a table saw to cut your boards, you should be asking whether you'd trust someone who has never cut boards to build your table saw.

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ok_dad 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Everyone is talking about AI coding like only brainless idiots are using it. I’m a professional, I can judge and fix the clankers output. I don’t give a shit if some other idiot is using their tools right.

	▲	krapp 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The vast majority of people using AI to code, even in production, are brainless idiots. Not knowing anything about the process and not needing to care is the entire draw of AI for most people regardless of the medium, and particularly for employers. Processes are moving to eliminate humans from the loop of AI production, not to require them. People like you are an anomaly, not the norm. "I wrote an entire production quality SaaS without knowing what a function is" is the norm.

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archagon 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A table saw does not make decisions for you.

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b112 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Is it? Isn't the inverse? The speed of your cuts is improved with AI a bit, but aren't the cuts all rough and need additional work? Isn't the quality less than what you would do by hand?

Because that's what every AI usage I've experienced has been.

Faster, yes. Useful, yes. Not better "finish".