Talking the problem to death with the AI before implementation is a nice zone for me. I feel productive, get good results out of the AI, and still largely understand the code. That’s the part of the AI revolution that I feel has made me a better engineer because I argue about design and architecture all day with a robot.

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mikepurvis an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Despite the cynical sibling reply, I also feel like there's real value here. Contrary to the meme, I don't think Claude just tells me I'm brilliant, but really does push back on directions that are unproductive, identify when a part is overcomplicated or a dependency has become redundant, etc. Those are important things to have at least a sightline on before getting too deep into the code, even in a world where a lot of code can be created basically for free.

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bottlepalm 11 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

One strategy I use in the planning phase is even when I know how I'd implement the solution, I ask the Claude/Codex how they would solve the problem or implement the feature without giving them any clues - and then compare their solutions to my own. Often I am pleasantly surprised by alternative ways of doing things and ideas that we integrate into the final design.

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qsera an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

>I argue about design and architecture all day with a robot.

You will outgrow it at some point.

	▲	bartread an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I think this is OK though. We can still micromanage[0] the code generation part for a useful productivity boost, I think. [0] At least, in my experience, "micromanaging" the AI is what gives me the best results. Iterating on the initial design, then iterating on the plan, then reviewing the proposed code changes (including tests), then getting an independent code review from another LLM, etc. If you give an LLM too much latitude that's when the really shitty code and ill-considered breaking changes/obliteration of existing functionality starts to creep in.
	▲	Terretta an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Or learn something at some point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging
	▲	busterarm an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		nullsanity's comment is dead and downvoted to oblivion but also incredibly underrated. I was more annoyed than anything that I didn't hit this moment until my 40s. Except it's not just reddit (I quit reddit 15 years ago). It's the whole internet.
	▲	nullsanity an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Its like that phase people go through where they argue with morons on reddit, and then one day grow up and realize that most of these people are unemployed/underemployed terminally online nobodies aren't ever going to learn anything, and even if they did it wouldn't impact the world since they were just some below average hobbyist anyway and aren't in charge of anything more important than a box of paperclips.