| type errors, scope issues, import resolution, dependencies.

I write code myself and use the LLM to find mistakes then fix them manually. I recommend inverting the conventional wisdom on LLMs:

  1. Don't use it to write code. It's a terrible
     programmer. But it's an intelligent rubber duck
     and a solid analysis tool.

  2. Write the code yourself. It'll go faster than
     figuring it out as you go along. It's just typing
     if you have a plan.

  3. Use an LLM to sanity check what you wrote.
     It can find potential design issues or future
     problems or breaks from convention. Decide based on
     your experience how much you want to address these
     issues before moving on.

Is this as fast as AI writing the code? Not at first but possibly over time. Maybe faster. Certainly better quality.

Plus you don't lose any of your skills in the process.

You're still doing the gruntwork necessary to keep your skillset.

And the token cost is a small fraction of what it takes to get LLMs to write good code.

▲ dnadler 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Don't use it to write code. It's a terrible programmer.

I see this sentiment often, and I’m honestly not sure where this comes from, as it’s really not been my experience. I feel like this must come from people feeling threatened and just moving the goals posts, or not knowing how to use the tools effectively.

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asp_hornet an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I think language, frameworks, domain and style can all influence the quality of the output. I think it’s hard to compare experiences.

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Ferret7446 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think a lot of the people saying AI code sucks is because the code isn't formatted the way they like, not because the code doesn't work.

Basically, the people that leave dozens of bikeshed code review comments.

Sure, sometimes I might ask the AI to break out a helper function or structure things differently, but that's the same as working with another dev

	▲	aarjaneiro 5 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I've witnessed SQL executed with a where clause be wrapped in a function which then iterates over the result to re-enforce the where clause. People need to read the slop they're throwing at reviewers.

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rmdashrfv 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I see this sentiment often, and I’m honestly not sure where this comes from, as it’s really not been my experience

If you see people saying it often, but you are convinced they are just feeling threatened, what AI generated software would point to to say, "Look at this! Definitive evidence that they are just coping!"

	▲	aand16 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		GitHub /s

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marcosdumay 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I see your sentiment quite often here on HN¹, I'm honestly not sure what kind of experience you may have had with automatic program writers. LLM code absolutely sucks.

1 - I wonder why my other social circles are so different.

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michaelchisari 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's a common enough experience that it shouldn't be dismissed.

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purple-leafy 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I agree. This sentiment is quite tiring and I put it down to one of 3 things:

1) lies and/or cope

2) lack of actual software ability, therefore over evaluating your own skill

3) haven’t actually used LLMs, and want to do a “look at me I’m so unique and different”

I roll my eyes whenever someone says “AI bad” “AI sucks” “AI can’t replace me”

Yeah. Load of

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bluefirebrand 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Regarding 2

Isn't it possible that people who think LLMs are awesome at coding are in fact bad at it themselves, leading to them over estimating the LLMs "skill"?

To me it feels like people telling on themselves that they aren't very good

	▲	purple-leafy 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I don’t consider myself an expert, but I’ve been programming for the last 6 years, and of those 6 years I’ve spent almost all my spare time programming during this period except for a 1 year hiatus. This includes personal projects with a decent amount of users, and 1 sold project. I’m not the best programmer, but I wouldn’t say I’m bad at all. Question to you, have you actually used a leading model like Fable when it was available? I did. I was seriously impressed. I’ll be honest I find it hard to take anyone seriously who says they can program better or faster than a model with those capabilities. That has not been my experience. Architecting - yes people are still better overall. LLMs tend to go with the average middle of the road result. But in terms of output, raw speed, and getting something working? No way am I better than an llm. Happy to be enlightened and told I’m completely wrong. Maybe I am an idiot. That is a possibility. But how about I give you a task, and I give Claude that same task, and we compare results against execution speed? I’ll happily be the judge of that.

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8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]

▲ nsingh2 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Don't use it to write code

One of the things I've started doing is to write the high level scaffold myself, create stubs (with comments) and have it fill out the details. I haven't done this for long, but I feel like my mental model of the code rots less, and I can review code faster.

I used to do this in the past, when these models were not all that capable, now there is a huge temptation to leave everything to the model. But long term I lose track of whats going on, and have a hard time even communicating with the model about the changes I want. Just a total decay of my mental model of the system, and it's really hard to recover from that state.