Comment by thisissomething
6 days ago
Completely agree with you. I was working on the front-end of an application and I prompted Claude the following: "The endpoint /foo/bar is returning the json below ##json goes here##, show this as cards inside the component FooBaz following the existing design system".
In less than 5 minutes Claude created code that: - encapsulated the api call - modeled the api response using Typescript - created a re-usable and responsive ui component for the card (including a load state) - included it in the right part of the page
Even if I typed at 200wpm I couldn't produce that much code from such a simple prompt.
I also had similar experiences/gains refactoring back-end code.
This being said, there are cases in which writing the code yourself is faster than writing a detailed enough prompt, BUT those cases are becoming exception with new LLM iteration. I noticed that after the jump from Claude 3.7 to Claude 4 my prompts can be way less technical.
The thing is... does your code end there? Would you put that code in production without a deep analysis of what Claude did?
I’m not who you replied to but I keep functions small and testable paired with unit tests with a healthy mix of happy/sad path.
Afterwards I make sure the LLM passes all the tests before I spend my time to review the code.
I find this process keeps the iterations count low for review -> prompt -> review.
I personally love writing code with an LLM. I’m a sloppy typist but love programming. I find it’s a great burnout prevention.
For context: node.js development/React (a very LLM friendly stack.)
(GP) I wouldn't, but it would get me close enough that I can do the work that's more intellectually stimulating. Sometimes you need the people to do the concrete for a driveway, and sometimes you need to be signing off on the way the concrete was done, perhaps making some tweaks during the early stages.