Comment by weego
2 days ago
Isn't it concerning that the hype and billions in investment is mostly steering towards finding that the only paying customer base are ergonomics tasks for other developers? Not exactly looking like the world changer right now
I've been using Claude-Code for a few weeks now, and honestly, calling this just "ergonomic" tasks feels like a huge understatement. This thing is straight up writing code for me - real, functional code that actually works. I'm being ridiculously productive with it.
I've even finally found the time to tackle some hobby projects that have been sitting on my back burner for literally years. Claude just tears through problems at breakneck speed. And you know what? It's actually fun again! I forgot how enjoyable coding could be when you're not getting bogged down in the tedious stuff.
Sure, maybe the big revolutionary applications haven't materialized yet, but when a tool can take something that would have taken me days and knock it out in an afternoon? That doesn't feel like just "making things more comfortable" - that feels pretty transformative to me, at least for how I work.
I have used all the 'new' AI since the first preview of copilot and yeah, claude code seems to make a real difference. Previously, I used aider which is similar, but not having to point out the files to work with is the major difference I would say. It works very well and now I use it simply to control everything I do. It's the future as far as I am concerned. If we manage to have this local running in a few years, the world will be a much different place...
I had same experience with Windsurf since December. Their slogan was "Experience a true flow state" and I though it was spot on.
These days, with explision of options and alternatives and visible augmentation of their skills (tasks orchestration, mcps, etc) I have temporary reverse of that feeling as I struggle to settle on one approach/tool/editor, and always in half-baked experiementation stage with these tools, that also evolve quicker that I can try them out.
Weird, it doesn't even generate comments in the right language when I try to use it.
Wild. I evaluate LLMs about once per year, and can't wait for the generative AI bubble to burst.
I most recently asked for a privilege-separated JMAP client daemon (dns, fetcher, writer) using pledge() and unveil() that would write to my Maildir, my khal dir and contacts whenever it had connectivity and otherwise behave like a sane network client.
I got 800 lines of garbage C. Structs were repeated all over the place, the config file was #defined four times, each with a different name and path.
You need to do it in smaller, incremental steps. Outline the overall architecture in your head, ask the AI to create empty structs/classes. Build it. Ask it to implement one part, leaving others empty. Test it. Ask it to add the next thing, and so on.
Every step should only affect a handful of classes or functions, that you can still keep in your head and easily verify. Basically, same thing as if you were doing it by hand, but at a higher abstraction level, so faster and less mentally tiring.
Shameless plug: I am working on a new cross-platform IDE designed for just this kind of workflow. It has basic C/C++ support already: https://sysprogs.com/CodeVROOM/?features=why
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In think the people having success, probably have more experience with them. It sounds like "I tried using one of these new horseless carriages and it didn't go well, these things are useless"
> Wild. I evaluate LLMs about once per year, and can't wait for the generative AI bubble to burst.
Strange thing to respond to people having great success with it. You clearly want it to fail, but why?
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You're a young guy that just dabbled in coding or are you a senior software developer?
I'll add to the sibling comment and say I've been writing software for money for 25+ years, have a CS degree, and have found immense leverage with these tools. I put in the time on hobby projects over the past couple years to figure out how best to integrate it all into my work, and now I'm in a place where it's saving me significant amounts of time every time I produce code, and I'm getting the quality of results the project demands. I use gemini-2.5-pro, claude-4-sonnet, and o3 for different purposes, and have a variety of techniques to avoid pitfalls and get the results I'm looking for. There are a lot of ways to unsatisfactory results, but it's possible to get usable results that save time. I've shared my enthusiasm and seen other devs dabble, get poor results, and go back to their practiced methods of writing software–so I'm not surprised to see so many skeptics and naysayers. It isn't easy or obvious how to make this stuff work for you in larger codebases and for meatier problems. That doesn't mean it's impossible, and it doesn't mean it's not worth it to climb the learning curve. As the models and tools get better, it's getting a lot easier, so I suspect we'll see the number of people denying the utility of LLM-generated code to shrink. Personally, I'd rather be reaping the benefits as early as possible, because I can get more stuff done faster and more pleasantly.
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I'm not OP but my experience with Cursor is similar. I have a B.S. in computer science from UW-Madison and have been a full-time professional software developer since 1998. This stuff is the real deal. I mostly see people not willing to put in the time to learn. There is a big learning curve here--don't let the fact that it's English trick you into thinking there's no skill involved. Your experience is actually what makes this work; greener devs will be unable to get the AI out of a rut or keep it on the straight and narrow, but an experienced dev can sprinkle in some occasional wisdom and get the machine going again. This stuff is fool's gold for "vibe coders" but rocket fuel for experienced developers using it as a tool.
Idk, I’ve been doing this for 15 years professionally and many years before and it’s still amazing to me
I think more often you'll find it's the mediocre coders (like myself) that have trouble using AI. The software developers and CS majors just know exactly what to tell it to do and in the *exact* language it could best be understood. That's just my experience.
Also, I get caught up in multiple errors that will never go away and, since I'm stepping out of my wheelhouse with libraries or packages I'm completely unfamiliar with, I'm completely helpless but to diagnose what went wrong myself and improve upon my code prompting skills.
Don't get me wrong. AI makes possible many things for me. However, I think professional coders probably accomplish much more.
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Senior developer, decades of experience
> Claude just tears through problems at breakneck speed. And you know what? It's actually fun again! I forgot how enjoyable coding could be when you're not getting bogged down in the tedious stuff.
yes I've been addicted to vibe coding too but i don't share the sentiment here.
This only holds true as long as you don't run into a bug that llm throws up its hands. Now you have no option but to read and understand code.
At no moment, you can 100% delegate the validation of the information you receive. That’s also valid with humans, feelings and thoughts.
Nope, this is exactly how the Internet at large grew up.
First, the breathless nerds. Then, the greater swath of nerds (where we are). And this is when people start to get excited in various degrees while others say stuff like "no one will ever want to fuss with dialup and a second phone line" or "no one will ever put real info or use credit cards online".
Then a couple years later, grandma is calling you over to fix her Netzero and away we go...
I'm a marketer. I write a lot. GPT-4.5 is really good at natural sounding writing. It's nearing the point where it would be worth $200/mth for me to have access to it all the time.
I used the GPT-4.5 API to write a novel, with a reasonably simple loop-based workflow. The novel was good enough that my son read the whole thing. And he has no issue quitting a book part way through if it becomes boring.
I guess I don't really understand why. I'm a writer. The joy in storytelling is telling a story. Why outsource that to a bot?
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I’m curious: what was the novel about?
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If everyone is as good as you , how much will your work cost?
A better question might be: "If everyone is as good as you, how much will you be worth in the marketplace?"
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It probably would be just like with developers.
A great developer + an AI = productive.
A shitty developer + an AI = still shit.
AI does not make all developers the same. And it doesn't make all marketers the same.
I think writing claude sonnet 4 is more human - like.
I wish all LLM-written marketing copy had disclaimers so I knew never to waste my time reading it.
Why is that concerning? I think it's amazing. Also these things will improve other products indirectly.
Because it shows it's a bubble, and when a bubble of this size, invested by that many actors, pops, it has a devastating impact on everyone.
Eh, those are early adopters.
My partner is not a coder but uses copilot a lot.
Compare this to blockchain, which never did anything useful for anyone after 20 years.
Wrong. Blockchain has actually found successful product market fit in several areas:
- ransomware payments
- money transfers for online and telephone scams
- buying illegal drugs online
- funding North Korea’s government
very funny, let's not forget:
- avoiding monetary tyranny in not-so-well developed authoritarian countries
maybe not so important for you, but for some people it is simply a matter of acquiring food and medicine
Well, yes :)
But I was talking within the same context as the thread, which is business.
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- bribing the USA’s president
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