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Comment by mexicocitinluez

3 hours ago

I think these types of articles miss the point. It's not about not loving what I do, or not being interested in problem solving. It's about time.

For instance, I use a React form library called Formik. It's outdated and hasn't seen a real commit in years. The industry has moved onto other form libraries, but I really like Formik's api and have built quite a bit of functionality around it. And while I don't necessarily need a library to be actively worked on to use it, in this instance, it's lack of updates have caused it to fall behind in terms of performance and new React features.

The issue is that I'm also building a large, complex project and spend 80-90% of my waking time on that. So what do I do? Do I just accept it and move on? Take the time to migrate to a form library that very well be out-of-date in a year when React releases again? Or, do I experiment with Claude by asking it to update Formik to using the latest React 19 features? Long story short, I did the latter and have a new version of Formik running in my app. And during that, I got to watch and ask Claude what updates it was making and most importantly, why it was making those updates. Is it perfect? No. But it's def better than before.

I love programming. I love building stuff. That doesn't change for me with these tools. I still spend most of my time hand-writing code. But that doesn't mean there isn't a place for this tech.

5 comments

mexicocitinluez

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whilenot-dev  3 hours ago

How is the article missing your point though? For example, right in the beginning of the article:

> I’ll likely never love a tool like Claude Code, even if I do use it, because I value the task it automates. [...] Like other technologies, AI coding tools help us automate tasks: specifically, the ones we don’t value.

Where the article talks about value, you're talking about time [savings] - but you both actually mean the same thing: Getting a fair amount of value for the time spent.

I also don't seem to get your React Formik example... programming isn't solely about "SemVer numbers going up", it's about designing powerful abstractions for (re-)occurring problems. Being on the consuming side of a UI form library is something different from designing its API.

For one thing, I'm sure stable products have been build with Formik@1.0.0^ (it's at @2.4.9 currently). For a second thing, I don't think doing the manual labor of playing a smarter dependabot is as valuable as you think it is. Formik still has 3 million weekly downloads with its latest release being 2 months old, why don't you upstream your changes?

  • mexicocitinluez  2 hours ago

    > Where the article talks about value, you're talking about time [savings] - but you both actually mean the same thing: Getting a fair amount of value for the time spent.

    This is straight from the article: "People who love using AI to create software are loving it because they don’t value the act of creating & understanding the software." How is my response that this is missing the point wrong? I have no personal feelings about AI. I don't "love" it. And I also value the act of creating and understanding software, but I don't have the time to do all of that. So, I'm failing to see what point you're making.

    > programming isn't solely about "SemVer numbers going up",

    Did you read my post at all? What on earth does this have to do with Formik using legacy API's and not being as performant as the other options?

    > it's about designing powerful abstractions for (re-)occurring problems. Being on the consuming side of a UI form library is something different from designing its API.

    Again, did you read my post at all?

    > For one thing, I'm sure stable products have been build with Formik@1.0.0^ (it's at @2.4.9 currently).

    What? What does this have to do with it being years behind current React features? Do you even use React? Don't tell me you're arguing about a React form library while not actively using React?

    > For a second thing, I don't think doing the manual labor of playing a smarter dependabot is as valuable as you think it is

    lol What?

    ? Formik still has 3 million weekly downloads with its latest release being 2 months old, why don't you upstream your changes?

    This is what happens when you think just Googling and thinking you know everything. Just a quick question, that last "release", what did it include? Actually, take this a step further, in the last 2 years, what major updates were released?

    > Formik still has 3 million weekly downloads with its latest release being 2 months old, why don't you upstream your changes

    Who said I wasn't lol? What is wrong with you? Not only have you completely misinterpreted what I've said (while not having any relevant experience in the area), you're now accusing me of things.

    What an absolutely ridiculous reply.

    https://github.com/jaredpalmer/formik/tree/v2.1.6/packages/f...

    lol "Formik just had a release" you don't know what you're talking about.