← Back to context

Comment by kuboble

4 days ago

I mean there are two different things. One is whether there are actual productivity boosts right now. And the second is the excitement about the technology.

I am definitely more productive. A lot of this productivity is wasted on stuff I probably shouldn't be writing anyways. But since using coding agent, I'm both more productive at my day job and I'm building so many small hobby projects that I would have never found time for otherwise.

But the main topic of discussion in this thread is the excitement about technology. And I have a bit mixed feelings, because on one hand side I feel like a turkey being excited for the Thanksgiving. On the other hand, I think the programming future is bright. there will be so much more software build and for a lot of that you will still need programmers.

My excitement comes from the fact that I can do so much more things that I wouldn't even think about being able to do a few months ago.

Just as an example, in last month I have used the agents to add features to the applications I'm using daily. Text editor, podcast application, Android keyboard. The agents were capable to fork, build, and implement a feature I asked for in a project where I have no idea about the technology. Iif I were hired to do those features, I would be happy if I implemented them after two weeks on the job. With an agent, I get tailor made features in half of a morning. Spending less than ten minutes prompting.

I am building educational games for my kids. They learn a new topic at school? Let me quickly vibe the game to make learning it fun. A project that wouldn't be worth my weekend, but is worth 15 minutes. https://kuboble.com/math/games/snake/index.html?mode=multipl...

So I'm excited because I think coding agents will be for coding what pencil and paper were for writing.

7 comments

kuboble

Reply
tovej  3 days ago

I don't understand the idea that you "could not think about implementing a feature".

I can think of roughly 0 fratures of run-of-the-mill software that would be impossible to implement for a semi-competent software developer. Especially for the kinds of applications you mention.

Also it sounds less like you're productive and more like the vibeslop projects are distracting you.

  • kuboble  3 days ago

    I'm claiming it's both.

    I produce more good (imo) production features despite being distracted.

    The features I mention is something that I would be able to do, but only with a lot of learning and great effort - so in practical terms I would not.

    It is probably a skill issue but in the past many times I downloaded the open source project and just couldn't build and run it. Cryptic build errors, figuring out dependencies. And I see claude gets the same errors but he just knows how to work around those errors. Setting up local development environment (db, dummy auth, dummy data) for a project outside of my competence area is already more work than I'm willing to do for a simple feature. Now it's free.

    >I can think of roughly 0 fratures of run-of-the-mill software that would be impossible to implement for a semi-competent software developer.

    Yes. I'm my area of competence it can do the coding tasks I know exactly how to do just a bit faster. Right now for those tasks I'd say it can one shot code that would take me a day.

    But it enables me to do things in the area where I don't have expertise. And getting this expertise is very expensive.