← Back to context

Comment by oofbey

2 months ago

It’s easy to get AI to write bad code. Turns out you still need coding skills to get AI to write good code. But those who have figured it out can crank out working systems at a shocking pace.

17 comments

oofbey

Reply
mmaunder  2 months ago

Agreed 100%. I'd add that it's the knowledge of architecture and scaling that you got from writing all that good code, shipping it, and then having to scale it. It gives you the vocabulary and broad and deep knowledge base to innovate at lightning speeds and shocking levels of complexity.

serious_angel  2 months ago

I am sorry for asking, but... is there guide even on how to "figure it out"? Otherwise, how are you so sure about it?

  • pornel  2 months ago

    When a new technology emerges we typically see some people who embrace it and "figure it out".

    Electronic synthesisers went from "it's a piano, but expensive and sounds worse" to every weird preset creating a whole new genre of electronic music.

    So it seems plausible, like Claude's code, that our complaints about unmaintainable code are from trying to use it like a piano, and the rave kids will find a better use for it.

  • mmaunder  2 months ago

    That's actually a great question. Truth be told the best way right now is to grab Codex CLI or Claude CLI (I strongly prefer Codex, but Claude has its fans), and just start. Immediately. Then go hard for a few months and you'll develop the skills you need.

    A few tips for a quickstart:

    Give yourself permission to play.

    Understand basic concepts like context window, compaction, tokens, chain of thought and reasoning, and so on. Use AI to teach you this stuff, and read every blog post OpenAI and Anthropic put out and research what you don't understand.

    Pick a hard coding problem in Python or Typescript and take a leap of faith and ask the agent to code it for you.

    My favorite phrase when planning is: "Don't change anything. Just tell me.". Save this as a tmux shortcut and use it at the end of every prompt when planning something out.

    Use markdown .md docs to create a planning doc and keep chatting to the agent about it and have it update the plan until you're super happy, always using the magic phrase "Don't change anything. Just tell me." (I should get myself a patent on that little number. Best trick I know)

    Every time you see an anti-AI post, just move on. It's lazy people making lazy assumptions. Approach agentic coding with a sense of love, excitement, optimism, and take massive leaps of faith and you'll be very very surprised at what you find.

    Best of luck Serious Angel.

    • 2god3  2 months ago

      You're not really answering the question are you?

      Your answer is to play with it. Cool. But why cant you and others put together a proper guide lol? It cant be that hard.

      Go ahead and do it - it'll challenge the Anti-AI posters you are referencing. I and others want to see that debate.

      8 replies →