Comment by YZF

I would say much better than a junior without any prior knowledge. But definite not a senior with knowledge. I.e. needs guidance.

x200 the speed of a junior.

It's interesting how far our experiences differ. I have heard from people working on C/C++ code bases that it's more challenging and I haven't tried the LLMs in these domains.

I do see people getting results even internally. Sometimes it's about getting to learn the tool. It's really interesting how we have this mix of "this is garbage" and "this is really useful". From my end I don't think I'm making stuff up or looking through some rosy glasses and I've been coding for 30+ years.

EDIT: I should add that when I use AI I already have a "shape" in my head of what I'm trying to get done. It's not like I tell AI something vague (like a user level issue) and expect it to fully understand a huge code base (though sometimes that also works). If I have a race I might have a Go race detector goroutine dump. If I'm refactoring I know where the work needs to happen. If I have a test failure I know what test failed and I usually have some idea of where to start.

I'll also add the resulting AI assisted code is good. I review it as it is being written and if there are issues (either functional or stylistic) make adjustments. All our code gets reviewed and all has quite extensive tests. Again this is at above junior level.