I'm really struggling to see how to make architectural decisions with an agent. It's great when you're at a total loss for ideas, but when you already have some of the pieces it ultimately wants to drive all of the thinking and takes over. Then it just feels like you're deferring your experienced judgement. I've seen colleagues lose the ability to reason any more without asking the agent to do it for them, because they inherently don't see the point if the agent is going to end up doing the whole piece (and probably auditing/overruling anything they came up with on their own).
This is one thing I actually do with a chatbot, instead of an agent. Voice mode even.
I start talking to it while doing menial tasks like cleaning or doing the laundry, and I discuss the architectual decisions and options until I come to some resemblance of a plan.
Good side of this approach is that I can't just "skim over" or "copy paste" things - either I understood them and can repeat them myself, or I can't. It takes more time than /grill-me and similar approaches, but it's the only approach that doesn't make me want to claw my brain out.
I do the same, but without AI in the loop. Just me and my thoughts while cleaning or doing laundry or going for a run. The best designs and architectural choices and algorithms I've come up with in my carreer were developed and/or refined that way.
It's very enlightening, though it requires being comfortable with being alone with ones thoughts. It seems to me many people are not and need constant distractions and/or dopamine kicks.
Thinking alone about fundamentally deep problems can be poweful, but most software problems are not that deep, they follow a pattern, and it's only a question of discovering them. Doing that alone is inherently slower and less efficient than discussing it with a colleague.
AI just serves as a substitute - an artificial conversational partner.
I feel like you consider yourself more virtuous for not using AI for discussion. Would you consider people who don't talk to colleagues at all, but do all the work themselves more virtuous in an analogous manner?
trwhite · · focus · HN ↗
bheadmaster · · focus · HN ↗
I start talking to it while doing menial tasks like cleaning or doing the laundry, and I discuss the architectual decisions and options until I come to some resemblance of a plan.
Good side of this approach is that I can't just "skim over" or "copy paste" things - either I understood them and can repeat them myself, or I can't. It takes more time than /grill-me and similar approaches, but it's the only approach that doesn't make me want to claw my brain out.
infecto · · focus · HN ↗
teiferer · · focus · HN ↗
It's very enlightening, though it requires being comfortable with being alone with ones thoughts. It seems to me many people are not and need constant distractions and/or dopamine kicks.
bheadmaster · · focus · HN ↗
AI just serves as a substitute - an artificial conversational partner.
I feel like you consider yourself more virtuous for not using AI for discussion. Would you consider people who don't talk to colleagues at all, but do all the work themselves more virtuous in an analogous manner?