I find it strange to see people writing articles like this as if everyone has used AI for decades. I've programmed for decades. I thought I retired three years ago but got an offer I couldn't refuse. Already there were little things I'd forgotten how to use.
Over the past six months I tried using Claude, chatgpt, Grok and Gemini. At best I got reminders of how things worked. People online say they use them to write their code. The code they supplied to me has NEVER worked or was so convoluted that I threw it away and did it myself.
At most, I use these tools as search engines. Even then some references are poor.
I'm starting to think this is becoming a sad, sad world and AI is just the new TV of the programming world.
My experience was similar to yours, upon till earlier this year. Now the code which comes out of Claude code is acceptable most of the time.
It usually takes me two or three iterations to get there though. Discussing design and principles before writing the bulk of the code is a must. And then a pass or two of review to weed out ugliness.
Still saves time compared to writing the code by hand. Especially for tricky things, where type checking and tests can verify correctness.
>It usually takes me two or three iterations to get there though.
That's the whole problem with AI imo and I think the slot machine analogy is mostly right. It's just not predictable whatsoever and then you won't even be able to review all of the thousands of lines of code that you generate. You never know what you get and this has some serious safety implications that are not acceptable. Yes, it's fine as chat to just generate some snippets here and there that can be easily reviewed. Agentic coding is horrible imo.
assimpleaspossi · · focus · HN ↗
Over the past six months I tried using Claude, chatgpt, Grok and Gemini. At best I got reminders of how things worked. People online say they use them to write their code. The code they supplied to me has NEVER worked or was so convoluted that I threw it away and did it myself.
At most, I use these tools as search engines. Even then some references are poor.
I'm starting to think this is becoming a sad, sad world and AI is just the new TV of the programming world.
black_knight · · focus · HN ↗
It usually takes me two or three iterations to get there though. Discussing design and principles before writing the bulk of the code is a must. And then a pass or two of review to weed out ugliness.
Still saves time compared to writing the code by hand. Especially for tricky things, where type checking and tests can verify correctness.
ddb261fcf6a6e · · focus · HN ↗
That's the whole problem with AI imo and I think the slot machine analogy is mostly right. It's just not predictable whatsoever and then you won't even be able to review all of the thousands of lines of code that you generate. You never know what you get and this has some serious safety implications that are not acceptable. Yes, it's fine as chat to just generate some snippets here and there that can be easily reviewed. Agentic coding is horrible imo.