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suprjamiyesterday at 8:34 PM3 repliesview on HN

I don't see it that way. Tabs, spaces, curly brace placement, Vim, Emacs, VSCode, etc are largely aesthetic choices with some marginal unproven cognitive implications.

I find people mostly prefer what they are used to, and if your preference was so superior then how could so many people build fantastic software using the method you don't like?

AI isn't like that. AI is a bunch of people telling me this product can do wonderful things that will change society and replace workers, yet almost every time I use it, it falls far short of that promise. AI is certainly not reliable enough for me to jeopardize the quality of my work by using it heavily.


Replies

dwaltripyesterday at 8:52 PM

You can vibe-code a throwaway UI for investigating some complex data in less than 30 minutes. The code quality doesn't matter, and it will make your life much easier.

Rinse and repeat for many "one-off" tasks.

It's not going away, you need to learn how to use it. shrugs shoulders

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hectdevyesterday at 8:51 PM

I would say it is like that. No one HAS to use AI. But the shared goal is to get a change to the codebase to achieve a desired outcome. Some will outsource a significant part of that to AI, some won't.

And its tricky because I'm trying not to appeal to emotion despite being fascinated with how this tool has enabled me to do things in a short amount of time that it would have taken me weeks of grinding to get to and improves my communication with stakeholders. That feels world changing. Specifically my world and the day-to-day roll I play when it comes to getting things done.

I think it is fine that it fell short of your expectations. It often does for me as well but it's when it gets me 80% of the way there in less than a day's work, then my mind is blown. It's an imperfect tool and I'm sorry for saying this but so are we. Treat its imperfections in the same way you would with a JR developer- feedback, reframing, restrictions, and iterate.

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Loughlayesterday at 8:44 PM

>AI is certainly not reliable enough for me to jeopardize the quality of my work by using it heavily.

I mean this in sincerity, and not at all snarky, but - have you considered that you haven't used the tools correctly or effectively? I find that I can get what I need from chatbots (and refuse to call them AI until we have general AI just to be contrary) if I spend a couple of minutes considering constraints and being careful with my prompt language.

When I've come across people in my real life who say they get no value from chatbots, it's because they're asking poorly formed questions, or haven't thought through the problem entirely. Working with chatbots is like working with a very bright lab puppy. They're willing to do whatever you want, but they'll definitely piss on the floor unless you tell them not to.

Or am I entirely off base with your experience?

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