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0 pointscriley21y ago0 comments

At some point, you become the luddite. Maybe you have no experience with modern AI dev tools, maybe you work in a language that is underrepresented in models meaning off the shelf tools don't work well, or maybe you're just an old curmudgeon who will die on a hill.

But modern AI tools are far beyond "auto complete". (I actually turn off those in-line completions, I feel they ruin flowstate). The tools now are fully prompted, with multi-file editing, with full codebase context, with web/search and doc integration, and for "on the rails" development are producing high quality code for "easier" tasks.

These modern models and tools can solve nearly every single leet code problem faster than you. They can do every single Advent of Code problem likely 10X-100X faster than you can.

In my professional, high standards, very legal and contract driven web app world, AI tools are still very useful for doing "on the rails" development. Is it architecting entire systems? No of course not (yet). Is it emulating existing patterns and extending them for new functionality 10X faster than a Jr or Mid? Yes it is. Is it writing nearly perfect automated tests based on examples? Yes it is. It is scaffolding new ideas and putting down a great starting point? Yep. And it's even able to iterate on featurework pretty well, and much faster than Jr/Mid.

The kind of work I'd give to a Jr/Mid and expect to take 2-3 days before they need serious feedback up and down the change, these AI are doing in about 30 seconds, maybe 90 seconds if you need to iterate a few times on the prompt.

I get that "AI" is a buzzword that is pumping valuations and making business people see $$$.

But coding assistants are not that. For many programmers, they are quickly becoming valuable tools that do in fact speed up development.

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8 comments · 4 top-level

otabdeveloper41y ago· 2 in thread

> Our modern model and tools can solve nearly every single leet code problem faster than you.

That's expected, since all the leetcode problems have ready-to-use solutions on the internet.

(In fact, the reason they ask leetcode questions isn't to test your IQ, it's to know if you've read the obvious and available literature.)

criley2OP1y ago

Two points:

>That's expected, since all the leetcode problems have ready-to-use solutions on the internet.

1) If the implication is "The model knows the answer and regurgitates it like lyrics to a song" then I would push back. Put a leet code problem into deepseek r1 chain-of-reasoning model and watch it spend 2 minutes spitting out 5000 words thinking through every single facet of the problem and genuinely solving it at a level that is higher than 95% of programmers.

And point 2)

If you do believe it's fundamentally about how much the model has been trained on, then it has seen your CRUD app and has already seen 10,000 times the feature or system you're about to write -- so it should be a foregone conclusion that it can also do all of that development work too. Only the higher order architecting and proprietary domains should be challenging for it, as there would be far less examples to train on (scarcity) or the model doesn't understand a complex solution (architecting systems at scale is something it can't do).

(I also point out how well these models did for Advent of Code 2024, when there were zero examples in the training data for it).

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aleph_minus_one1y ago

> (In fact, the reason they ask leetcode questions isn't to test your IQ, it's to know if you've read the obvious and available literature.)

Rather: it tests whether you are sufficiently docile and devoted to be willing to cram lots of leetcode exercise books that have no relevance for the programming concepts that the job will involve, just for a lottery ticket for a somewhat well-paid position.

I know that there is so much more to programming and related topics that is sooo much deeper (in particular if non-trivial mathematics becomes involved) than these leetcode-style brainteasers. So I strongly prefer to read about such deeply intellectually inspiring topics related to programming instead of jumping through the idiotic hoops that other people want me to.

Indeed, I thus fail the test for docility and devotedness, but I honestly can't take organisations seriously that demand such jumping through hoops.

matwood1y ago· 2 in thread

I think people are running into a couple of challenges. One is keeping up with the pace of improvement. The tools are much improved over 6-12-24 months ago. A poor first impression can leave people thinking a tool is terrible forever more. Second is that someone must learn to work with the new tools. The hype can lead people to think the tools will magically just do all these things. The reality is, like most tools, it takes some trial and error to learn how to best use it.

StefanBatory1y ago

ChatGPT in 2023 was a fun toy, but just that.

Claude in 2025, especially with Project feature is far better. It can complete CRUD project on its' own, and all I have to do is to fix glaring issues and design API before.

Which might be not impressive to someone, but it is good at that. And few years ago, it would not be possible.

cess111y ago

CRUD generation is a staple in web framework CLI tooling since like forever. Once upon a time Wordpress was this, the boilerplate application you scripted out and then adapted. In certain programming languages macros or type systems power up this kind of tactic, and IDE:s typically have very good support for these kinds of shortcuts.

Then the project management tooling does a lot more, like automatically reverse engineer existing databases and so on.

JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B1y ago

> you work in a language that is underrepresented in models meaning off the shelf tools don't work well

That's exactly what happens, and why I think the whole hype is a joke. I have tried all the models and tools though, it's always an annoying mess.

> tools can solve nearly every single leet code problem faster than you

That would be useful if I was paid to "leet code" or solve Christmas games. This is not a good rebutal though but it made me smile.

> The kind of work I'd give to a Jr/Mid

Good, but I don't want to know what happens in 20 years when there are no more juniors to feed the AI and work on becoming seniors. I will be retired by then and I'll enjoy writing my own open-source stuff.

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toprerules1y ago

I feel like 95% of the developers who are touting AI are doing web dev or app development - a field which has low stakes, low barrier to entry, and an incredible amount of reinventing the wheel - all things that an LLMs is naturally going to excel with. I can't imagine you'd hold these same beliefs if you were writing control software for a life saving medical device where a single bug could kill someone, where the board package is proprietary and not understood by an LLM, and the thing is written in a C dialect combining only half the features of C99 with a subset of obscure compiler flags.

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