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0 pointscoldtea1mo ago0 comments

>I write detailed specs. Multifile with example code. In markdown. Then hand over to Claude Sonnet. With hard requirements listed, I found out that the generated code missed requirements, had duplicate code or even unnecessary code wrangling data (mapping objects into new objects of narrower types when won't be needed) along with tests that fake and work around to pass.

Stop doing that. Micromanage it instead. Don't give it the specs for the system, design the system yourself (can use it for help doing that), inform it of the general design, but then give it tasks, ONE BY ONE, to do for fleshing it out. Approve each one, ask for corrections if needed, go to the next.

Still faster than writing each of those parts yourself (a few minutes instead of multiple hours), but much more accurate.

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6 comments · 1 top-level

dieortin1mo ago· 5 in thread

Might as well just write the code yourself at that point. And as a bonus, end up with a much better understanding of the codebase (and way better code)

coldteaOP1mo ago

>Might as well just write the code yourself at that point

"We have this thing that can speed your code writing 10x"

"If it isn't 1000x and it doesn't give me a turnkey end to end product might as well write the whole thing myself"

People have forgotten balance. Which is funny, because the inability of the AI to just do the whole thing end to end correctly is what stands between 10 developers having a job versus 1 developer having a job telling 10 or 20 agents what to do end to end and collecting the full results in a few hours.

And if you do it the way I describe you get to both use AI, AND have "a much better understanding of the codebase (and way better code)".

dieortin1mo ago

Writing the code is usually not the bottleneck, so you don’t gain that much speeding it up. And as I said, you lose a lot of knowledge about the code when you don’t write it yourself.

Unless coding is most of your job, which is rare, you’re giving up really knowing what your software does in order to achieve a very minor speed up. Just to end up having to spend way more time later trying to understand the AI generated code when inevitably something breaks.

> And if you do it the way I describe you get to both use AI, AND have "a much better understanding of the codebase (and way better code)".

Using AI is not a goal in itself, so I don’t care about “getting to use AI”. I care about doing my job as efficiently as possible, considering all parts of my job, not just coding.

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Aurornis1mo ago

The goalposts move every month. We’re at the stage where handing an entire specification to a mid-tier AI and walking away while it does all the work and then being disappointed that it wasn’t perfect means it’s useless.

coldteaOP1mo ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBtKNzoKZ4

sensanaty1mo ago

If I still have to do a ton of work to clean up whatever the AI shits out then it might as well have done nothing. The promise of these systems from the hypesters is that it can do everything, so don't be surprised when people expect exactly that.

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6 comments · 1 top-level

dieortin1mo ago· 5 in thread

Might as well just write the code yourself at that point. And as a bonus, end up with a much better understanding of the codebase (and way better code)

coldteaOP1mo ago

>Might as well just write the code yourself at that point

"We have this thing that can speed your code writing 10x"

"If it isn't 1000x and it doesn't give me a turnkey end to end product might as well write the whole thing myself"

And if you do it the way I describe you get to both use AI, AND have "a much better understanding of the codebase (and way better code)".

dieortin1mo ago

Writing the code is usually not the bottleneck, so you don’t gain that much speeding it up. And as I said, you lose a lot of knowledge about the code when you don’t write it yourself.

> And if you do it the way I describe you get to both use AI, AND have "a much better understanding of the codebase (and way better code)".

Using AI is not a goal in itself, so I don’t care about “getting to use AI”. I care about doing my job as efficiently as possible, considering all parts of my job, not just coding.

1 more reply

Aurornis1mo ago

coldteaOP1mo ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBtKNzoKZ4

sensanaty1mo ago

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