Aider: AI pair programming in your terminal

I have this 300 line Go application which manages git tags for me. I asked it to implement a -dry-run function. It failed twice. First time it just mangled the file. Second time it just made code that didn't do anything.

I asked it to rename a global variable. It broke the application and failed to understand scoping rules.

Perhaps it is bad luck, or perhaps my Go code is weird, but I don't understand how y'all wanna trust this.

Thanks for trying aider, and sorry to hear you had trouble working with it. It might be worth looking through some of the tips on the aider GitHub page [0].

In particular, this is one of the most important tips: Large changes are best performed as a sequence of thoughtful bite sized steps, where you plan out the approach and overall design. Walk GPT through changes like you might with a junior dev. Ask for a refactor to prepare, then ask for the actual change. Spend the time to ask for code quality/structure improvements.

Not sure if this was a factor in your attempts? I'd be happy to help you if you'd like to open an GitHub issue [1] our jump into our discord [2].

[0] https://github.com/paul-gauthier/aider#tips

[1] https://github.com/paul-gauthier/aider/issues/new/choose

[2] https://discord.gg/Tv2uQnR88V

How is "Walk GPT through changes like you might with a junior dev" not a horrific waste of time?

Usually you do this with a human as an investment in their future performance, with the understanding that this is the least efficient way to get the job done in the short term.

Having to take a product that is already supposed to "grok code" and make a similar investment doesn't make any sense to me.