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Ask HN: Best practices using AI as an experienced web dev

9 points thebordella | 1 comments | 17 Nov 24 23:26 UTC | HN request time: 0.21s | source

As an Old, I came up learning the OG web dev languages - HTML, CSS, JS, PHP, etc. As a solo dev, I still largely work with these as natively as possible. But I am not a total dinosaur. I embraced jQuery in the early 2000's, Bootstrap scaffolding, and now often build reactive UI's using Vue 3.

Still, I continue to be picky about the many abstractions-of-abstractions that litter the dev landscape, mostly devised to drive their founders' business models.

AI-driven co-pilots are red hot now, and I want to evaluate their usefulness to my style of dev work. I've begun dabbling with services like Codeium and Claude, particularly within VSCode.

At first these AI tools seem exciting. A whole function conjured out of thin air from a short prompt! But the more I test drive, the more I find that I'm spending my time trying to craft prompts that are accurate enough to generate the code I want. Whereas I could be using that time to just conceive and write the code myself.

If you are not already well-versed in your coding languages, these AI tools must save a ton of time and effort. My question is - what about you devs who are already proficient in your languages of choice? How do you leverage AI co-pilots to maximize their usefulness without just falling into the "distracted by another abstraction" hole?

1. syndicatedjelly ◴[17 Nov 24 23:39 UTC] No.42168346[source]▶
I don't use AI to generate code that I already know how to write, or code that I don't know how to write. I use it for that weird gray area of things I SHOULD know, but can't immediately conjure off the top of my head nor find good documentation on. Generally, my process is:

0 - Try to write the code myself, using LSP hints as needed

1 - Read the primary source (man page, documentation, textbook) to find an answer. Upside is that I learn something about related topics along the way by skimming the table of contents

2 - Consult stack overflow/google. This has become less and less useful, as both of those resources have become flooded with garbage info and misleading blog posts in the last several years.

3 - Pull out the AI copilot and ask it for help, while sharing what I already know and what I think the shape of the solution will be.

4 - Actively seek help - talk to colleagues, post a question on a relevant forum, etc...

Is this perfect? No, I've wasted hours in the worst case with an answer that the copilot thought was correct, but was not. But on balance, I'd say that it has saved me many days worth of time in the last year, usually in the form of research and knowledge discovery. It's much faster to test out a bunch of potential solutions when the copilot is writing most of the code and I just tweak a few relevant parameters.

I've been using all the time I've saved on mundane programming by studying computer science from first principles. As someone without a CS degree, I am acutely aware of my gaps in knowledge about theoretical computer science. I consider myself a halfway-decent programmer at this point, so I don't find that filling my head with more and more syntax and esoteric rules about frameworks to be helpful. I'd rather learn what the basis is for all those rules, and reconstruct them myself as needed.

I also have a lot more confidence to branch out from my moneytree (web dev) and try my hand at other areas of programming, like embedded development, messaging, and language theory. This field is endlessly fascinating, and I selfishly want to learn and try it all. So far in my career, I've spent most of it in web dev, but have also been able to test the waters of embedded development for a year, and interesting "back-end" services for another year or so. I even had the confidence to start my own company with a friend, realizing that I could actually shoulder most of the development burden early on if I strategically rely on AI to prompt me through implementation details which I'm not quite an expert in.

This is my strategy for ensuring longevity in this career. I'll admit I'm only on year 8 of programming professionally, but I hope this is the correct attitude to have.