Timely article. I really, really want AI to be better at writing code, and hundreds of reports suggest it works great if you're a web dev or a python dev. Great! But I'm a C/C++ systems guy(working at a company making money off AI!) and the times I've tried to get AI to write the simplest of test applications against a popular API it mostly failed. The code was incorrect, both using the API incorrectly and writing invalid C++. Attempts to reason with the LLMs(grokv3, deepseek-r1) led further and further away from valid code. Eventually both systems stopped responding.
I've also tried Cursor with similar mixed results.
But I'll say that we are getting tremendous pressure at work to use AI to write code. I've discussed it with fellow engineers and we're of the opinion that the managerial desire is so great that we are better off keeping our heads down and reporting success vs saying the emperor wears no clothes.
It really feels like the billionaire class has fully drunk the kool-aid and needs AI to live up to the hype.
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