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Generative AI coding tools and agents do not work for me

(blog.miguelgrinberg.com)
399 points nomdep | 5 comments | 17 Jun 25 00:33 UTC | HN request time: 0.808s | source
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marssaxman ◴[17 Jun 25 03:44 UTC] No.44295573[source]▶
So far as I can tell, generative AI coding tools make the easy part of the job go faster, without helping with the hard part of the job - in fact, possibly making it harder. Coding just doesn't take that much time, and I don't need help doing it. You could make my coding output 100x faster without materially changing my overall productivity, so I simply don't bother to optimize there.
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1. Jonovono ◴[17 Jun 25 04:01 UTC] No.44295647[source]▶
Are you a plumber perhaps?
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2. worik ◴[17 Jun 25 04:16 UTC] No.44295714[source]▶
I am.

That is the mental model I have for the work (computer programing) i like to do and am good at.

Plumbing

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3. kevinventullo ◴[17 Jun 25 07:01 UTC] No.44296394[source]▶
I’m not sure I follow the question. I think of plumbing as being the exact kind of verbose boilerplate that LLM’s are quite good at automating.

In contrast, when I’m trying to do something truly novel, I might spend days with a pen and paper working out exactly what I want to do and maybe under an hour coding up the core logic.

On the latter type of work, I find LLM’s to be high variance with mostly negative ROI. I could probably improve the ROI by developing a better sense of what they are and aren’t good at, but of course that itself is rapidly changing!

4. marssaxman ◴[17 Jun 25 14:58 UTC] No.44300059[source]▶
Not if I can help it, no; I don't have the patience.
5. Jonovono ◴[17 Jun 25 15:04 UTC] No.44300121[source]▶
I like it!