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Copilot isn't particular useful. At best it comes up with small snippets that may or may not be correct, and rarely can I get larger chunks of code that would b
by brandall10 2y ago
Copilot isn't particular useful. At best it comes up with small snippets that may or may not be correct, and rarely can I get larger chunks of code that would be working out of the gate.
But Claude Sonnet 3.5 w/ Cursor or Continue.dev is a dramatic improvement. When you have discrete control over the context (ie. being able to select 6-7 files to inject), and with the superior ability of Claude, it is an absolute game changer.
Easy 2-5x speedup depending on what you're doing. In an hour you can craft a production ready 100 loc solution, with a full complement of tests, to something that might otherwise take a half day.
I say this as someone with 26 yoe, having worked in principal/staff/lead roles since 2012. I wouldn't expect nearly the same boost coming at less than senior exp. though, as you have to be quite detailed at what you actually want, and often take the initial solution - which is usually working code - and refine it a half dozen times into something that you feel is ideal and well factored.
- throwup238 2y ago> I wouldn't expect nearly the same boost coming at less than senior exp. though, as you have to be quite detailed at what you actually want, and often take the initial solution - which is usually working code - and refine it a half dozen times into something that you feel is ideal and well factored. Agreed. I feel like coding with AI is distilling the process back to the CS fundamentals of data structures and algorithms. Even though most of those DS&As are very simple it takes experience to know how to express the solution using the language of CS. I've been using Cursor Composer to implement code after writing some function signatures and types, which has been a dream. If you give it some guardrails in the context, it performs a lot better.
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- brandall10 2y agoThe one thing I'm a little concerned about is my ability as an engineer. I don't know if I'm losing or improving my skillset. This exercise of development has become almost entirely one of design and architecture, and reading more than writing code. Maybe this doesn't matter if this is the way software is developed moving forward, and I'm certainly not complaining in working on a 2 person startup
- snissn 2y agoHuman + ai writing tests >> human writing tests
- CMCDragonkai 2y agoWhich do you prefer Cursor or Continue.dev?
- brandall10 2y agoHonestly haven't tried out Cursor yet, it looks impressive but I've heard it has some teething issues to work out. For my use case I'd end up using it very similar to how I use Continue.dev and probably pay for Claude API usage separately, which has been working out to about $12-$15 a month.