4 ms·
People talk about how AI is bad at generating non-trivial code, but why are people using it to generate non-trivial code? 25% of coding is just the most basic
by motoxpro 2y ago
People talk about how AI is bad at generating non-trivial code, but why are people using it to generate non-trivial code?
25% of coding is just the most basic boilerplate. I think of AI not as a thinking machine but as a 1000 WPM boilerplate typer.
If it is halucinating, you're trying to make it do stuff that is too complex.
- ghosty141 2y agoBut for this boiletplate creating a few snippets in your code generally works better. Especially if things change you dont have to retrain your model. Thats my main problem: for trivial things it works but isnt much better than conventional tools, for hard things it just produces incorrect code such that writing it from scratch barely makes a difference
- motoxpro 2y agoI think thats a great analogy. What would it look like if I could have 3-500 snippets instead of 30. Those 300 are things that I do all over my codebase e.g. same basic where query but in the context of whatever function I am in, a click handler with the correct types for that purpose, etc. There is no way I can have enough hotkeys or memorize that much, and I truly can't type faster than I can hit tab. I don't need it to think for me. Most coding (front-end/back-end web) involves typing super basic stuff, not writing complex algorithms. This is where the 10-20% speed-up comes in. On average I am just typing 20% faster by hitting tab.
- globular-toast 2y agoWere people seriously writing this boilerplate by hand up until this point? I started using snippets and stuff more than 15 years ago!