15 ms·

I don't get the whole "all-in" mentality around LLMs. I'm an iOS dev by trade, I continue to do that as I always have. The difference now is I'll use an LLM to

I don't get the whole "all-in" mentality around LLMs. I'm an iOS dev by trade, I continue to do that as I always have. The difference now is I'll use an LLM to quickly generate a one-off view based on a design. This isn't a core view of an app, the core functionality, or really anything of importance. It's a view that promotes a new feature, or how to install widgets, or random things. This would normally take me 30-60 min to implement depending on complexity, now it takes 5. I also use it for building things like app landing pages. I hate web development, and LLMs are pretty good at it because I'd guess that is 90% of their training data related to software development. For that I make larger changes, review them manually, and commit them to git, like any other project. It's crazy to me that people will just go completely off the rails for multiple hours and run into a major issue, then just start over when instead you can use a measured approach and always continue forward momentum.

spiderfarmer 1y ago
People just do stupid stuff like "going all in" for their blog posts and videos. Nuance, like rationalism, doesn't get engagement.
rco8786 1y ago
There's a whole section in the doc called "A happy medium"
a7fort 1y ago
I think you're doing it right, it's just hard to resist the temptation to use AI for everything, when you're getting decent results for small things.
maerch 1y ago
Exactly my thoughts. It seems there’s a lot of all-or-nothing thinking around this. What makes it valuable to me is its ability to simplify and automate mundane, repetitive tasks. Things like implementing small functions and interfaces I’ve designed, or even building something like a linting tool to keep docs and tests up to date. All of this has saved me countless hours and a good deal of sanity.
llm_nerd 1y ago
>I don't get the whole "all-in" mentality around LLMs To be uncharitable and cynical for a moment (and talking generally rather than about this specific post), it yields content. It gives people something to talk about. Defining their personality by their absolutes, when in reality the world is an infinite shades of gradients. Go "all in" on something and write about how amazing it is. In a month you can write your "why I'm giving up" the thing you went all in on and write about how relieved/better it is. It's such an incredibly tired gimmick. "Why I dumped SQL for NoSQL and am never looking back" "Why NoSQL failed me" "Why we at FlakeyCo are all in on this new JavaScript framework!" "Why we dumped that new JavaScript framework" This same incredibly boring cycle is seen on here over and over and over again, and somehow people fall for it. Like, it's a huge indicator that the writer more than likely has bad judgment and probably shouldn't be the person to listen to about much. Like most rational people that use decent judgement (rather than feeling I need to "all in" on something, as if the more I commit the more real the thing I'm committing to is), I leverage LLMs many, many times in my day to day. Yet somehow it has authored approximately zero percentage of my actual code, yet is still a spectacular resource.
mritchie712 1y ago
How useful the various tools will be depends on the person and the problem. Take two hypothetical people working on different problems and consider if, for example, Cursor would be useful. IF you're a: * 10 year python dev * work almost entirely on a very large, complex python code base * have a pycharm IDE fine tuned over many years to work perfectly on that code base * have very low tolerance for bugs (stable product, no room for move fast, break things) THEN: LLMs aren't going to 10x you. An IDE like Cursor will likely make you slower for a very long time until you've learned to use it. IF you're a: * 1 year JS (react, nextjs, etc.) dev * start mostly from scratch on new ideas * have little prior IDE preference * have high tolerance for bugs and just want to ship and try stuff THEN: LLMs will to 10x you. An IDE like Cursor will immediately make you way faster.
- emseetech 1y ago
  Agreed but the 1 year JS dev should know they're making a deal with the devil in terms of building their skillset long term.
  - StefanBatory 1y ago
    From workplace perspective, they don't have a reason to care. What they'll care about is that you're productive right now - if you won't become better dev in the future? Your issue.
  - whiplash451 1y ago
    The jury is still out on that one. Having a tool that’s embedded into your workflow and shows you how things can be done based on tons of example codebases could help a junior dev quite a lot to learn, not just to produce.
    - _heimdall 1y ago
      Like anything else with learning, that will be heavily dependent on the individual's level of motivation. Based on the classmates I had in college who were paying to get a CS degree, I'd be surprised if many junior devs already working a paid job put much effort into learning rather than producing.
sublinear 1y ago
> I also use it for building things like app landing pages. This is a reasonable usage of LLMs up to a certain point, and especially if you're in full control of all the requirements as the dev. If you don't mind missing details related to sales and marketing such as SEO and analytics, I think those are not really "landing pages", but rather just basic web pages. > I hate web development, and LLMs are pretty good at it because I'd guess that is 90% of their training data related to software development. Your previous sentence does not support this at all since web development is a much more broad topic than your perception of landing pages. Anything can be a web app, so most things are nowadays.
andy99 1y ago
Overshooting the capabilities of LLMs is pretty natural when you're exploring them. I've been using them to partially replace stack overflow or get short snippets of code for ~2 years. When Claude code came out, I gave it increased responsibility until I made a mess with it, and now I understand where it doesn't work and am back to using LLMs more for ideas and advice. I think this arc is pretty common.
stevepotter 1y ago
I do a variety of things, including iOS and web. Like you mentioned, LLM results between the two are very different. I can't trust LLM output to even compile, much less work. Just last night, it told me to use an API called `CMVideoFormatDescriptionGetCameraIntrinsicMatrix`. That API is very interesting because it doesn't exist. It also did a great job of digging some deep holes when dealing with some tricky Swift 6 concurrency stuff. Meanwhile it generated an entire nextjs app that worked great on the first shot. It's all about that training data baby
- kartoffelsaft 1y ago
  Honestly, with a lot of HN debating the merits of LLMs for generating code, I wish it were an unwritten rule that everyone states the stack they're using with it. It seems that the people who rave about it creating a whole product line in a weekend are asking it to write them a web iterface using [popular js framework] that connects to [ubiquitous database], and their app is a step or two away from being CRUD. Meanwhile, the people who say it's done nothing for them are writing against [proprietary in-house library from 2005]. The worst is the middleground of stacks that are popular enough to be known but not enough for an LLM to know them. I say worst because in these cases the facade that the LLM understands how to create your product will fall before you the software's lifecycle ends (at least, if you're vibe-coding). For what it's worth, I've mostly been a hobbyist but I'm getting close to graduating with a CS degree. I've avoided using LLMs for classwork because I don't want to rob myself of an education, but I've occasionally used them for personal, weird projects (or tried to at least). I always give up with it because I tend to like trying out niche languages that the LLM will just start to assume work like python (ex: most LLMs struggle with zig in my experience).
  - englishspot 1y ago
    > Meanwhile, the people who say it's done nothing for them are writing against [proprietary in-house library from 2005]. there's MCP servers now that should theoretically help with that, but that's its own can of worms.
- andrekandre 1y ago
jrvarela56 1y ago
You can use the LLm to decompose tasks. As you said, tasks that are simple and have solutions in the trainning data can save you time. Most code out there is glue. So there’s a lot of trainning data on integrating/composing stuff. If you take this as a whole, you could do that 30-60 min into 5 min for most dev work.
arctek 1y ago
Similar to my experience, it works well for small tasks, replacing search (most of the time) and doing alot of boilerplate work. I have one project that is very complex and for this I can't and don't use LLMs for. I've also found it's better if you can get it code generate everything in the one session, if you try other LLMs or sessions it will quickly degrade. That's when you will see duplicate functions and dead end code.
cosiiine 1y ago
The AI-Assist tools (Cursor, Windsurf, Claude Code, etc) want you to be "all-in" and that's why so many people end up fighting them. A delicate balance is hard to achieve when you're discarding 80% of the suggestions for 20% of the productivity boosts.
dfxm12 1y ago
I don't get the whole "all-in" mentality around LLMs. They are being marketed a virtual assistants that will literally do all the work for you. If they become marketed truthfully, however, people will probably realize that they aren't worth the cost and it's largely more beneficial to search the web and/or crowdsource answers.
dyauspitr 1y ago
As a previous iOS dev I was able to spin up a moderately complex app in a weekend, something that would have taken me probably at least a couple of weeks in the past. I have no idea what you’re on about. I don’t even use cursor and windsurf etc, I’m having chatGPT and Gemini just dump all their outputs into single files and manually breaking them up.
spacemadness 1y ago
I've found LLMs are extremely hit or miss with iOS development. I think part of that might be how quickly Swift and SwiftUI is changing coupled with how bad Apple documentation is. I have loved using them to generate quick views and such for scaffolding purposes and quick iterations, but they tend to break down quickly around asynchronous coding and non-trivial business logic. I will say they're still incredibly useful to point you in a direction, but can be very misleading and send you down a hallucination rabbit hole easily.

spiderfarmer 1y ago

People just do stupid stuff like "going all in" for their blog posts and videos. Nuance, like rationalism, doesn't get engagement.

rco8786 1y ago

There's a whole section in the doc called "A happy medium"

a7fort 1y ago

I think you're doing it right, it's just hard to resist the temptation to use AI for everything, when you're getting decent results for small things.

maerch 1y ago

Exactly my thoughts. It seems there’s a lot of all-or-nothing thinking around this. What makes it valuable to me is its ability to simplify and automate mundane, repetitive tasks. Things like implementing small functions and interfaces I’ve designed, or even building something like a linting tool to keep docs and tests up to date. All of this has saved me countless hours and a good deal of sanity.

llm_nerd 1y ago

>I don't get the whole "all-in" mentality around LLMs To be uncharitable and cynical for a moment (and talking generally rather than about this specific post), it yields content. It gives people something to talk about. Defining their personality by their absolutes, when in reality the world is an infinite shades of gradients. Go "all in" on something and write about how amazing it is. In a month you can write your "why I'm giving up" the thing you went all in on and write about how relieved/better it is. It's such an incredibly tired gimmick. "Why I dumped SQL for NoSQL and am never looking back" "Why NoSQL failed me" "Why we at FlakeyCo are all in on this new JavaScript framework!" "Why we dumped that new JavaScript framework" This same incredibly boring cycle is seen on here over and over and over again, and somehow people fall for it. Like, it's a huge indicator that the writer more than likely has bad judgment and probably shouldn't be the person to listen to about much. Like most rational people that use decent judgement (rather than feeling I need to "all in" on something, as if the more I commit the more real the thing I'm committing to is), I leverage LLMs many, many times in my day to day. Yet somehow it has authored approximately zero percentage of my actual code, yet is still a spectacular resource.

mritchie712 1y ago

How useful the various tools will be depends on the person and the problem. Take two hypothetical people working on different problems and consider if, for example, Cursor would be useful. IF you're a: * 10 year python dev * work almost entirely on a very large, complex python code base * have a pycharm IDE fine tuned over many years to work perfectly on that code base * have very low tolerance for bugs (stable product, no room for move fast, break things) THEN: LLMs aren't going to 10x you. An IDE like Cursor will likely make you slower for a very long time until you've learned to use it. IF you're a: * 1 year JS (react, nextjs, etc.) dev * start mostly from scratch on new ideas * have little prior IDE preference * have high tolerance for bugs and just want to ship and try stuff THEN: LLMs will to 10x you. An IDE like Cursor will immediately make you way faster.

emseetech 1y ago
Agreed but the 1 year JS dev should know they're making a deal with the devil in terms of building their skillset long term.
- StefanBatory 1y ago
  From workplace perspective, they don't have a reason to care. What they'll care about is that you're productive right now - if you won't become better dev in the future? Your issue.
- whiplash451 1y ago
  The jury is still out on that one. Having a tool that’s embedded into your workflow and shows you how things can be done based on tons of example codebases could help a junior dev quite a lot to learn, not just to produce.
  - _heimdall 1y ago
    Like anything else with learning, that will be heavily dependent on the individual's level of motivation. Based on the classmates I had in college who were paying to get a CS degree, I'd be surprised if many junior devs already working a paid job put much effort into learning rather than producing.

sublinear 1y ago

> I also use it for building things like app landing pages. This is a reasonable usage of LLMs up to a certain point, and especially if you're in full control of all the requirements as the dev. If you don't mind missing details related to sales and marketing such as SEO and analytics, I think those are not really "landing pages", but rather just basic web pages. > I hate web development, and LLMs are pretty good at it because I'd guess that is 90% of their training data related to software development. Your previous sentence does not support this at all since web development is a much more broad topic than your perception of landing pages. Anything can be a web app, so most things are nowadays.

andy99 1y ago

Overshooting the capabilities of LLMs is pretty natural when you're exploring them. I've been using them to partially replace stack overflow or get short snippets of code for ~2 years. When Claude code came out, I gave it increased responsibility until I made a mess with it, and now I understand where it doesn't work and am back to using LLMs more for ideas and advice. I think this arc is pretty common.

stevepotter 1y ago

I do a variety of things, including iOS and web. Like you mentioned, LLM results between the two are very different. I can't trust LLM output to even compile, much less work. Just last night, it told me to use an API called `CMVideoFormatDescriptionGetCameraIntrinsicMatrix`. That API is very interesting because it doesn't exist. It also did a great job of digging some deep holes when dealing with some tricky Swift 6 concurrency stuff. Meanwhile it generated an entire nextjs app that worked great on the first shot. It's all about that training data baby

kartoffelsaft 1y ago
Honestly, with a lot of HN debating the merits of LLMs for generating code, I wish it were an unwritten rule that everyone states the stack they're using with it. It seems that the people who rave about it creating a whole product line in a weekend are asking it to write them a web iterface using [popular js framework] that connects to [ubiquitous database], and their app is a step or two away from being CRUD. Meanwhile, the people who say it's done nothing for them are writing against [proprietary in-house library from 2005]. The worst is the middleground of stacks that are popular enough to be known but not enough for an LLM to know them. I say worst because in these cases the facade that the LLM understands how to create your product will fall before you the software's lifecycle ends (at least, if you're vibe-coding). For what it's worth, I've mostly been a hobbyist but I'm getting close to graduating with a CS degree. I've avoided using LLMs for classwork because I don't want to rob myself of an education, but I've occasionally used them for personal, weird projects (or tried to at least). I always give up with it because I tend to like trying out niche languages that the LLM will just start to assume work like python (ex: most LLMs struggle with zig in my experience).
- englishspot 1y ago
  > Meanwhile, the people who say it's done nothing for them are writing against [proprietary in-house library from 2005]. there's MCP servers now that should theoretically help with that, but that's its own can of worms.
andrekandre 1y ago

jrvarela56 1y ago

You can use the LLm to decompose tasks. As you said, tasks that are simple and have solutions in the trainning data can save you time. Most code out there is glue. So there’s a lot of trainning data on integrating/composing stuff. If you take this as a whole, you could do that 30-60 min into 5 min for most dev work.

arctek 1y ago

Similar to my experience, it works well for small tasks, replacing search (most of the time) and doing alot of boilerplate work. I have one project that is very complex and for this I can't and don't use LLMs for. I've also found it's better if you can get it code generate everything in the one session, if you try other LLMs or sessions it will quickly degrade. That's when you will see duplicate functions and dead end code.

cosiiine 1y ago

The AI-Assist tools (Cursor, Windsurf, Claude Code, etc) want you to be "all-in" and that's why so many people end up fighting them. A delicate balance is hard to achieve when you're discarding 80% of the suggestions for 20% of the productivity boosts.

dfxm12 1y ago

I don't get the whole "all-in" mentality around LLMs. They are being marketed a virtual assistants that will literally do all the work for you. If they become marketed truthfully, however, people will probably realize that they aren't worth the cost and it's largely more beneficial to search the web and/or crowdsource answers.

dyauspitr 1y ago

As a previous iOS dev I was able to spin up a moderately complex app in a weekend, something that would have taken me probably at least a couple of weeks in the past. I have no idea what you’re on about. I don’t even use cursor and windsurf etc, I’m having chatGPT and Gemini just dump all their outputs into single files and manually breaking them up.

spacemadness 1y ago

I've found LLMs are extremely hit or miss with iOS development. I think part of that might be how quickly Swift and SwiftUI is changing coupled with how bad Apple documentation is. I have loved using them to generate quick views and such for scaffolding purposes and quick iterations, but they tend to break down quickly around asynchronous coding and non-trivial business logic. I will say they're still incredibly useful to point you in a direction, but can be very misleading and send you down a hallucination rabbit hole easily.