6 ms·

Last summer I came back to software after about 12 years away and I pretty much had an identical experience to you with using AI as a helper to come back. I've

by dnh44 1y ago

Last summer I came back to software after about 12 years away and I pretty much had an identical experience to you with using AI as a helper to come back. I've now spent the last 6 months coding as much as I can in between consulting gigs. I'm not sure if I would have been able to get caught up so quickly without AI. I haven't had this much fun programming since I was at university hacking away on sun workstations, but admittedly I only write about 10% of the code myself these days. I'm currently getting Claude Code to pair program with GPT-5 and they delegate the file edits to Gemini Flash. It's pretty cool.

zhivota 1y ago
> I'm currently getting Claude Code to pair program with GPT-5 and they delegate the file edits to Gemini Flash. It's pretty cool. This sounds cool, any more details or any write up on how to do something like this?
- dnh44 1y ago
  I use a program called RepoPrompt to do it. The dev has a video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzVnXzmZweg&t https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzVnXzmZweg&t
socalgal2 1y ago
> I haven't had this much fun programming I'm glad you're having fun. I wish I was having fun. I've had mixed results but quite often, for me, the GPT goes off the rails and does something completely stupid. It then doubles down. It's like talking to complete idiot who happens to have moments of lucidiy. If I get lucky and get a lucid response it's great. But so often I get the nonsense response. I mean literally as bad as the "there 3 letter Bs in the word blueberry" answer eariler today (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44832908 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44832908) accept code instead of spelling. I wish I knew what I was doing wrong.
- dumpsterdiver 1y ago
  Just trying to help, but maybe the LLM is interpreting words like “accept” differently than you think they are.
- iamben 1y ago
  A couple of things that really helped me (Claude is my choice for coding): - add to your global settings a few lines that say something like "don't write any code until you fully understand my requirements, ask questions until you are completely clear", this mostly stops it just going ahead and writing best guess just the first time. And then, - when it looks it's going off the rails, cut your loses straight away and ask it to write a prompt for another chat. Tell it to cover everything it knows about what you're working on and what you want to do. Paste that into the new chat and get it to ask if it needs clarification (and then if needed, paste between the two chats). The new chat often solves the problem the other one was stuck on first time. Hope they help - coding with AI has made me enjoy the process once again. I'm actually completely silly projects I've always wanted to do because I can get past the blockers so much more easily.
  - gndk 1y ago
    I'm having good results with similar stuff, but not sure about the best approach. What exactly do you mean by "your global settings"? Do you have a global CLAUDE.md file? Or do you do this via the UserPromptSubmit hook and return an additionalContext? I use this hook to constantly reinforce some things, like "be concise. use context7." It even works to put "ultrathink" in there to always have it in thinking mode. But I wonder if these constant reminders are overdoing it.
    - iamben 1y ago
      Hey, fwiw I'm almost certainly not using Claude in the best possible way - I have a 'pro' (as in the ~$20 a month plan) and I just prompt. But in the 'Settings' section there's a bit that says: "What personal preferences should Claude consider in responses?" - I add stuff in there.

by dnh44 1y ago

zhivota 1y ago

> I'm currently getting Claude Code to pair program with GPT-5 and they delegate the file edits to Gemini Flash. It's pretty cool. This sounds cool, any more details or any write up on how to do something like this?

dnh44 1y ago
I use a program called RepoPrompt to do it. The dev has a video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzVnXzmZweg&t https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzVnXzmZweg&t

socalgal2 1y ago

> I haven't had this much fun programming I'm glad you're having fun. I wish I was having fun. I've had mixed results but quite often, for me, the GPT goes off the rails and does something completely stupid. It then doubles down. It's like talking to complete idiot who happens to have moments of lucidiy. If I get lucky and get a lucid response it's great. But so often I get the nonsense response. I mean literally as bad as the "there 3 letter Bs in the word blueberry" answer eariler today (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44832908 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44832908) accept code instead of spelling. I wish I knew what I was doing wrong.

dumpsterdiver 1y ago
Just trying to help, but maybe the LLM is interpreting words like “accept” differently than you think they are.
iamben 1y ago
A couple of things that really helped me (Claude is my choice for coding): - add to your global settings a few lines that say something like "don't write any code until you fully understand my requirements, ask questions until you are completely clear", this mostly stops it just going ahead and writing best guess just the first time. And then, - when it looks it's going off the rails, cut your loses straight away and ask it to write a prompt for another chat. Tell it to cover everything it knows about what you're working on and what you want to do. Paste that into the new chat and get it to ask if it needs clarification (and then if needed, paste between the two chats). The new chat often solves the problem the other one was stuck on first time. Hope they help - coding with AI has made me enjoy the process once again. I'm actually completely silly projects I've always wanted to do because I can get past the blockers so much more easily.
- gndk 1y ago
  I'm having good results with similar stuff, but not sure about the best approach. What exactly do you mean by "your global settings"? Do you have a global CLAUDE.md file? Or do you do this via the UserPromptSubmit hook and return an additionalContext? I use this hook to constantly reinforce some things, like "be concise. use context7." It even works to put "ultrathink" in there to always have it in thinking mode. But I wonder if these constant reminders are overdoing it.
  - iamben 1y ago
    Hey, fwiw I'm almost certainly not using Claude in the best possible way - I have a 'pro' (as in the ~$20 a month plan) and I just prompt. But in the 'Settings' section there's a bit that says: "What personal preferences should Claude consider in responses?" - I add stuff in there.