4 ms·

I am so glad someone else has this same experience as me because everyone else seems all in and I feel like I’m staring at an emperor without clothes.

CharlesW 1y ago
What were you using? Did you use it for a real project? I ask because you're going to have a vastly different experience with Cursor than with Claude Code, for example.
- loloquwowndueo 1y ago
  Didn’t take long for the “you’re using the wrong tool / holding the tool wrong” replies to appear.
  - verdverm 1y ago
    Knowing how to search prompt Google became a skill among programmers, so has prompt/context engineering
    - jimbokun 1y ago
      Nah, Google made search unreasonably good at finding what users are looking for regardless of how poor the query was. Calling searching in Google a “skill” is similar to calling getting sucked into social media a skill.
      - verdverm 1y ago
        It's different for programming, and especially evident when you are looking to solve a problem with an error message
        jimbokun 1y ago
        You add “site: stack overflow.com”.
        verdverm 1y ago
        and then you don't also get GitHub, forums, reddit, etc.. I have very rarely needed the site: modifier, and even knowing this exists sets people apart, and reinforces there is skill to it
        steveklabnik 1y ago
        Recognition of that fact and then applying what you’ve learned about how to effectively wield the tool is a skill.
        AstralStorm 1y ago
        Unless the tool is trash and breaks, or otherwise unfit for the purpose. You can hammer in nails with your knuckles. Do you want to do that daily? There are people who can, they're still worse at it than a plain hammer or someone even using a right rock. Much less an assembly line.
        steveklabnik 1y ago
        Sure, we're talking about how there's no skill use with Google. But there is. That doesn't mean that every tool is good for every purpose. I agree that not every tool is good for every purpose. That also doesn't mean that every time a tool isn't useful, it's because it's not fit for purpose. Sometimes, it's because the wielder doesn't have the appropriate skills.
  - bubblyworld 1y ago
    It's really odd to me that pointing this out is used as some kind of counterargument. On its own that makes no sense. Consider that the frequency of replies along those lines might be evidence that there's something to it. It's not necessarily true, of course, but if it's false then you need to explain why so many people believe otherwise.
- TheCleric 1y ago
  My work has offered us various tools. Copilot, Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT. All of them had the same behavior for me. They would produce some code that looks like it would work but hallucinate a lot of things like what parameters a function takes or what libraries to import for functionality. In the end, every tool I tried felt like I was spending a significant amount of time saying “no that won’t work” just to get a piece of code that would build, let alone fit for the task. There was never an instance where it took less time or produced a better solution than just building it myself, with the added bonus that building it myself meant I understood it better. In addition to that I got into this line of work because I like solving problems. So even if it was as fast and as reliable as me I’ve changed my job from problem solver to manager, which is not a trade I would make.
verdverm 1y ago
The truth often lies somewhere in between My personal experience indicates this, AI enhances me but cannot replace me Been doing something closer to pair programming to see what "vibe" coding is all about (they are not up to being left unattended) See recent commits to this repo https://github.com/blebbit/at-mirror/commits/main/ https://github.com/blebbit/at-mirror/commits/main/
ath3nd 1y ago
You are not alone. There are plenty of us, see here: - Claude Code is a Slot Machine https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44702046 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44702046 - GPTs and Feeling Left Behind: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44851214 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44851214 - I also used the Emperor/clothes metaphor: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44854649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44854649 And just so we are clear, in the only current actual study measuring productivity of experienced developers so far, it actually led to 19% decline in productivity. https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-os-dev-study/ https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-o... So, if the study showed experienced developers had a decline in productivity, and some developers claim gains in theirs, there is high chance that the people reporting the gains are...less experienced developers. See, some claim that we are not using LLMs right (skills issue on our part) and that's why we are not getting the gains they do, but maybe it's the other way around: they are getting gains from LLMs because they are not experienced developers (skills issue on their part).
- verdverm 1y ago
  I'll wait for more studies about productivity, one data point is not solid foundation, there are a lot of people who want this to be true, and the models and agent systems are still getting better I'm an experience (20y) developer and these tools have saved me many hours on a regular basis, easily covering the monthly costs many times over
  - jimbokun 1y ago
    There’s not enough data…which somehow proves your pre-existing bias which goes against the only data we have.
    - verdverm 1y ago
      I'm offering my anecdotal evidence as contrary to the loss of productivity piece that has been making the rounds, not as justification that they are wrong, but that we don't have enough data It's also not the only data, here's one with results in the other direction https://medium.com/@sahin.samia/can-ai-really-boost-developer-productivity-new-study-reveals-a-26-increase-1f34e70b5341 https://medium.com/@sahin.samia/can-ai-really-boost-develope...

CharlesW 1y ago

What were you using? Did you use it for a real project? I ask because you're going to have a vastly different experience with Cursor than with Claude Code, for example.

loloquwowndueo 1y ago
Didn’t take long for the “you’re using the wrong tool / holding the tool wrong” replies to appear.
- verdverm 1y ago
  Knowing how to search prompt Google became a skill among programmers, so has prompt/context engineering
  - jimbokun 1y ago
    Nah, Google made search unreasonably good at finding what users are looking for regardless of how poor the query was. Calling searching in Google a “skill” is similar to calling getting sucked into social media a skill.
    - verdverm 1y ago
      It's different for programming, and especially evident when you are looking to solve a problem with an error message
      - jimbokun 1y ago
        You add “site: stack overflow.com”.
        verdverm 1y ago
        and then you don't also get GitHub, forums, reddit, etc.. I have very rarely needed the site: modifier, and even knowing this exists sets people apart, and reinforces there is skill to it
        steveklabnik 1y ago
        Recognition of that fact and then applying what you’ve learned about how to effectively wield the tool is a skill.
        AstralStorm 1y ago
        Unless the tool is trash and breaks, or otherwise unfit for the purpose. You can hammer in nails with your knuckles. Do you want to do that daily? There are people who can, they're still worse at it than a plain hammer or someone even using a right rock. Much less an assembly line.
        steveklabnik 1y ago
        Sure, we're talking about how there's no skill use with Google. But there is. That doesn't mean that every tool is good for every purpose. I agree that not every tool is good for every purpose. That also doesn't mean that every time a tool isn't useful, it's because it's not fit for purpose. Sometimes, it's because the wielder doesn't have the appropriate skills.
- bubblyworld 1y ago
  It's really odd to me that pointing this out is used as some kind of counterargument. On its own that makes no sense. Consider that the frequency of replies along those lines might be evidence that there's something to it. It's not necessarily true, of course, but if it's false then you need to explain why so many people believe otherwise.
TheCleric 1y ago
My work has offered us various tools. Copilot, Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT. All of them had the same behavior for me. They would produce some code that looks like it would work but hallucinate a lot of things like what parameters a function takes or what libraries to import for functionality. In the end, every tool I tried felt like I was spending a significant amount of time saying “no that won’t work” just to get a piece of code that would build, let alone fit for the task. There was never an instance where it took less time or produced a better solution than just building it myself, with the added bonus that building it myself meant I understood it better. In addition to that I got into this line of work because I like solving problems. So even if it was as fast and as reliable as me I’ve changed my job from problem solver to manager, which is not a trade I would make.

verdverm 1y ago

The truth often lies somewhere in between My personal experience indicates this, AI enhances me but cannot replace me Been doing something closer to pair programming to see what "vibe" coding is all about (they are not up to being left unattended) See recent commits to this repo https://github.com/blebbit/at-mirror/commits/main/ https://github.com/blebbit/at-mirror/commits/main/

ath3nd 1y ago

You are not alone. There are plenty of us, see here: - Claude Code is a Slot Machine https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44702046 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44702046 - GPTs and Feeling Left Behind: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44851214 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44851214 - I also used the Emperor/clothes metaphor: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44854649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44854649 And just so we are clear, in the only current actual study measuring productivity of experienced developers so far, it actually led to 19% decline in productivity. https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-os-dev-study/ https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-o... So, if the study showed experienced developers had a decline in productivity, and some developers claim gains in theirs, there is high chance that the people reporting the gains are...less experienced developers. See, some claim that we are not using LLMs right (skills issue on our part) and that's why we are not getting the gains they do, but maybe it's the other way around: they are getting gains from LLMs because they are not experienced developers (skills issue on their part).

verdverm 1y ago
I'll wait for more studies about productivity, one data point is not solid foundation, there are a lot of people who want this to be true, and the models and agent systems are still getting better I'm an experience (20y) developer and these tools have saved me many hours on a regular basis, easily covering the monthly costs many times over
- jimbokun 1y ago
  There’s not enough data…which somehow proves your pre-existing bias which goes against the only data we have.
  - verdverm 1y ago
    I'm offering my anecdotal evidence as contrary to the loss of productivity piece that has been making the rounds, not as justification that they are wrong, but that we don't have enough data It's also not the only data, here's one with results in the other direction https://medium.com/@sahin.samia/can-ai-really-boost-developer-productivity-new-study-reveals-a-26-increase-1f34e70b5341 https://medium.com/@sahin.samia/can-ai-really-boost-develope...