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These days, AI can do much more than "Cranking out boilerplate and scaffolding, Automating repetitive routines". That was last year. With the right instructions
by tjansen 1y ago
These days, AI can do much more than "Cranking out boilerplate and scaffolding, Automating repetitive routines". That was last year. With the right instructions, Claude Sonnet 4 can easily write over 99% of most business applications. You need to be specific in your instructions, though. Like "implement this table, add these fields, look at this and this implementation for reference, don't forget to do this and consider that." Mention examples or name algorithms and design patterns it should use. And it still doesn't always do what you want on the first attempt, and you need to correct it (which is why I prefer Claude Code over Copilot, makes it easier). But AI can write pretty much all code for a developer who knows what the code should look like. And that's the point: junior developers typically don't know this, so they won't be able to get good results.
Most of the time, the only reason for typing code manually these days is that typing instructions for the LLM is sometimes more work than doing the change yourself.
- throw265262 1y ago> But AI can write pretty much all code for a developer who knows what the code should look like. > the only reason for typing code manually these days is that typing instructions for the LLM is sometimes more work than doing the change yourself. So the AI is merely an input device like a keyboard and a slow one at that?
- tjansen 1y agoSometimes that happens:) The key is to recognize these situations and not go down that rabbit hole. But sometimes it allows me to do something in 20 minutes that used to take a whole day.
- aquariusDue 1y agoDepends, do you touch-type or hunt and peck? /s
- codr7 1y agoRight, and where, if I may ask, are all those business applications that write themselves? Because all I see is a clown party, massive wasted resources and disruption to society because of your lies.
- tjansen 1y agoI guess it turned out that coding is not the only limiting factor. Internal processes, QA, product management, coordination between teams become significant bottlenecks . Also, they don’t help much with debugging. It’s worth a try, and I have been surprised a couple of times, but it’s mostly still manual.
- tjansen 1y agoBTW I never said they write themselves. My point was rather that you need a lot of knowledge, and know exactly what you want out of them, supervise them and provide detailed instruction. But then they can help you create a lot more working code in a shorter time.
- codr7 1y agoAt that point it seems to me that they become a distraction, a filter between you and the software you're building. Surely it must be easier to tell the computer directly what to do then to route the entire design through that mess?
- tjansen 1y agoI wouldn't call it a filter, unless you use it for trivial tasks ("check that the input argument is not null, throw an exception otherwise"). Sometimes it is useful for trivial tasks though, because it may do things a human dev would be to lazy to do. It also tends to be faster at finding things (as in "change the color of the submit button on the address form to #f00"). But the real value is implementing known patterns that are customized for your application. Adding a field or a new type to a CRUD application, implementing an algorithm, rendering some type of object in a UI...
- codr7 1y agoYeah, I get it. It's not a free lunch though, remove all friction and no learning takes place, which means finding better ways isn't happening much.
- vivzkestrel 1y agomy dear guy, where is the shovelware https://mikelovesrobots.substack.com/p/wheres-the-shovelware-why-ai-coding https://mikelovesrobots.substack.com/p/wheres-the-shovelware... Where's the Shovelware? Why AI Coding Claims Don't Add Up
- esafak 1y agoLook at any vibe-code repo.
- kayge 1y agoA couple of recent front page articles with an alternate perspective: "The Mac app flea market": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45246971 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45246971 "I launched a Mac utility; now there are 5 clones on the App Store using my story": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45269827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45269827
- mbesto 1y ago> With the right instructions, Claude Sonnet 4 can easily write over 99% of most business applications. You need to be specific in your instructions, though. By your own statement then this is not an "easy" task. Software development has never been "hard" when you're given specific instructions.