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I suspect you do not know how to use AI for writing code. No offence intended - it is a journey for everyone. You have to be setup with the right agentic codin
by smcleod 10mo ago
I suspect you do not know how to use AI for writing code. No offence intended - it is a journey for everyone.
You have to be setup with the right agentic coding tool, agent rules, agent tools (MCP servers), dynamic context acquisition and workflow (working with the agent operate from a plan rather than simple prompting and hoping for the best).
But if you're lazy, don't put the effort in to understand what you're working with and how to approach it with an engineering mindset - you'll be be left on the outside complaining and telling people how it's all hype.
- brobdingnagians 10mo agoDo you know of any YouTube videos where you would say they do a very good job of showing off this style of coding?
- simonw 10mo agoI made this one recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy4ci7AoF9Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy4ci7AoF9Y - notes here: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Nov/6/upgrading-datasette-plugins/ https://simonwillison.net/2025/Nov/6/upgrading-datasette-plu... My best writing on this topic is still this though (which doesn't include a video): https://simonwillison.net/2025/Mar/11/using-llms-for-code/ https://simonwillison.net/2025/Mar/11/using-llms-for-code/
- smj-edison 10mo agoThanks for this! I've been looking for a good guide to an LLM based workflow, but the modern style of YouTube coding videos really grates on me. I think I might even like this :D
- smcleod 10mo agoAlways enjoy reading your blog Simon!
- brobdingnagians 10mo agoThank you
- smcleod 10mo agoThis one is a bit old now so a number of things have changed (I mostly use Claude Code now, Dynamic context (Skills) etc...) but here's a brief TLDR I did early this year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDSLw-6vR4o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDSLw-6vR4o
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- the_overseer 10mo agoAlways the same answer. It's the user not the AI being blown out of proportion. Tell me, where are all those great amazin applications that were coded 95-100% by AI? Where is the great progress the great new algorithms the great new innovations hiding?
- DaiPlusPlus 10mo agoWell, there was this: https://martin.janiczek.cz/2025/11/21/fawk-llms-can-write-a-language-interpreter.html https://martin.janiczek.cz/2025/11/21/fawk-llms-can-write-a-...
- the_overseer 10mo agoFrom the link: "For now, I’ll go dogfood my shiny new vibe-coded black box of a programming language on the Advent of Code problem (and as many of the 2025 puzzles as I can), and see what rough edges I can find. I expect them to be equal parts “not implemented yet” and “unexpected interactions of new PL features with the old ones”. If you’re willing to jump through some Python project dependency hoops, you can try to use FAWK too at your own risk, at Janiczek/fawk on GitHub." That doesn't sound like some great success. It mostly compiles and doesn't explode. Also I wouldn't call a toy "innovation" or "revolution".
- DaiPlusPlus 10mo agoI did take a look at the generated sources when I first saw the article and it seemed coherent and organised, though.
- johnfn 10mo agoMy stack is React/Express/Drizzle/Postgres/Node/Tailwind. It's built on Hetzner/AWS, which I terraformed with AI. Probably 90-95% of it is AI driven. It's a private repo, and I won't make it open source just to prove it was written with AI, but I'd be happy to share the prompts. You can also visit the site, if you'd like: https://chipscompo.com/ https://chipscompo.com/
- samdoesnothing 10mo agoPost a repo
- smcleod 10mo agohttps://github.com/sammcj/mcp-devtools https://github.com/sammcj/mcp-devtools
- bopbopbop7 10mo agoYour best example of something you made with AI is another AI code generator… definitely not beating the AI bubble allegations anytime soon.
- smcleod 10mo ago1. I didn't say it was a best example, I replied to a comment asking me to "Post a repo" - I posted a repo. 2. Straw man argument. I was asked for a repo, I posted a repo and clearly you didn't look at the code as it's not an "AI code generator".
- bopbopbop7 10mo ago1. I didn’t ask for a repo. 2. Still wasn’t me. Maybe an AI agent can help you check usernames? 3. Sorry, a plugin for an AI code generator, which is even worse of an example.
- samdoesnothing 10mo agoHow much time do you think you saved versus writing it yourself if you factored in the time you spent setting up your AI tooling, writing prompts, contexts etc?
- Aeolun 10mo agohttps://github.com/Aeolun/cool-rust-terminal https://github.com/Aeolun/cool-rust-terminal I was honestly baffled how fast Claude knocked this out.
- bopbopbop7 10mo agoHow many agents, tools, MCP & ACP servers, claude hooks, and workflows do I need to set up before English becomes a good programming language?
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- smcleod 10mo agoOne agent, a few sub-agents, 1 MCP server, no "ACP" (never seen that used), no hooks, one workflow that I usually follow.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]