11 ms·

> I do wonder if productivity with AI coding has really gone up, or if it just gives the illusion of that, and we take on more projects and burn ourselves out?

> I do wonder if productivity with AI coding has really gone up, or if it just gives the illusion of that, and we take on more projects and burn ourselves out? It definitely hasn't for me. I spent about an hour today trying to use AI to write something fairly simple and I'm still no further forward. I don't understand what problem AI is supposed to solve in software development.

ghurtado 8mo ago
> I don't understand what problem AI is supposed to solve in software development. When Russians invaded Germany during WWII, some of them (who had never seen a toilet) thought that toilets were advanced potato washing machines, and were rightfully pissed when their potatoes were flushed away and didn't come back. Sounds like you're feeling a similar frustration with your problem.
- lawn 8mo ago
  Russians invading Ukraine had some, let's say interesting, reactions to modernities like toilets and washing machines
  - ghurtado 8mo ago
    Which begs the question: how many of those Russians stealing the appliances also took a potato washer or two?
- ErroneousBosh 8mo ago
  I don't really see where that comparison is relevant. Why is AI supposed to be good?
- heavyset_go 8mo ago
  At some point hearing "you're holding it wrong" and "here's a metaphor for why you're dumb" in response to real shortcomings with AI, and the manic hype behind it, becomes repetitive and feels like there really aren't good arguments or evidence against those shortcomings and hype.
Philpax 8mo ago
Apologies for the obligatory question, but what did you try to do, and with which AI did you try to do it with?
- ErroneousBosh 8mo ago
  Well following advice from folk on here earlier, I thought I'd start small and try to get it to write some code in Go that would listen on a network socket, wait for a packet with a bunch of messages (in a known format) come in, and split those messages out from the packet. I ended up having to type hundreds of lines of description to get thousands of lines of code that doesn't actually work, when the one I wrote myself is about two dozen lines of code and works perfectly. It just seems such a slow and inefficient way to work.
  - timacles 8mo ago
    Hate to pull the skill issue card here, but that is a trivial problem that can be one shotted with almost any model with
    - smj-edison 8mo ago
      tbh that's not a helpful thing to say. I think a more productive thing would be to ask "What model are you using?" "Are you using it in chat mode or as a dedicated agent?" "Do you have an AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md?" I've also been underwhelmed with its ability to iterate, as it tends to pile on hacks. So another useful question is "did you try having it write again with what you/it learned?"
      - ErroneousBosh 8mo ago
        > I think a more productive thing would be to ask "What model are you using?" "Are you using it in chat mode or as a dedicated agent?" "Do you have an AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md?" In my case I'd have to say "Don't know, whatever VS Code's bot uses", and "no idea what those are or why I have to care".

ghurtado 8mo ago

> I don't understand what problem AI is supposed to solve in software development. When Russians invaded Germany during WWII, some of them (who had never seen a toilet) thought that toilets were advanced potato washing machines, and were rightfully pissed when their potatoes were flushed away and didn't come back. Sounds like you're feeling a similar frustration with your problem.

lawn 8mo ago
Russians invading Ukraine had some, let's say interesting, reactions to modernities like toilets and washing machines
- ghurtado 8mo ago
  Which begs the question: how many of those Russians stealing the appliances also took a potato washer or two?
ErroneousBosh 8mo ago
I don't really see where that comparison is relevant. Why is AI supposed to be good?
heavyset_go 8mo ago
At some point hearing "you're holding it wrong" and "here's a metaphor for why you're dumb" in response to real shortcomings with AI, and the manic hype behind it, becomes repetitive and feels like there really aren't good arguments or evidence against those shortcomings and hype.

Philpax 8mo ago

Apologies for the obligatory question, but what did you try to do, and with which AI did you try to do it with?

ErroneousBosh 8mo ago
Well following advice from folk on here earlier, I thought I'd start small and try to get it to write some code in Go that would listen on a network socket, wait for a packet with a bunch of messages (in a known format) come in, and split those messages out from the packet. I ended up having to type hundreds of lines of description to get thousands of lines of code that doesn't actually work, when the one I wrote myself is about two dozen lines of code and works perfectly. It just seems such a slow and inefficient way to work.
- timacles 8mo ago
  Hate to pull the skill issue card here, but that is a trivial problem that can be one shotted with almost any model with
  - smj-edison 8mo ago
    tbh that's not a helpful thing to say. I think a more productive thing would be to ask "What model are you using?" "Are you using it in chat mode or as a dedicated agent?" "Do you have an AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md?" I've also been underwhelmed with its ability to iterate, as it tends to pile on hacks. So another useful question is "did you try having it write again with what you/it learned?"
    - ErroneousBosh 8mo ago
      > I think a more productive thing would be to ask "What model are you using?" "Are you using it in chat mode or as a dedicated agent?" "Do you have an AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md?" In my case I'd have to say "Don't know, whatever VS Code's bot uses", and "no idea what those are or why I have to care".