[dpcan]

This article is just simply not true for most people who have figured out how to use AI properly when coding. Since switching to Cursor, my coding speed and efficiency has probably increased 10x conservatively. When I'm using it to code in languages I've used for 25+ years, it's a breeze to look over the function it just saved me time by pre-thinking and typing it out for me. Could I have done it myself, yeah, but it would have taken longer if I even had to go lookup one tiny thing in the documentation, like order of parameters for a function, or that little syntax thing I never use...

Also, the auto-complete with tools like Cursor are mind blowing. When I can press tab to have it finish the next 4 lines of a prepared statement, or it just knows the next 5 variables I need to define because I just set up a function that will use them.... that's a huge time saver when you add it all up.

My policy is simple, don't put anything AI creates into production if you don't understand what it's doing. Essentially, I use it for speed and efficiency, not to fill in where I don't know at all what I'm doing.

[amlib]

What do you even mean with a 10x increase in efficiency? Does that means you commit 10x more code every day? Or that "you" essentially "type" code 10x faster? In the later case all the other tasks surrounding code would still take around the same netting you much less than 10x increase in overall productivity, probably less than 2x?

[dpcan]

My favorite example, and the ones I show my team and my employer, is that I can have AI look at a string of fields for my database table and generate all the views for the display, add, and edit forms for those fields in exactly the way I instruct, and that saves me as much as 30 minutes every time I do it. If I do this 8 times in a day, that would save me about 4 hours. Especially when those forms require things like lookups and extra JavaScript functionality.

Another great example, is the power of tabbing with Cursor. If I want to change the parameters of a function in my React app, I can be at one of the functions anywhere in my screen, add a variable that relates to what is being rendered, and I can now quickly tab through to find all the spots that also are affected in that screen, and then it usually helps apply the changes to the function. It's like smart search and replace where I can see every change that needs made but it knows how to make it more intelligently than just replacing a line of code - and I didn't have to write the regex to find it, AND it usually helps get the work done in the function as well to reflect the change. That could save me 3-5 minutes, and I could do that 5 times a day maybe, and another almost half-hour is saved.

The point is, these small things add up SO fast. Now I'm incredibly efficient because the tedious part of programming has been sped up so much.

[asciimov]

Out of curiosity how much are you spending on AI?

How much do you believe a programmer needs to layout to “get good”?

[dpcan]

I have a $20/month GPT subscription, and the $20/month cursor plan. I've yet to come close to going over my limits with either service. I use the unlimited Tab completions in cursor which are what end up saving me an enormous amount of time. I probably use 5 to maybe 10 chats a day in cursor, but I jump over to GPT if I think I'm going to require a few extra chats to get to the bottom of something.

I think that getting "good" at using AI means that you figure out exactly how to formulate your prompts so that the results are what you are looking for given your code base. It also means knowing when to start new chats, and when to have it focus on very specific pieces of code, and finally, knowing what it's really bad at doing.

For example, if I need to have it take a list of 20 fields and create the HTML view for the form, it can do it in a few seconds, and I know to tell it, for example, to use Bootstrap, Bootstrap icons, Bootstrap modals, responsive rows and columns, and I may want certain fields aligned certain ways, buttons in certain places for later, etc, and then I have a form - and just saved myself probably 30 minutes of typing it out and testing the alignment etc. If I do things like this 8 times a day, that's 4 hours of saved time, which is game changing for me.

[epiccoleman]

I am currently subscribed to Claude Pro, which is $20/mo and gives you plenty to experiment with by giving you access to Projects and MCP in Claude Desktop and also Claude Code for a flat monthly fee. (I think there are usage limits but I haven't hit them).

I've probably fed $100 in API tokens into the OpenAI and Anthropic consoles over the last two years or so.

I was subscribed to Cursor for a while too, though I'm kinda souring on it and looking at other options.

At one point I had a ChatGPT pro sub, I have found Claude more valuable lately. Same goes for Gemini, I think it's pretty good but I haven't felt compelled to pay for it.

I guess my overall point is you don't have to break the bank to try this stuff out. Shell out the $20 for a month, cancel immediately, and if you miss it when it expires, resub. $20 is frankly a very low bar to clear - if it's making me even 1% more productive, $20 is an easy win.