[cortesoft]

> I find coding agents can produce very high quality tests if and only if you give them detailed guidance and good starting examples.

I find this to be true for all AI coding, period. When I have the problem fully solved in my head, and I write the instructions to explicitly and fully describe my solution, the code that is generated works remarkably well. If I am not sure how it should work and give more vague instructions, things don't work so well.

[stavros]

Yeah, same. Usually I'll ask the agent for a few alternatives, to make sure I'm not missing something, but the solution I wanted tends to be the best one. I also get into a lot of me saying "hm, why are you doing it that way?" "Oh yeah, that isn't actually going to work, sorry".

[teaearlgraycold]

Yes, but the act of writing code is an important part of figuring out what you need. So I’m left wondering how much of a prefect the AI can actually help with. To be clear I do use AI for some code gen. But I try to use it less than I see others use it.

[cortesoft]

Eh, I think my decades of experience writing my own code was necessary for me to develop the skills to be able to precisely tell the AI what to build, but I don't think I need to (always) write new code to know how to know what I need.

Now, if the thing I am building requires a technology I am not familiar with, I will spend some time reading and writing some simple test code to learn how it works, but once I understand it I can then let the AI build from scratch.

Of course, this does rely on the fact that I have years of coding experience that came prior to AI, and I do wonder how new coders can do it without putting in the work to learn how to build working software without AI before using AI.

[teaearlgraycold]

It’s not just about new tech. It’s about new businesses and projects.