[smj-edison]

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]

> 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".

[smj-edison]

> Don't know, whatever VS Code's bot uses

The reason I ask about what model is I initially dismissed AI generated code because I was not impressed with the models I was trying. I decided if I was going to evaluate it fairly though, I would need to try a paid product. I ended up using Claude Sonnet 4.5, which is much better than the quick-n-cheap models. I still don't use Claude for large stuff, but it's pretty good at one-off scripts and providing advice. Chances are VS Code is using a crappy model by default.

> no idea what those are or why I have to care

For the difference between chat mode and agent mode, chat mode is the online interface where you can ask it questions, but you have to copy the code back and forth. Agent mode is where it's running an interface layer on your computer, so the LLM can view files, run commands, save files, etc. I use Claude in agent mode via Claude Code, though I still check and approve every command it runs. It also won't change any files without your permission by default.

AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md are pretty much a file that the LLM agent reads every time it starts up. It's where you put your style guide in, and also where you have suggestions to correct things it consistently messes up on. It's not as important at the beginning, but it's helpful for me to have it be consistent about its style (well, as consistent as I can get it). Here's an example from a project I'm currently working on: https://github.com/smj-edison/zicl/blob/main/CLAUDE.md

I know there's lots of other things you can do, like create custom tools, things to run every time, subagents, plan mode, etc. I haven't ever really tried using them, because chances are a lot of them will be obsolete/not useful, and I'd rather get stuff done.

I'm still not convinced they speed up most tasks, but it's been really useful to have it track down memory leaks and silly bugs.

[johnnyanmac]

>I decided if I was going to evaluate it fairly though, I would need to try a paid product.

Okay. Get me a job and I'll pay for any model of your choosing. Until then, finances are very slim.

[smj-edison]

> Get me a job

Heh, I'm a college student, so I can't help with that...

You could also try Gemini 3 pro with Gemini's CLI which is free, though it's not as good at using tools. But, it sounds like you're not interested, which is fine!

Just please don't continue to argue with finer points if you're not interested. I've done my best to engage with your points, but I get the sense that it doesn't matter what I say.

I am curious though, why do you feel so strongly about LLM products?

[johnnyanmac]

I should note that I'm not the same person that you were talking to you the chain. So I hope we're not mixing conversations and people. I don't think I've said that much in this chain, so I can't answer much.

But sure:

>why do you feel so strongly about LLM products?

Personally, I work in games. So pretty much everything in the discourse of LLMs and Gen AI has been amplified 5x for me. The layoffs, the gamers' reaction to stuff utilizing AI, the impact on hardware prices, the politics, etc.

Theres a war of consumers and executives, and I'm trapped in the middle taking heat from both. It's tiring and it's clear who to blame for all of this. I want all of this to pop so the true innovation can rise out, instead of all the gold rush going on right now.

Also,game code is very performance sensitive. It's not like a website or app where I can just "add 5 seconds to a load time" unless I'm working on a simple 2D game, nor throw more hardware to improve performance. Even if LLMs could code up the game, I'd spend more time optimizing what it makes than it saved. It simply doesn't help for the kind of software I work with.

[Philpax]

I have worked in games in the past, and currently work in games-adjacent. I'm sympathetic to the concerns you've mentioned, especially given how controversial it is (the recent reveal of DLSS5, which I find directionally interesting but executed poorly, is but one of many examples.)

From speaking to my friends in the industry, it seems like uptake for code is happening slowly, but unevenly, and the results are largely dependent on the level of documentation, which is often lacking. (I know of a few people using AI for (high-quality!) work on Godot, and their AIs struggle with many of the implicit conventions present in the codebase.)

With that being said, I would say that LLMs have generally been quite the boon for the (limited) gameplay work that I have done of recent. Because the cost of generation is so cheap [0], it is trivial to try something out, experiment with variations, and then polish it up or discard it entirely.

This also applies to performance work: if it's a metric that the AI can see and autonomously work on, it can be optimised. This is, of course, not always possible - it's hard to tell your AI to optimise arbitrary content - but it's often more possible than not, especially if you get creative. (Asking it to extract a particularly hot loop out from the code it resides within, and then optimising that, for example: entirely feasible.)

I think there are still growing pains, but I'm confident that LLMs will rock the world of gamedev, just like they're doing to other more well-attested fields of programming.

[0]: https://simonwillison.net/guides/agentic-engineering-pattern...

[smj-edison]

Crap, you're right. I swear, tiny usernames is both a boon and a curse...

> Personally, I work in games. So pretty much everything in the discourse of LLMs and Gen AI has been amplified 5x for me. The layoffs, the gamers' reaction to stuff utilizing AI, the impact on hardware prices, the politics, etc.

> Theres a war of consumers and executives, and I'm trapped in the middle taking heat from both. It's tiring and it's clear who to blame for all of this. I want all of this to pop so the true innovation can rise out, instead of all the gold rush going on right now.

That makes a lot of sense. I've been pretty fed up with the hyperbole and sliminess, and I can't imagine how difficult it is to be squeezed between angry gamers and naive and dense executives.

When you say "true innovation", is that in terms of non-AI innovation, or non-slimy AI innovation? I guess I personally still believe that LLMs are useful, but only as another tool amongst many others.

I'm also a big believer in human centered UX design, and it's kinda sad that the dominant experience is all textual.

> Also,game code is very performance sensitive

It does seem like game programming is the last bastion of performance, at least in terms of normal hardware, since the game has to go to the consumer's hardware. The "silver bullet" mentality drives me a little crazy because it clearly doesn't work in all situations.

Anyways, I don't know if this response really has a point, but I wanted to at least acknowledge your experience.

[timacles]

Agreed was a bit rough. Yes they are not great at iterating and keeping long contexts, but you look at what he’s describing and you have to agree that’s exactly the type of problem llm excel at

Shouldn’t have to baby step through the basics when the author is clearly not interested in learning himself

[smj-edison]

> Shouldn’t have to baby step through the basics when the author is clearly not interested in learning himself

I'd rather assume good faith, because when I first started using LLMs I was incredibly confused what was going on, and all the tutorials were grating on me because the people making the tutorials were clearly overhyping it.

It was precisely the measured and detailed HN comments that I read that convinced me to finally try out Claude, so I do my best to pay it forward :)

[timacles]

I totally agree, and myself have gone through that cycle.

But the guy is being adversarial and antagonistic. Its a 2 way street, sometimes you have to call people out on their BS because I'm not seeing someone argue in good faith, but rather pretending some superior knowledge because hes working on a esoteric protocol like people here don't know how packet headers work

[smj-edison]

I don't read it as superiority, perhaps bitterness would be the closest word to what I'm reading.

> sometimes you have to call people out on their BS

That's true, but I think that it's often much later than what some people would consider enough. Someone can be bitter, and still have good points. It's very dangerous to preemptively dismiss points, because it means that I won't listen to anyone who disagrees with me. I'm willing to put in the work to interpret someone's response in a productive light because there's often something to find.

There's a framework that I work within when I'm in a discussion. There's three elements: arguments, values, and assumptions. An argument is the face value statements. But those statements come from the values and assumptions of the person.

Values are what people consider most important. In most cases, our values are the same, which is good!

The biggest difference is assumptions. For example, one assumption I have is that free markets are the best method we have to lift individuals out of poverty. This colors how I talk about AI. Another person might assume that free markets have failed, and we need to use a different approach. This colors how they would view AI. So we'll completely talk past each other when arguing AI, because it's more of a proxy war of our assumptions.

[johnnyanmac]

>Shouldn’t have to baby step through the basics when the author is clearly not interested in learning himself

Okay. Whip up your favorite model and report back to us with your prompts. I'm pretty anti-AI, but you're going to attract more bees with honey than smoke.

[imtringued]

There is a big performance difference between models.

Trying to trace back the quality of the model to the "skills" of the person sounds extremely manipulative.