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by roncesvalles 39 days ago
That's only if you do agentic coding.

I use LLMs in the following ways:

1. Copy-pasting code into the web chat UI and asking for something (bugfix, add a feature, refactor, explain, review it etc), including entire source code files. A $20/mo Gemini subscription goes a long way (never been rate-limited). I only use the highest model. I often just copy-paste the entire source file between 3 backticks.

2. Cursor Tab. I do have hotkeys to enable and disable it; it's disabled most of the time otherwise it gets annoying.

3. Single-file changes directly from Cursor's AI sidebar. I only do this for simple, predictable stuff because even their auto-routing "Premium" setting is not as good as pasting stuff into Gemini 3.1 Pro.

That means I have only two $20/mo subscriptions: Gemini and Cursor.

I don't use Claude Code, it's really for people who don't know how to code. I don't use Plan Mode; I make and track the plan myself (if at all). I only tell the LLM granular tasks to execute. I don't use `claude.md` or `agents.md` or anything like that. If I don't like a particular output, I reset everything, modify my prompt and try again.

I believe this is the only way to fully leverage LLMs without losing any product quality. If you're trading off quality for "speed" (in quotes because over the long term, a low quality codebase is a massive drag on productivity) then there's no point.
1 comments
avador 39 days ago
I _think_ what you’ve said is “go shallow, not deep”. That is, don’t let the walk you make inside the latent space a long one. Twenty-five short and peppered steps, from de novo, is better than one long, protracted stew.

Is that accurate?

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roncesvalles 38 days ago
Well yeah. If you know what you're doing, why would you let the AI take control?
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avador 38 days ago
Well, if it works on step one, then why not step two? Where would different folks draw the line? My grandparents might continue on a while, whereas I would not. But if it also “works” on step two for me, should I take a third?

What counts as “works” is the important bit, I think.

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