[mattmanser]

I'm a little the opposite, what's the point of using an IDE with AI? I genuinely don't get it?

These days I just use Claude Code Desktop or Claude Code in powershell. Standalone, not inside and IDE. Honestly, I'm using Desktop more and more as it gets more features.

The IDE is for me. No AI in it at all. If I want to get Claude to do something specific to a file I just @ the file.

[vovavili]

Productivity. You generate the skeleton of the code with Codex/Claude Code/et. al. and refactor it manually. It's kind of unlikely that an AI agent will be able to one-shot every bit of code in the exact way you want, even with a fat AGENTS.md file. With a smart AI-native IDE like Zed, it will quickly be able to pick up what manual change you intent to do without you fully typing out anything, especially if they're repetitive. This helps enormously when you're debugging or profiling your code.

[mattmanser]

My setup I can do exactly the same? I get CC to do some work in a terminal window, I inspect and refactor in an IDE, and we bounce back and forth like that.

I have 2 monitors, Claude on one, IDE on the other.

[metaltyphoon]

> Productivity. You generate the skeleton of the code with Codex/Claude Code/et. al. and refactor it manually.

This doesn’t mean much if you are using a terminal editor.

[serf]

the obvious answer is because it's easier , faster, and more efficient to flip a true to false right in front of you than it is to prompt an llm.

if your response is "my prompts don't produce code that needs values flipped, ever." then I would wager you're only touching very simple things with an LLM.

for me I don't care about the token cost and prompt writing so much as the fact that it's just faster to change 0 to 1 and leaves me twiddling my thumbs for an llm output less.

[NiloCK]

The thing that drove me away from manual edits was that I found myself confusing the LLM all the time. It would read or write, some code, I'd twiddle with things, and then the LLM's future references to the same code would be a mess.

On balance, and via dictation, it feels likely to be faster overall to just enact the changes I want 'inline' of the conversation thread.

Is this stuff any better now? I think current harnesses probably do have things like file change listeners that automatically inform agents before they act on a file they've previously engaged with if it has changed in the meantime.

[ThunderSizzle]

If you do manual edits, I find it best to start a new conversation. But if your instructions and documentation is good enough, the new conversations won't have any problems picking up where it needs to be.

Having said that, I fear what June 1st brings for copilot It might suddenly be very useless for me.

[CamperBob2]

I try to remember to tell it that the file changed, and should be reloaded. That usually avoids confusion.

[thevillagechief]

Not really. Whenever I manually edit the code, the next turn will overwrite the changes back. You kinda have to let them know not to do that.

[krzyk]

But you have IDE for you and cli for agent. Agent works on the same code, you can see the changes right there.

[brianwawok]

But why did you flip that true to false? It sounds like a missing unit test. So at a minimum it’s do the flip, find the right place to unit test, and write a test. Or I just tell my LLM “this should be false because of X, fix and write a test”

[christophilus]

I just use Codex/Claude Code in one window and Neovim in another and navigate around using Niri’s keyboard shortcuts. I much prefer it to VS Code on a traditional desktop in almost every respect.

That said, I never tried copilot.

[mattmanser]

Was I not clear? I still have the IDE. I can still flip true to false.

Claude is in a terminal, I'm inspecting, reviewing, refactoring in my IDE.

[Sharlin]

That’s like asking why anyone would use IDE autoformatting, linting, or build tools rather than constantly swapping to a terminal to run their command line versions. As in, why use tool integration in an integrated development environment? Because that’s the entire point. Classic IDE refactoring and code generation tools are limited to explicitly programmed operations, but a well-integrated LLM can do much more and smarter manipulations without you having to context switch and explain the context of what you want done.

[mattmanser]

You've got the wrong end of the stick. I mean CC in a terminal, me in an IDE.

Both of us working on the same code side-by-side. Window-by-window in my case.

And my IDE isn't infested with AI popups and extra menu items and lost real estate or anything trying to guess what I'm typing.

[subscribed]

> what's the point

Tab completion.

Smart model can cut down time to write complex firewall yaml dramatically, relying both on the existing file and the ugly draft (eg comma delimited details of the rules I need) I put out. It makes it 5 minutes lead time and 20 presses of tab instead of writing a shell/python full of edge cases or just copying existing rules as a template and laborously editing them -- smart model knows what the specific firewall needs.

But I'm not a developer, so I use both - haiku via github for tab completion and CC for cli.

[harimau777]

For Windsurf at least, it makes it easier to control context. I can simply drag and drop a file from the IDE into the chat.

I can also click on a file referenced by the AI and have it open immediately in the IDE so that I can inspect it.

Finally, it is a pain to write long, multi-line prompts in a CLI where you can't easily click around to edit different parts.

The primary weakness I've found in IDE based UI is that it struggles to get through the corporate security in order to run commands.

[fendy3002]

For me I need to compare the code generated before committing. Also I need to read markdown plans generated for review before commit to execution. VSCode CC extension also generate clickable links to the file directly if the query has something to do with it.

All of them are valid usecase of VSCode CC extension for me.