[i_love_retros]

This all sounds insane. If it requires so much back and forth with the AI why on earth wouldn't you just write the code yourself? At least then you build the mental model of the code and keep your brain healthy. Reading the comments in here about all the hoops people are having to jump through just to do the same thing they were doing a year ago without AI... and spending a fortune to do it! I think you've all got AI psychosis.

[bottlepalm]

I would never imagine this is where programming would be five years ago, but at the end of day having the AI write the code is easier, faster, and results in higher quality.

The mental model is still in my head, my brain is overloaded, but only from the amount of code reviews - like I said, I'm building v3 of a feature in the time it takes to build v1, but I am in a way doing 3x the code reviews going back and forth. That's the fall out of the iteration speed enabled by AI.

Between submitting PRs, getting feedback, iterating, re-submitting, repeat - there used to be breathing room. Now it's all compressed into an afternoon. Productivity is through the roof, but it can be draining.

[habinero]

You're not on v3 lol. You're on v1 that you had to redo three times.

If the feature isn't released, it's not a new version.

[bottlepalm]

Semantics. In reality yes it is the v3 version equivelent in terms of maturity and iteration. I know because I've been doing this for a long time. We are getting to v3 and beyond faster than ever before.

In the new world there is no time to put out v1 quality code and it is borderline reckless given how easily things are getting hacked now. You need to be putting out heavily reviewed code that covers all the corner cases on the first release.

[habinero]

No, you're getting to v1 in the same or more amount of time. I know v3 sounds better, but coding and throwing it away is literally just redoing it. If you're not releasing it, it's not a new version.

There's no such thing as "v1 quality code", you just haven't finished it yet.

[biorach]

You've missed the point

[democracy]

You can be right but quite often it helps keeping focus on the forrest rather then getting lost in the trees - at least for me. Boilerplate steals a lot of attention, focus and can just be mentally exhausting.

[batshit_beaver]

Can someone explain these complaints about boilerplate to me? What are y’all doing where boilerplate is the majority of your code? Am I the only one mostly writing concise business logic where most lines are important in one way or another?

[democracy]

one man's boilerplate is another man's concise business logic )))

[nzach]

> If it requires so much back and forth with the AI why on earth wouldn't you just write the code yourself?

Maybe I'm too far gone down the AI rabbit hole, but that seems a really strange take to have. If you replaced 'back and forth with the AI' with 'pair programming' or 'brainstorming' this phrase would be really strange, after all these are all techniques to sharpen your ideas. Even 'rubber ducking' is widely accepted as an effective way to go through a problem, and you can definitely use AI as a rubber duck.

For me the idea of chatting with the AI about a problem/solution is just another tool to help us work. It's not the best solution because it has a lot of downsides you should be aware while using it, but that is true for any technique including 'writing the code yourself'.

[mns]

When I first read the comment I thought this must be satire, it sure does sound like a Silicon Valley episode, but in modern times. I've been a skeptic for quite some time, but managed to get quite good results with Claude in general, not even going through the normal limits for a Pro account, but what people are describing here seems like just tokenmaxing, brute forcing a solution, I don't understand what code people need to write and what projects people are building, is everyone just constantly rewriting systems from scratch, or what is everyone spending these insane amounts of tokens on?

[habinero]

I honestly don't get it, either. Most of them just flat out can't code at all, but for the ones who can, the only explanation I got is it feels like productivity.

I will say, it does help me get over procrastination lol. I get annoyed by the robot doing dumb shit and finish it myself.