I spent some time making AI write code for me today. I ran out of usage credits at one point, but they reset at 6 p.m. Where I find it works really well is when you build a few features in layers, showing what your conventions are in terms of structure. Once you have that, you can refer to those conventions, or codify them in your CLAUDE file, and then ask it to take bigger swings. On those big swings that take a few minutes, I lose though, because my ADHD can't take those sorts of breaks. I'll figure that out, hopefully.
All of this productivity happens because it's greenfield work. If I had to throw it at some of the monolithic nonsense I've encountered at various jobs, it would be less useful. Or at least, you would spend more time verifying things and writing tests (if that's even possible) instead of typing, which honestly is also good if you're trying to understand what it's doing. But everyone on LinkedIn is selling some reason that AI makes people "10x" or whatever, though they have only anecdotes to "prove" it. There hasn't been a lot of significant academic study about it, but what there has been tracks no to negative movement in productivity. Of course the folks selling something (or themselves) will tell you that you're doing it wrong. And hey, I've got another popular post about it. Tech bros don't like to be challenged.
Every time that I sit down and work with the robot, I'm still amazed, because it's like magic. Since I don't code for work, and it's more in streaks with my own projects, I tend to forget a lot about how a library or framework works. The machine is great at reminding me, explaining stuff and especially getting into things way outside of my knowledge.
AI will help people write better code, for sure, and somewhat faster, as folks understand how to direct it. In that latest LinkedIn post though, I point out that the coding part is relatively small in terms of what a developer does all day. It's not the force multiplier that people make it out to be. Or at least, there isn't data to support that claim.
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