I’ve used spicy auto-complete, as well as agents running in my IDE, in my CLI, or on GitHub’s server-side. I’ve been experimenting enough with LLM/AI-driven programming to have an opinion on it. And it kind of sucks.
We’re replacing that journey and all the learning, with a dialogue with an inconsistent idiot.
I like this about it, because it gets me to write down and organize my thoughts on what I’m trying to do and how, where otherwise I would just be writing code and trying to maintain the higher level outline of it in my head, which will usually have big gaps I don’t notice until spending way too long spinning my wheels, or otherwise fail to hold together. Sometimes a LLM will do things better than you would have, in which case you can just use that code. When it gives you code that is wrong, you don’t have to use it, you can write it yourself at that point, after having thought about what’s wrong with the AI approach and how what you requested should be done instead.
I use local models, and it barely doubles the electricity use of my computer while it’s actively generating, which is a very small proportion of the time I’m doing work; the environmental impact is negligible.
I like this about it, because it gets me to write down and organize my thoughts on what I’m trying to do and how, where otherwise I would just be writing code and trying to maintain the higher level outline of it in my head, which will usually have big gaps I don’t notice until spending way too long spinning my wheels, or otherwise fail to hold together. Sometimes a LLM will do things better than you would have, in which case you can just use that code. When it gives you code that is wrong, you don’t have to use it, you can write it yourself at that point, after having thought about what’s wrong with the AI approach and how what you requested should be done instead.
Try a rubber duck next time. Also, diagrams. Save a forest.
I use local models, and it barely doubles the electricity use of my computer while it’s actively generating, which is a very small proportion of the time I’m doing work; the environmental impact is negligible.