HN user

cglace

1,508 karma
Posts11
Comments719
View on HN

After spending a week coding exclusively with AI assistants, I got functional results but was alarmed by the code quality. I discovered that I didn't actually save much time, and the generated code was so complex and unfamiliar that I was scared to modify it. I still use Copilot and Claude and would say I'm able to work through problems 2-3x faster than I would be without AI but I wouldn't say I get a 10x improvement.

My projects are much more complex than standard CRUD applications. If you're building simple back-office CRUD apps, you might see a 10x productivity improvement with AI, but that hasn't been my experience with more complex work.

The thing I can't wrap my head around is that I work on extremely complex AI agents every day and I know how far they are from actually replacing anyone. But then I step away from my work and I'm constantly bombarded with “agents will replace us”.

I wasted a few days trying to incorporate aider and other tools into my workflow. I had a simple screen I was working on for configuring an AI Agent. I gave screenshots of the expected output. Gave a detailed description of how it should work. Hours later I was trying to tweak the code it came up with. I scrapped everything and did it all myself in an hour.

I just don't know what to believe.

The word games I was referring to were your overly technical analysis of the term "illegal." In everyday conversation, people don't care about logical breakdowns of words. They find such arguments absurd and view those making these claims as out of touch. While you might see it as a justified position, most people perceive it as someone being pedantic/elitist with too much time on their hands.

I'm sorry that I assumed you belonged to a group on a political thread where everyone was trashing Trump. It was a dumb mistake to assume you are worried about the rise of the far right.

I don't care about political labels. These niche arguments are useless - they don't change anyone's mind. Both sides use these debates as examples to portray the other as extreme. I'm tired of discourse that claims to enlighten but only pushes people further apart, regardless of intent.

For there to be fraud that means they are bringing charges and the court will decide if it is fraud. Fraud has a very specific meaning. If it is waste then it's in the eye of the beholder thus nuanced. I doubt Elon and his script kiddies would even know how to find actual fraud.

Have you personally looked into the claims made by Leavitt during her briefings? It doesn't take much digging to see that they are much more nuanced than we are being led to believe.

I'd think they would be interested in healthcare and the economy and not necessarily that we place conspiracy theorists in high positions.

Unless the youth of today are that dumb.

Oh ok. I forgot to check the approval ratings for evidence.

Are these fraud findings as accurate as his hurricane trajectory map?

I've been following Doge pretty closely and I see a lot of hand-waving but a lack of real evidence.

Maybe I need to drink the cool aid first.

People were worried about the economy and inflation. To say that most voters wanted to dismantle the government is a bit of a stretch.

I remember all the posters here expressing their belief that Doge would do nothing and was just an advisory role.

The most annoying is having to order by DESC NULLS LAST to get the largest value from an aggregation.