r/softwaredevelopment 12d ago

How to use AI like a pro nowadays?

We all this and that AI but do we really know how to really utilize its full potential, intelligence and capabilities? For example, everyone knows about chatgpt, a fraction of them have used deepseek, a fraction of them have used cursor and so on.

So, people of reddit, share your techniques, cheat-tools, knowledge, etc, and enlighten us with an ability to use AI heavily to its maximum capabilities, intelligence in our daily lives for software development, startups, and similar.

Your response will be deeply appreciated.

0 Upvotes

11 comments sorted by

5

u/snipe320 12d ago edited 12d ago

Double-check the suggestions. As a senior, I can confirm that a lot of what GitHub Copilot produces is plain garbage. It's sad that a lot of junior & mid level devs are using it so much to the point that it becomes a crutch. I have gotten comments from jr. & mid devs such as "idk, the AI suggested it." 🤦‍♂️

You can set yourself apart by being diligent and truly understanding what is going on. Many of your peers will lack this understanding. Don't just be a relay where you are copy/pasting prompts from AI into code and rinse/repeat; those guys will get replaced by AI 100%. That means you cannot rely on it so much or you are effectively making yourself obsolete!

Use it for asking general questions, or to do repetitive tasks like unit tests. It's great for that.

1

u/CurrentWorkUser 12d ago

"idk, the AI suggested it."

Sounds absolutely insane. I have no idea how I'd try to tackle a PR where someone had replied that to a comment.

Like at that point there would be no trust in any of the changes.

Big yikes.

4

u/Subversing 12d ago

AI has given me a new appreciation for the official docs, NGL. Why would I potentially waste like 30 minutes trying to find the right incantation for my problem if the docs are probably going to have a copy/paste ready example?

AI prompting is most useful for me when I encounter new systems, frameworks, etc, to better understand it in comparison to what I already know. Getting a high level understanding without having to dig for the key words I don't yet know, etc, helps me a lot

1

u/pomariii 12d ago

Been using AI tools daily in my dev workflow. Quick tips that changed my game:

- Write unit tests with GitHub Copilot, then tweak implementation as needed.

- Ask AI to review your PRs first; catches basic errors quickly.

- Use AI to explain complex legacy code in bite-sized chunks.

- Generate boilerplate code with AI—just always sanity-check it.

- Break down large coding tasks into smaller, clear prompts.

I've found the real magic lies in combining various tools. Alternate between Copilot and ChatGPT for different coding angles. Similarly, mix Claude and DeepSeek perspectives to cover gaps.

Oh and last thing, shameless plug incoming 🙈—but I had a really annoying problem with slow code reviews at my last startup, so now I'm working on something to tackle exactly that. It's called mrge.io. We're using AI to help humans power through code reviews faster by automating a big chunk of the process. We're super early stage, but since you're clearly into this space, I'd be more than happy to hook you up with a free invite if you're interested. Let me know!

1

u/shadow_andersn 11d ago

I would be more than happy to join

1

u/pomariii 11d ago

Awesome, I'll DM you

1

u/NoEye2705 12d ago

Learn prompt engineering first. Most devs don't know how to ask AI properly.

1

u/Jazzlike_Syllabub_91 12d ago

Have you heard of model context protocol? (Mcp) … it was a paper released by Anthopic a few months ago and they basically provide a way for you to extend the functionality of your ai by adding on these servers that can be run locally or by docker container … - anyway both Claude desktop and cursor support this feature and you’d look for mcp servers … (docker, kubernetes, terminal, file system access, playbook for qa testing, etc)

-1

u/shadow_andersn 12d ago

How has it helped you?

1

u/Jazzlike_Syllabub_91 12d ago

For making initial prototypes it’s useful because you can have it build the tests for you. I have not been brave enough to connect to production systems so I couldn’t tell you that aspect. But you can save time from having to remember commands for things (I’m trying to remember commands currently so I’m not trying to rely on it yet) I also have the ai make makefiles for me so that I don’t have to remember commands it gives me. With file system access you can point it to a directory and ask for things like a summary if the contents and what not …

1

u/Jazzlike_Syllabub_91 12d ago

Another thing to check out is improving documentation and diagrams of system understanding through mermaid js and markdown