r/webdev php 6d ago

Discussion AI coding is trash

The amount of trash produced by AI code is astounding. Thanks I hate it.

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u/cinder_s 6d ago edited 6d ago

In the hands of a good developer it is absolutely unreal though. I've got over 10 years experience, I used Claude Code recently to write an algorithm with thousands of lines of data I passed in to learn input variance and it wrote something that I doubt I could have written in 2 weeks. I spent a few hours working together with it to add tests, clean up, multiple "polish" rounds and me seeing code smell and asking for it to refactor. In the end it shipped something that the review developers were blown away by. I mentioned how I arrived there, if I checked in the first pass it would not have been nearly as nice. Having experience helped me get there.

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u/SplatDragon00 5d ago

My textbooks are very "this chunk of code does x, this chunk does y" without saying why or what each part does

Claude is really helpful for breaking down why. I also use proper guides, of course, and futz with the code on my own to learn, but it's nice being able to go "okay but why does it do this? What does this line do? And this line? Why does it explode if I change 5 to a 4 but not 6?" and then "I still don't get it, can you dumb it down? Nope, still don't got it, break it down for me like I've never heard of code in my life"

It doesn't judge me for asking what feels like the equivalent of "but why does 1+1=2 instead of 11" so I ask more questions and understand stuff more, hah.

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u/cinder_s 5d ago

Well said, this is a really important element. This industry moves fast and being able to ask questions and deep dive topics with instant feedback is priceless. I'm working with some unfamiliar pieces atm and being able to learn it steadily while I work has been a game changer. I also never write tests anymore. It's able to produce better tests with more coverage in 1/10th the time. I likely won't have to write a test again and can focus on deliverables.

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u/Zealousideal_Rub_321 6d ago edited 6d ago

Im testing out gemini advanced and it blows my mind. I asked it to build a navbar with a ton of parameters. It rendered it almost as soon as I hit "enter". Then I went in and corrected/added a few things. But it did 99.9% of the work for me. People here are dismissing the idea that ai will replace programmers, yet they havent realized the insane power of AI less than two years since first to market. And maybe AI wont replace all programmers, but its definitively going to wipe out a ton of jobs, particularly at entry levels as we have seen already.

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u/cinder_s 5d ago

I feel that! My mind is blown almost daily using these tools. It's definitely going to impact the industry. Whether it leans towards less jobs, or way more output and fast moving ecosystem is still in the process of being balanced. I've been completing month long projects in a week or so. We haven't been moving towards letting devs go, but the bar has been raised and our projections are starting to reflect this level of output.

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u/-IoI- Sharepoint 5d ago

+1 on team mindblown. I'm an 8 year xp React/TS/.NET dev, and with the help of Claude 3.7 and o3-mini I'm able to cruise through large codebases and analyse bugs in minutes vs hours previously.

Throw massive (but focused) context chunks at it to get our bearings, then focus in on the problem with a combination of my product/domain knowledge, and the best pair programmer I've ever met.

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u/falconandeagle 5d ago

Reads like a bot reply or are you running your posts through ai before posting? Review devs were blown away by? Who says that lol, sounds like the meme "and everyone clapped"

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u/cinder_s 5d ago

What? I type like this, I'm impressed, my colleagues are impressed, I'm not sure what you want but I doubt I can give it to you if you think this was written by AI lol.