Comment by skydhash

Comment by skydhash 20 hours ago

Who write boilerplate this day? I just lift the code from the examples in the docs (especially css frameworks). And I love looking at functions docs, because after doing it a few times, you develop an holistic understanding of the library and your speed increases. Kinda like learning a foreign language. You can use an app to translate everything, or asks for the correct word when the needs arises. The latter is a bit frustrating at the beginning, but that’s the only way to become fluent.

ang_cire 19 hours ago

Seriously, I see this claim thrown around as though everyone writes the same starting template 50 times a week. Like, if you've got a piece of "boilerplate" code you're constantly rewriting... Save It! Put it in a repo or a snippet somewhere that you can just copy-paste when you need it.

You don't need a multi-million dollar LLM to give you slightly different boilerplate snippets when you already have a text editor on your computer to save them.

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ookblah 19 hours ago

i think everyone here has extremely different ideas of what AI coding actually is and it's frustrating because basically everyone is strawmanning (myself included probably), as if using it means i'm not looking at documentation or not understanding what is goin on at all times.
it's not about having the LLM write some "starter pack" toy scaffold. i means when i implement functionality across different classes and need to package that up and adapt, i can just tell the LLM how to approach it and it can produce entire sections of code that would literally just be adaptations of certain things. or to refactor certain pieces that would just be me re-arranging shit.
maybe that's not "boilerplate", but to me it's a collosal waste of my time that could be spent trying to solve a new problem. you can't package that up into a "code snippet" and it's not worth the time carefully crafting templates. LLM can do it faster, better, and cost me near nothing.

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- skydhash 17 hours ago
  
  > it's a collosal waste of my time
  > LLM can do it faster, better, and cost me near nothing.
  And this is one the thing I'm skeptical about. The above use case is a symptom of all code and no design. It is a waste of time because you're putting yourself in a corner, architecture wise. Kinda like building on a crooked foundation.
  I've never done refactoring where I'm writing a lot of code, it's mostly just copy-paste and rebuilding the connection between modules (functions, classes, files, packages,...). And if the previous connections were well understood and you have a clear plan for the new design, then it's a no-brainer to get there. Same when adapting code, I'm mostly deleting lines and renaming variables (regex is nice).
  Maybe I'm misunderstanding things, but unless it's for small scripts or very common project types, I haven't seen the supposed productivity gain compared to traditional tooling.
  
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  ookblah 17 hours ago
  
  yes, that is one aspect of it.
  1) refactoring. copy paste, re-arrange, extract, delete and rebuild the connection. i have the mental model and tell the LLM do do it across multiple files or classes. does it way faster and exactly how i would do it given the right prompt which is just a huge file that dictates how things are structured, style, weird edge cases i encountered as time goes on.
  2) new features or sections based on existing. i have a service class and want to duplicate and wire up different sections across domains. not easy enough to just be templated, but LLM can do it and understand the nuances. again, generate multiple files across classes no problem.
  i can do all these things "fast". i can do them even faster when using the LLM, it offloads the tediousness and i save my brian for other tasks. alot of times i'm just researching my next thing while it chugs away. i come back, lint and review and i'm good to go.
  i'm honestly still writing the majority of the code myself, esp if it's like design stuff or new features where the requirements and direction aren't as clear, but when i need to it gives me a huge boost.
  keeps me in the flow, i basically recharge while continuing to code. and it's not a small script but a full fledged app, albeit very straightforward architecture wise. the gains are very real. i'm just surprised at the sentiment on HN around it. it's not even just skepticism but outright dogging on it.
  
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skydhash 19 hours ago

Maybe all code is boilerplate for them? I use libraries and frameworks exactly for the truly boilerplate part. But I still try to understand those code I depends on, as some times I want to deviate from the defaults. Or the bug might be in there.
It’s when you try to use an exotic language, you realize the amount of work that has been done to minimize dev time in more mainstream languages.

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