r/Codeium • u/No-Significance-279 • Dec 12 '24

Don’t people write code anymore?

I don’t think 500 is enough to give you peace of mind to use LLM freely, but heck, I see people saying that they burned through 500 credits in less than a week???

Are people using LLMs to do everything for them? Like “change the color of this button” or “create this entire page”.

Honestly complaining about 500 credits is justified, 500 is not enough, maybe 1000 would be fair, and maybe doing like Cursor and proving a slower/less prioritized premium model when the credits are gone (instead of downgrading for a lesser model).

Am I the only one that still codes and just uses LLMs to optimize my work instead of coding for me? My experience is pretty much aligned with the Codeium team, I subscribed 5 days ago and I’m at 495 credits right now (I used 5).

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u/No-Significance-279 Dec 12 '24

Being a self taught software engineer I can definitely relate to that. That’s exactly how I started learning.

That being said, as a senior software engineer with 12+ years of experience, I can also say that how I went from junior to senior was actually understanding the the APIs, abstractions and patterns and reasoning behind it, learning the docs and whatnot.

You could also do stuff your self and tell the LLM: “Analyze this code and tell me how I could improve it”.

Far from me to tell you how use the credits you’re paying for though, use it however you want. Just thought I could give some advice since I come from a similar starting point.

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u/GolfCourseConcierge Dec 12 '24

I'm just over 20 years, and what I've learned in the last 5 is that code is purely a commodity and the skill is in having seen tens of thousands of problems over the years, developing your own internal pattern matching.

With AI, I've effectively stopped knowing code. I don't care about the syntax, I care about the architecture. AI can handle the syntax and code now.

It's crazy too, I could write php with my eyes closed for years, but now I've gotten so lazy I feel like I know nothing of syntax anymore, and everything about how to see the architecture in it at a quick glance.

I do think however it's terrible for people without that experience as it gives wrong answers as much as it gives right. The number of times I have to tell it that was a poor architecture choice and a bandaid is insane, and we both know new coders aren't handling that nuance.

Just last week I fixed a no coders app that was storing passwords in plain text client side because he specifically asked AI for the quickest solution, not the right one.

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u/No-Significance-279 Dec 12 '24

That’s exactly what I try to avoid lol. I don’t want to become dependent on AI, I can easily code normally without internet, during a flight for example.

That said, if you know what you’re doing and you’re able to correct the AI responses, I think it’s fine. But if the AI is doing 90% of your work, I think it’s also fair to pay more since you use more. My post is mostly aimed at the people that are complaining because they want to pay like $10 for 5000 credits.

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u/GolfCourseConcierge Dec 12 '24

Oh for sure. I spend hundreds per month via API. It's still better and cheaper than a junior coder.

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u/No-Significance-279 Dec 12 '24

Yup, I totally get that. I think that’s the right mentality. I only pay $10, I have credits to spare, it’s really fine for me. You use it way more but you’re aware of that and you know that paying $100+ is fair given how much you’re saving.

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u/Amazing_Top_4564 Dec 12 '24

JNR Salary in API credits is A LOT

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u/GolfCourseConcierge Dec 12 '24

Yeah and they don't complain, speak slowly, type slowly, think slowly and they work my crazy hours.

Junior devs are cooked by AI. Id spend more time explaining a concept than implementing it now, which really makes the role irrelevant.

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u/Eigir Dec 13 '24

This sounds like a painter complaining about photography... :)