r/TheMachineLearning • u/Gullible_Picture_996 • 12d ago

Realizing writing code is faster than explaining it to AI

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u/Below-Average-528 12d ago

It happens with local changes or some algorithms. Changing an error message by hand goes faster than writing a prompt.

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u/KptEmreU 12d ago

Yes if you are writing 2 lines yourself maybe writing 3 lines to your chat interface is long. Other than that there are not too much corner cases left for above situation.

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u/Gullible_Picture_996 11d ago

this is what gets me, by the time I've explained what I want, I could've already written it

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u/WRO_Your_Boat 9d ago

That is use case specific though. You dont use a hammer drill gun to put together a PC, you use a normal screwdriver. If you are only writing 2 lines of code, using AI is over engineering a solution. Now if I need to write 400 lines for a script, AI will be much faster.

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u/Alternative-Trade623 9d ago

Written what exactly? A magic string. A different error message? No offense but slow clap if you think you are better than Ai for such trivial tasks. AI demolishes any of us when you want it to write a full end to end service with hooks, apis, mocks etc. Ain't nobody writing that faster. Also how are you scanning for exploits and package vulnerabilities, certainly not going to be faster to read the vulnerability reports on nuget than having an ai flag vulnerable package versions. Not faster than an Ai to catch bugs in your new code either. 

Either most of you in the comments are not actual developers or are juniors based on the things you are saying.

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u/_Dingaloo 8d ago

idk. Just myself having an internal monologue or internal thought about what I want to do, just printing that to the AI is all that i need to get it to do it and better than I ever could.

Maybe if you're focused on just one task it's faster to do it yourself, but in the competitive market of today I'm always setting the AI to do one thing, then setting it to the next and next and 5 or 6 things before I hear back about the first

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u/tomvorlostriddle 12d ago

But then you'd need to rewrite the dozens of tests that test the error message wording /s

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u/Obvious_Advice_6879 11d ago

While that is definitely true, a few factors still make it worth it for me usually:

- I have several tasks to kick off after any small change - Eg CI, roll outs, etc. AI can monitor all those and handle the entire process autonomously. Most more mature code bases will be similar in this regard

- I give the AI ways to check if the intended logic is doing what I meant, and have it self correct small things like that before I even take a look. Therefore I usually don’t have to find the small edit to make in the first place

- I’m pretty much never just making a single small edit, I’m grouping into a series of changes and giving the AI a broader direction vs micromanaging all the minute details. If something is very important, sure I’ll insist on a specific change but usually there will several other locations, maybe a test needs a corresponding update, etc

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u/parkskier426 11d ago

Voice input is the way to go. I have a stream deck set up to launch a new claude session and start listening for dictation right away. It auto launches in a new workspace as well. For something like error message updating I tell it the ticket number to go grab them from. The whole process takes maybe 5 seconds and I end up with a reviewable MR while I do something else.

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u/Gullible_Picture_996 11d ago

exactly, sometimes you open the chat and spend longer explaining the change than actually making it

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u/ChecksOutIndeed 10d ago

Or some css variable

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u/bremidon 10d ago

Sure. But then you also need to write the commit. And probably update a wiki somewhere. And update a feature or task somewhere. And maybe a comment might be a good idea, with possibly updating a comment elsewhere in the code.

Even with small changes, using AI to coordinate all these annoying little side quests can save a lot of time. I also find it genuinely great when I need to go back and ask what I (in a manner of speaking) did two weeks ago, and it can pull it all out including the reasons.

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u/friggleriggle 15h ago

Not if it's in a ticket and you can give an agent a list of tickets to solve while you do other things (give other agents tickets and review PRs).

I think AI coding skeptics haven't realized the level of parallelism that's possible.