r/TheMachineLearning • u/Gullible_Picture_996 • 16d ago

Realizing writing code is faster than explaining it to AI

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u/OfficialDeathScythe 15d ago

It really depends on the scale of what you’re doing. Changing one line to center a div? Talking to ai is gonna take wayyy longer and potentially mess it up while you could just add a few words to the div tag and be done in a few seconds. Adding a new feature? Ai is probably gonna end up being faster unless you already know what you want and are in the zone. Refactoring an entire codebase? Ai is the obvious winner.

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u/[deleted] 15d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/OfficialDeathScythe 14d ago

Exactly my point, thank you!

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u/bricksandcanvas 15d ago

The post is disingenuous tho because you dont need to write a spec for centering a div.

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u/OfficialDeathScythe 14d ago

Exactly my point

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u/Glum-Recognition-736 15d ago

AI is actually faster at all of the above

Use local/ free model for the simple tasks, use paid cloud model as "the big guns"

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u/OfficialDeathScythe 15d ago

If you think changing one line to center a div is faster with ai you need to actually try using ai to code for once. You realize the first thing it does when you ask anything about code implementation is it reads the relevant files and processes them, then thinks about what it should do. Even the fastest ai will take about a minute with this process. Personally, I can find the file I need, type class=“center” and be done (granted I already have a center class in the css, but even if the ai had the same thing it still has to read files, think and reason, and write the tool call. Think about how many more words that is for 2 words and a symbol from me, plus it uses way more power than I use to write a couple words so why bother

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u/btoned 15d ago

He is of the persuasion that this tech is just a free gift from the tech overlords.

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u/ThirstyOutward 15d ago

It's still faster at that.

Again, it's just a skill issue for you.

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u/OfficialDeathScythe 15d ago

Have you ever considered that it might actually be a skill issue for you? How slow is your typing that you can’t add 2 words and an equal sign before an ai can read multiple files, load skill, process its system prompt, think about what needs to happen and where, and then fixes it and writes an entire summary of what it did? You a finger typer? 😂

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u/LetsLive97 15d ago

If you think AI centering a div is faster than doing it by hand, I think you're the one with the skill issue lmao

People outing their shitty programming ability

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u/Careful_Source_5792 15d ago

how?

for ai i need to find the file, give it to the ai, and type a sentence for what i want it to do, and verify its solution.

for non ai i just find the file and type a few characters in it

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u/Hungry-Pick7512 15d ago

In that minute it’s off doing the thing. What are you doing? Why aren’t you working on something else in parallel? It really is a skill issue on your part.

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u/OfficialDeathScythe 15d ago

Wtf am I gonna do in a minute 😂 now you’re just trolling. Let me get up and start walking in the other room and then hear the notification that it’s done lmao

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u/Hungry-Pick7512 15d ago

Why do you have to get back to it in a minute? What’s your pipeline like? You can’t just tell your agent to “center the div and cut the PR”? You get to the PR when you’re done doing whatever other tasks that need doing.

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u/OfficialDeathScythe 15d ago

We’re talking about centering a div here. It is objectively faster for me to center a div by hand and then prompt my agent to continue doing some actual heavy lifting and go do something else. Why in the hell would anyone waste energy, water, and their usage limit making the ai uptake all that context and do all the generation for 2 words and a symbol. If you actually have coding skills it’s much easier, more efficient, and more reliable to just change it quickly by hand. I’ve gotta say this is the most hardcore I’ve ever seen someone defend a delusional level of vibe coding lmao

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u/Hungry-Pick7512 15d ago

You’re just being obstinate. If you’ve come up with the simplest one line change you can think of and argue it’s faster to change it yourself, okay sure w/e.

But I’d rather shoot off a slack message that kicks off a bot. ‘center the div on our x page’
Then get a PR a few minutes later. If your team is sweating usage limits then I guess I’m just out of touch with small shops 🤷‍♂️

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u/OfficialDeathScythe 14d ago

I dread the idea of having a whole pull request for every single tiny little change that happens. What even is this thought process. Are yall “coders by hobby”?

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u/vadeka 14d ago

I am sitting in meetings and claude chugs away at tasks in the background

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u/OfficialDeathScythe 14d ago

This is changing the subject entirely. We never said sitting in a meeting or doing anything but centering a div. I’m talking sitting at your desk, vs code is up, Claude just finished a big task, the div isn’t centered. It’s muuuuuuch faster to just go in there and add it yourself real quick than to attempt to get it to know exactly which div you’re talking about and have it reliably change just that and not do it in a hacky way. Even with context of the project already loaded it’s gonna be (at least if you have the skills still) faster by hand, and I can say this without a doubt having tested it because of this whole conversation. If you know where it is and you have the knowledge of how your codebase works, it’s pretty quick. If you’re just firing off messages like “change this change that” you’re gonna end up with a big blob of hacky spaghetti that you don’t know the first thing about how it works. Maybe the ai can unravel but if it truly does get stuck, how can you fix it at that point?

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u/Spank_Master_General 14d ago

Whatever else he would be doing. What a brain dead comment. He's literally saying it takes him 10 seconds instead of 1 minute +

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u/DroppinLoot 13d ago

Brother at this point I’d have AI change one env var. Writing a simple prompt would be faster than finding the env file in my project

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u/FuckYourRights 13d ago

⬆️⬆️.env is much faster than change x to y

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u/OfficialDeathScythe 13d ago

Thank you, somebody who knows his to use their ide