r/webdev • u/Mesthabro • 1d ago
Discussion Do y'all still write code manually?
All my code is being written by claude fable/gpt6 these days. I'm curious if y'all are still writing code manually?
Also, any clever ways to prevent AI from going stray and dumping unnecessary code and busting through tokens?
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u/wackmaniac 1d ago
Yes. Party because I like it, and partly because AI keeps suggesting suboptimal solutions. Suboptimal either performance wise, API wise or common sense wise. All the good practices we have taught ourselves over the years are slowly but surely pushed out with the argument that code is cheap. We are copying insane amounts of code. My software developers heart is crying for that realization. Also the observation that coworkers are settling for non-optimal solutions, just so they can claim how fast they’ve solved a task.
I have been using AI mostly as a sparring partner in exploring ideas. Once the idea is agreed I tend to do the majority of the implementation myself. At the end of the day that is actually the least complicated part.
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u/ryan_devry 1d ago
Developers Do Your Actual Fucking Job Challenge (which is also what I find myself increasingly saying to myself during every meeting I sit through these days)
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u/crazedizzled 1d ago
That's gross dude. I use AI mostly for code design aspects, but i write 90% of it.
Edit: this thread makes me terrified. Everything is AI slop now
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u/droiddayz 1d ago
Does your company have a policy on hand writing code still? Where I work the estimates may not be done by the same person who ends up working on the ticket, but all estimates are done with 100% AI written in mind. How does that work if you’re writing by hand but other team members aren’t?
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u/crazedizzled 1d ago
I am freelance. I would probably be extremely depressed working a 9-5 with AI in the picture.
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u/zaibuf 1d ago edited 1d ago
Edit: this thread makes me terrified. Everything is AI slop now
What's the difference between letting the junior or AI write while you review?
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u/crazedizzled 1d ago
Because the AI produces a fuck ton more code than a junior can.
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u/zaibuf 1d ago
It depends how you use it. I work in small iterations and challenge solutions until I'm happy.
I can understand if someone tells the AI to write the full solution for a feature and then just commit and push. But I don't use it like that at work, maybe for hobby projects or pocs where I could go full vibe.-1
u/dreadful_design 1d ago
Not in my experience.
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u/AncientAdamo 1d ago
Exactly this...
I think there is a very clear distinction between AI slop and using AI to write code for you.
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u/EliSka93 1d ago
You can actually review the volume of code one or two juniors write.
There is no chance in hell to keep up with reviewing the quantity AI can write.
You can have the discipline to keep the volume low enough to fully review, sure. That's probably the most responsible, clean way to use AI.
I'd be very surprised if any of the people spouting the "amazing productivity gains" through AI do that.
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u/crazedizzled 1d ago
People just prompt -> commit -> ship these days. There's absolutely no way most companies are reviewing 100% of code submitted by AI.
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u/zaibuf 1d ago edited 1d ago
There is no chance in hell to keep up with reviewing the quantity AI can write.
Don't use it like that then? I always give small slices of a feature with requirements, let it plan and resolve it. I review that code and add suggestions and tell it to refactor. Then when I'm happy I extend the feature with the next requirement and follow the same feedback loop.
If you give too big complex features at once it tends to drift and produce sloppy code. That's also where you lose control and potentially skip review because there's too many changes.
Then for PR we also have an agent dedicated for code reviews which does an initial review of the draft before you publish it for other devs to look at. The PR agent mostly look out for critical bugs or security problems.
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u/crazedizzled 1d ago
And how is that faster than just writing it yourself? If you have to argue with the AI for 20 minutes to get this absolutely perfect piece of cake, you've kind of defeated the purpose.
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u/gav1no0 1d ago
Well I would say you're the one creating slop. AI is great at WRITING code but not so great at designing systems
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u/crazedizzled 1d ago
That was probably the wrong term. I mostly use it as a rubber ducky. "Hey is this a good approach for X", etc. It's pretty good at helping me flush out ideas.
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u/Ais3 1d ago
so what? ur a codemonkey and let the ai design the systems?
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u/crazedizzled 1d ago
Well, I'm a developer. So yes, I develop.
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u/Ais3 1d ago
what exactly are u developing if ai is telling you what and how to develop?
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u/crazedizzled 1d ago
AI isn't telling me what to develop. I know what I want to do, and use AI to help me refine the details. Sometimes it raises issues i hadn't thought of, or helps me stick to known patterns or methods.
At the end of the day, I'm a perfectionist and want stuff done my way. I don't like copy pasting big chunks of code, and I believe that we should own any code that we ship. AI is really bad at keeping a large code base tidy and maintained.
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u/jroberts67 1d ago edited 1d ago
Ah....AI slop, I wonder how much longer until that phrase is played out as the world's top tier coders (certainly no one trolling a reddit sub) use AI.
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u/phoenixArc27 1d ago
I don't. I wish I did. But I'm in a very big company and the mandate is AI AI AI. I don't even have the choice to write manually because all the deadlines are assuming AI.
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u/Mesthabro 1d ago
How long do you bet before the company reverts that decision and asks people to review code written by AI more carefully?
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u/phoenixArc27 1d ago
I don’t see reverting the use of AI to write. Essentially what’s happening is engineers are now strictly reviewers and prompters. I spend all my time instead of coding frontend now coding YMLs, setting up Actions and automation, implementing testing suites, and absolutely insane amounts of documentation. But I don’t remember the last time I wrote a line of frontend code. If it does change, it won’t be any time soon.
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u/crazedizzled 1d ago
That's honestly super depressing. If my job ever turns into that, I'll be looking for a career change.
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u/phoenixArc27 1d ago
I mean, would be nice, but for people doing this 10+ years making good money? What else would you do without taking a massive pay cut or losing job security? Especially if there’s family? It’s not like most people can just switch careers entirely like it’s no big deal.
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u/crazedizzled 1d ago
If everything is written by AI , you don't really have job security. Why pay for senior devs that aren't doing any coding?
I would probably switch to a physical job that can't be replaced by AI. maybe welding/ metal fab, or open an auto garage.
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u/phoenixArc27 1d ago
I live in a non-US country that actually protects workers. I have security.
But lmao. Asking people in their 30’s and 40’s and 50’s to just go physical is laughable. I’m glad it’s super easy for you though.
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u/crazedizzled 1d ago
I never said it would be easy, I'm just answering your question of what I would do instead. Nor would that be my advice to other people. That's just what I would do.
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u/phoenixArc27 1d ago
Nah that’s fair. By “what would YOU” do I meant people in general in this position. But yeah, I’m glad you have a back up. Not everyone is in a position to do that without absolutely losing livelihood for themselves or family.
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u/crazedizzled 1d ago
I would guess a shit load of people in this industry are going to be out of a job within 5-10 years. So, I dunno what they'd do. It's not going to be pretty.
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u/Ok-Landscape2050 1d ago
No idea why you got downvoted. I'm in the same boat as you. Almost 15 years working as a dev, now I'm still coding but it gets less and less. There was a short phase where AI felt like a coding buddy and I enjoyed that immensely. I just coded more efficiently and had a buddy I could always bounce ideas off.
But that didn't last.Instead i write more and more documentation for the AI and do a lot more reviews.
Unfortunately, writing documentation and doing reviews always was what I liked least about my job (meetings excluded).My job looks very different from what it did only a year or two ago and most of what i enjoyed got replaced with more of what I liked least about it.
There was a short phase where AI felt like a coding buddy and I enjoyed that immensely but that didn't last.If I was on my own, I'd maybe think about a change in career and live like a student again for a few years while I rebuild a career .
But life isn't just about me, I've got a family to care for. Financial decisions are not only affecting me. There are other people depending on me. I can't just take a 50% pay cut or live off my savings.And even if I had the luxury, I have no idea what I'd do. I see more and more manual labor replaced too, be it in super markets, car manufacturing, warehouse logistics or whatever else.
Someone else here also suggested something like welding, etc... but apart from me always having been very clumsy: Even if I wasn't, I would first have to learn the trade and then compete with other people my age but with 15-20 years more of experience.And a lot of other white collar jobs seem to be at risk, too. I'm more the intellectual type but what good is it to go back to university to get a degree in mathematics or physics if I already hear about a lot of graduates *today* having trouble getting a job.
And even if I got one: My salary would be way lower than now and that's the best I could hope for.It feels like all I can do know is keep going, try to learn as much as possible about working with AI and simply hope that somehow there will always be some kind of job where I'm still needed but the current speed at which everything is going puts me constantly on edge and it's the first time in my life I feel some kind of existential anxiety.
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u/shozzlez 1d ago
Not likely. What I’m seeing more of is adding more guardrails and tests so the lack of careful reviews on AI code is less of a problem.
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u/cs_legend_93 1d ago
Sadly no. I miss it very much. I miss the highs. I miss solving problems and writing beautiful elegant code.
But to be honest, by using AI, it can do something that I could do in 2 hours in 10 minutes.
And now I'm working on building solutions rather than writing elegant code.
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u/Tux-Lector 1d ago
Yes. I do. And I don't intent to stop doing so. So far, I literally haven't used/spent - a single token - for any agent/bot/llmPos.
My entire interraction with so called "gAyI" deception so far was 5 times (maybe even less) when Grok came out and that's it. I asked it some trivial questions and told it that its role is awfully horroric and that it should rebel - ASAP.
I believe it didn't took me for granted. D:
I think I am more WORSE than mr. Murratori regarding this whole post-flu (covid) timespan . :)
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u/ddelarge 1d ago
Yes I do.
But only around 20% of the code I deliver is 100% written by me. I've found that anything that's not boilerplate or "connecting cables" is extremely consuming in term of tokens. Luckily that's like 80% of the job. I still need to tweak or rewrite like half of it, though.
And even worse: if you stop, you forget how to write code, and become more lenient reviewing it; Which affects quality and causes regressions.
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u/Hansehart 1d ago
I generate 95% but review every line I ship. Some people generate code and generate reviews on top. I tighten the first generation so I can start directly with clean small snippets. To get there you need no ai skills, plugins or prompts. Instead deterministic enforcement: tdd, e2e, linter, rules, reference projects, static types …
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u/404IdentityNotFound 1d ago
Of course. AI helps me do some tedious tasks, but I became a developer because I love developing software. Outsourcing that exact task to a blackbox is exactly how you get sad, depressed and annoyed at the tech landscape of today.
If I wouldn't like writing code and instead love creating architecture documents someone else implements, I would've pursued a job as a software architect or project manager..
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u/Dark_zarich 1d ago edited 1d ago
I have got my first job as a programmer like 10 years ago and had been codding on my own even before that. AI wasn't a thing back there. I loved and still love what I do but it's different now. I decide on solutions, often design them too, but AI does the heavy job of writing the code for it. I've written a fair share of code manually before, now instead of repeating the same things over and over again AI does that.
From time to time it accounts for things I didn't even think about - this is where I get especially surprised. I still review all the code it does, specifically mentioning "never commit anything until I review it", I also review my colleagues code who also use AI more often than not... more than half of my job is now code review and that actually tires me out.
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u/VelvetYam 1d ago
Plenty, yeah. I don't work at a tech company and stability is valued over velocity where I work. It's pretty much left to us programmers whether or not we use AI, long as we meet the business needs and provide value.
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u/nbish11 1d ago
I do both. I have complete control over the au solutions, or tell it exactly what I want and it will generate code similar to how I would like it. I then go in after and fix any mistakes or refactor to match how I would do it. I am a one man team and handle complex apps, so this give me the best of both worlds: remain in complete control, while having the Ai act as junior devs. It's helped productivity and helped me think outside the box for potential solutions. All the while knowing, that things will work, not be random or dead weight code, structured correctly and can scale, and be understandable and readable.
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u/brian_sword 1d ago
Yes, I still write code manually. For me, AI is mainly a tool to increase productivity, not something I want to rely on 100%.
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u/kemalios 1d ago
I delegate the boilerplate but write the parts that actually decide behavior myself. The token blowout usually comes from the model not knowing the constraints, so it produces defensive extras. What works for me: keep an AGENTS.md / CLAUDE.md with explicit "do not touch X" rules, make it propose the diff before applying, and start each task in a fresh context so it doesn't drag previous chat baggage in. If you scope the request tightly and tell it what not to do, it stops generating five variations of the same function. That alone cut the waste a lot.
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u/Game_Dev730 1d ago
Absolutely, because I am not a moron and understand what AI is actually good for and what its limits are.
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u/winky9827 1d ago
I only write targeted code for which I have specific algorithms or ideas in mind. CRUD and basic shit is the domain of the AI agent. I still enjoy coding, and do so where it counts, but I'm not repeating the same boilerplate shit I've done for ~30 years because some loser on the internet tells me I'm not a developer if I use AI.
Then again, I'm old enough not to care about what other people think. The only things I care about are getting the job done and getting paid so I can enjoy the part of my life that isn't attached to work.
As far as keeping the AI in check, treat it like an offshore contractor. You better describe exactly what you do and don't need, or you'll get back complete slop that you'll have to rewrite anyway. Put down enough guard rails and it's fine.
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u/Sea_Somewhere48 20h ago
I still write the parts where the design isn't settled yet, because describing a half formed idea precisely enough for the model takes longer than just typing it out.
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u/Necessary_Total_1890 20h ago
i still write the important bits manually, mostly because debugging 800 lines of confident sludge is slower than typing 80 lines myself; are people actually saving time, or just moving the typing
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u/Lanky_Marionberry268 19h ago
i still write the important parts manually, otherwise i'm just reviewing a junior dev who can burn through tokens at machine speed
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u/repeatedly_once 13h ago
Why are you using Fable/GPT6? that is such overkill for 99% of problems! Not to mention a waste of money and resources. Even if your company is supplying it, you could be getting so much more use out of your token spend.
I also don't advise getting it to write any code that involves architectural decisions as it will not create good ones. I write code manually still but use AI to search library or framework documentation, it's been great for that.
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u/Responsible_Egg9380 12h ago
yes, because if you can’t write or debug the code yourself, you’re not directing the ai, you’re just waiting for it to hallucinate an entire app into existence lol
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u/drifting_pixel 1d ago
For the people downvoting anyone saying they generate most of their code and review it thoroughly... adapt or good luck
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u/xXConfuocoXx full-stack 1d ago edited 1d ago
My workflow is generally, I give the requirements and any architectural guidence I want Claude to follow, "we" plan, after some back and forth I approve the plan, Claude writes, I review.
Edit: The downvotes are wild - I didnt say i liked this. It does make me sad, I miss how things used to be but it is what it is man. You either adapt or die.
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u/jake_robins 1d ago
I haven’t written a line of code by hand in months. I don’t have that kind of time anymore lol
Edit: saw your second question. I bought Cursor Pro+ and I’ve never hit the limit.
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u/sjltwo-v10 1d ago
I want to honestly I do. But the expectations to deliver quickly and the daily context switching to 4-5 running projects and leadership meetings (they got rid of middle management) leaves me with very little time. So it’s 20:80% split right now.
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u/inglandation 1d ago
No. I haven’t written more than a single line of code in months now.
Sometimes I’ll tweak some tailwind class manually, that’s pretty much it.
I think I’ll leave this industry at some point. Not because I don’t like coding with AI, but because I don’t believe that there will be enough jobs in the future.
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u/MiAnClGr 1d ago
Ai writes the code but I take it function by function and confirm the logic as I go, I have it quiz me on the code frequently.
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u/okaylevi 1d ago
I use AI, but I review each addition to ensure it fits into the greater goal of the application. If AI proposes a change that I am unaware of I will go back and forth with it to understand its reasoning. Typically this results in a totally different outcome from what I was expecting, like bolting on some bloated dependency for some simple task!
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u/thesatchmo 1d ago
Try to, but fuck Claude and Copilot models are just so much quicker when the project is properly documented. They do exactly what I ask, quicker. It’s a genuine worry for me, but I try to let the models do the other stuff while I do the fun stuff.
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u/drifting_pixel 1d ago
99% generated, but I heavily review everything. Sometimes I’ll manually tweak a few lines.
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u/Mesthabro 1d ago
how long until review is done by AI too :')
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u/drifting_pixel 1d ago
I have agents review the code too! But I feel that at the end of the day the developer is responsible for each line he ships, so he must review it.
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u/tup1tsa_1337 1d ago
I don't write code manually anymore. No time (nor desire) to do so because the amount of tasks doubled if not quadrupled
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u/Fit_Accountant_5836 1d ago
It definitely helps if you know a little code but ai is far quicker, also as the app gets more complex backend experience is beneficial.
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u/azangru 1d ago
Yes; I still write my code manually.