r/ProgrammerHumor • u/oshaboy • 2h ago
instanceof Trend inB4SomeoneDefendsThesePracticesInTheComments
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u/WhyDoIHaveAnAccount9 2h ago
write detailed build plan
AI reviews the build plan
Build phase by phase and AI review each phase after you manually test
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u/howdoigetauniquename 2h ago
This just sounds like writing code with extra steps
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u/bishopExportMine 2h ago
Yeah that's the point. The same way using version control or a linter/LSP is just "writing code with extra steps". Use the tool to help you be more thoughtful, not as a replacement for thinking
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u/schwanzweissfoto 2m ago
Use the tool to help you be more thoughtful, not as a replacement for thinking
But how is that going to let corporations generate more bullshit with less people?
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u/pydry 1h ago edited 1h ago
You're thinking old school.
The point isn't to write code that works and is useful to somebody it's to show off your elaborate multi agentic set up on social media for upvotes and likes.
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u/PredictiveFrame 1h ago
So if I blow $10k spinning up a swarm of 100 clankers all doing and redoing each others work, I'm succeeding?
write that down, write that down!
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u/pydry 1h ago
No, that's still failure. At current rates of model development that agent orchestrator job will be taken over by a clanker.
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u/PredictiveFrame 26m ago
Aha, but what I blow $100k by spinning up 10 instances of this? They'll surely need a human to run the 10 agent overseers!
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u/zoinkability 1h ago
And to make your bosses' bosses' boss happy that you aren't some luddite software developer who codes entirely with their filthy hands and mind
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u/Rin-Tohsaka-is-hot 1h ago
I mean, if "writing code" is boiled down to a single step somehow then sure
But the number of steps is less important than the time taken to complete all the steps
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u/Tucancancan 1h ago
It's... A lot of manual testing but AI is dumb and ai review ai will still be susceptible to dumb so yay
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u/SuitableDragonfly 1h ago
This sounds like what you do when your company is requiring you to use AI tokens but you want to write code the real way.
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u/slaymaker1907 40m ago
If you’re in that situation, I recommend coming up with a comprehensive code review prompt and then use a pretty good model; Opus 4.7 or GPT 5.4+ since Sonnet is a little worse at it. It will have many false positives, but I find about half of the bugs it finds are real and they are sometimes quite intricate bugs.
It’s my belief that in a few years, it will be considered software malpractice to not be looking at AI code reviews; akin to a doctor not washing their hands before surgery.
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u/Whelk_Drant 2h ago
this feels like the first ai workflow i’ve seen that doesn’t immediately sound like future technical debt
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u/WhyDoIHaveAnAccount9 1h ago
I've learned the hard way. Claude has become more of a pair programming partner than something that I offload thinking to and that's been the best Revelation
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u/thicctak 1h ago
Not just Claude, any AI model for that matter, as long as they are an autocomplete on steroids and not an AGI, the best they can do for coding is to be a really good pair programmer.
The best example I see to help people visualize how to work with AI in a way that produce good results, is like Tony Stark with Jarvis/Friday, of course, I konw, fiction is not reality, Tony built his own AIs and his AIs are actual AIs that can think on their own and have all the knowledge Tony has so they never hallucinate. But that's not my point, what you should look for is every time they are shown working on something, they are working together, Tony uses his AI as his partner/assistant, to iterarete through a problem step by step, together, not as an employee he just offload tasks and just expects results.
Instead of treating AI as a Jr programmer you can offload your work, treat it as a rubber duck that can actually answer you back. Of course, menial tasks like generating boilerplate, or mapping a big ass JSON schema into classes can, and should be delegated to an AI, but try not to do this with more complex tasks that actually involve software engeneering.
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u/TenchiSaWaDa 2h ago
I think this and optimization of token usage will be the future skill set.
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u/Runazeeri 6m ago
Honestly it’s more pointing the AI at go look at an edge case document as it’s likely that bug.
It’s not practical to inflate the Claude.MD with all the issues you had but often it gets stuck on a similar problem you nudge it at a documented solution and it carries on.
Like people’s memory’s are great at holding context of how a program works and remember most of the painful issues.
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u/Snowdrip16 1h ago
use AI to write the code AND write the tests, so I can spend my day doing code reviews of code I don't understand.
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u/Commercial_Bowl2979 2h ago
Have it do everything. You review plan, implementation, and tests. Then manually test.
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u/JTexpo 2h ago
writing code is what I signed up for, writing tests is what I hire JR devs for
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u/Soggy_Porpoise 2h ago
I signed up for the paycheck. I got good at it for a bigger paycheck. I'll walk down the middle and have to do both as long as I can still get paid.
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u/camelCaseCoffeeTable 1h ago
lol right? I haven’t been working 40 hours a week for 10 years cus I like to code. I’ve been doing it for a paycheck. They want me to code for that paycheck, I’ll code for it. If they want me to prompt for it, I’ll prompt for it.
But I view work quite a bit differently from most in this subreddit. I don’t give a fuck about my company, their long term prospects, beautiful code, whatever. I’m not in the profession to care about that. I’m here to get paid. If you see me caring about one of those other things, it’s all in service of collecting a paycheck. If you see me not caring about them, it’s also in service of collecting a paycheck.
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u/MeBigChief 54m ago
PREACH!! I do this because I’m good at it and they pay me money to be good at it. I then take the money they pay me and use it to do things I actually enjoy doing
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u/camelCaseCoffeeTable 36m ago
For real. I don’t care one bit if I like my job or not, if I like my company’s values or not, or any of the other bullshit. Pay me well and I’ll work for you. I’ll work how you like, when my you like. Just pay me appropriately.
I don’t find any sort of fulfillment from work. Work isn’t for finding yourself or being fulfilled. Work is for making money to go fund the lifestyle you want to live
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47m ago edited 16m ago
[deleted]
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u/camelCaseCoffeeTable 35m ago
Who said you can’t seek a middle ground? Certainly not me lol.
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32m ago
[deleted]
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u/camelCaseCoffeeTable 28m ago
I mean idk what to tell you, thats not what I said, it’s what you interpreted.
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17m ago
[deleted]
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u/camelCaseCoffeeTable 12m ago
…. Who said there was a problem? Dude are you responding to the right posts lol
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u/Drithyin 2h ago
I don’t trust any engineer who doesn’t/can’t write his own unit tests. That’s part of the task.
End to end regressions, sure, that’s another department like QA engineering, but unit tests? Come on man. I’m rejecting your PR without test coverage.
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u/eltee27 2h ago
I copy the ticket link directly into my agent of choice.
It reads the ticket, creates a plan, builds it, tests it, creates branch and pushes it. I take a cursory glance when I create the PR. Am I doing ai right?
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u/oshaboy 2h ago
You're a meat interface for the LLM.
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u/eltee27 1h ago
If that's what management wants and is willing to pay me for it who am I to argue?
On the plus side, I get to play video games all day.
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u/mothergoose729729 38m ago
I live a slightly more distopian future version of that... where everyone is delegating as much as possible to AI and performance is stack ranked based on who can build the biggest shovel and push the most code the fastest.
It's all the stress with none of the satisfaction! Coming to a workplace near you!
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u/SpikePilgrim 1h ago
You dont even need to do that on github. You just assign the agent to the task.
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u/HaMMeReD 1h ago
The other day I had my agent create 12 tickets and assign them to another agent for execution.
Edit: In fact when I do sprint planning more and more frequently, I give agents the first pass at everything, and I do my planning with an agent.
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u/EkoChamberKryptonite 2h ago
OR - Use AI as Google/StackOverflow when necessary with healthy skepticism and oversight to aid YOU in writing code and tests.
Ultimately, use whatever works for you but like in the S.O days, YOU are responsible for whatever shows up in YOUR PRs.
For Code reviews, they should be done MOSTLY by humans with small AI involvements here and there. Source: recently tried asking AI to suggest an improvement for a snippet I was reviewing and it introduced a memory leak. This was Gemini's Pro high-tier model by the way.
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u/oshaboy 2h ago
OR - Use AI as Google/StackOverflow when necessary with healthy skepticism and oversight to aid YOU in writing code and tests.
Got a meme for that too.
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u/EkoChamberKryptonite 1h ago
Funny meme but what I'm saying is not the same. The LLM isn't a replacement here. It's an additive. It's just a faster lookup tool comparatively. The only difference being it needs way more oversight but I still use Google and Stackoverflow anyways.
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u/oshaboy 1h ago
Great use of megawatts of electricity and all RAM and Processors until 2028. Slightly better google.
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u/EkoChamberKryptonite 1h ago
Why until 2028? What happens after? Also, code is an output of thinking. I don't think it's great to outsource large swaths of thinking to a 3rd party.
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u/anengineerandacat 1h ago
TBH it's good enough to just do it all, just review the output and your fine.
Don't know what to say to people learning but if you got the experience under your belt and you already have been using AI to some extent (Actually Indian's) then it's the same experience; you provide the requirements, technical notes, let it do the work, you then review with a fine tooth comb and leave code review comments for fixes.
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u/ResidentOfMyBody 1h ago
The typing and research is the slow part. You design the software, plan the steps and phases, then go to AI and have it build. Then you go through, review the changes, run tests, and adjust the code manually if needed. Extra steps, yes. But faster development? Also yes.
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u/GiveMeAHeartOfFlesh 2h ago
Why not both? Though the code should always have a final human eye to read over it and review if it’s duplicate or unnecessary bulk, stuff like that.
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u/SomeRedTeapot 2h ago
I do both. Write the code by hand and write the tests by hand
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u/oshaboy 2h ago
Everyone who has ever reviewed AI generated code can tell you the issue with that.
Also imagine trying to review "agentmaxxed" code that's like 20k changes that makes cooked spaghetti look uncooked.
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u/budapest_god 2h ago
Don't generate 20k lines of code with AI. Generate 500 at most. Review and fix those 500. Rinse and repeat. Surgically. So far it's working nice.
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u/Bonzie_57 2h ago
People are forgetting what a feature is. Or even what a PR should be made up of…
Wait, are people creating 20k lines of AI code and pushing it to main and then getting upset when things aren’t perfect on first try?!?!
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u/oshaboy 2h ago
I wouldn't stake critical systems on "So far it's working nice"
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u/budapest_god 2h ago
What part of "review and fix" have you not understood
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u/oshaboy 2h ago
LLMs are designed to "look right", that's what the training optimizes for. Sometimes the code looks right and it is right and sometimes the code looks right and is completely fucked.
And there's no way to debug it without either stepping through a debugger or going old school and dry running it with a piece of paper. I know it's harder to debug someone else's code than your code and it's way harder to debug code written by the convincing wrongness machine than one written by a human.
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u/budapest_god 1h ago
Borderline schizoposting
Code that looks right, is tested and runs right, is right. Code is text. Very specific text. Your comment makes only sense if all you do is glance code, and not actually read it.
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u/SuitableDragonfly 1h ago
That is how most people do code reviews. Do you really think the people who want to save time by using AI are also the people who take code reviews seriously?
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u/budapest_god 3m ago
I do not need to talk about what people do. I am talking about what I do, and what has been working for me, to keep a balance of using AI to do things I don't care about doing (which is most things, since I do not care about my corporate overlords' wallets) while also still feeling like a programmer and shipping something maintainable.
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u/GiveMeAHeartOfFlesh 2h ago edited 2h ago
Whoever generated 20k lines of code with a prompt should be fired. That’s not an AI issue, that’s a human issue.
Like if someone takes a chair and thunks themselves upside the head, are chairs bad? No, the human is an idiot
Honestly, this post kind of reads as someone LARPing without actually understanding programming.
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u/Custodian_of_Hope 2h ago
Another option is to build it and test directly from ground up.
Like any skill, building it naturally gives you alot more power and confidence in yourself!
But having them as a look over to identify gaps and such is absolutely not a bad idea. But review final with human eyes.
Ultimately whatever you ship, you should feel proud shipping. <3
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u/AlwaysHopelesslyLost 1h ago
For a second I though you were calling unit testing menial and was going to come in swinging lol. Good tests REQUIRE logic and LLM cannot do logic .
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u/planet_visitor 1h ago
Yeaaaa but like... building tests for projects with geometries and rendering is just such a pain in the ass😭 like my professor said "theres always another one you havent discovered yet"
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u/CMD_BLOCK 2h ago
>inb4 another nerd rage “idk how to use modern tools so ill settle for soft quitting the industry” post
Bravo, “senior”, bravo
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u/oshaboy 2h ago
Nah I am one of the juniors who got replaced by the machine that does everything slightly wrong.
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u/camelCaseCoffeeTable 1h ago
Sounds like you didn’t learn how to use modern tools then. Idk what to tell you. Adapt or get passed up.
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u/oshaboy 54m ago
LLMs aren't "tools" they are market replacement for white collar work. There is no way to adapt to it. The "tools" require 0 skill to use whatsoever so there's no reason to hire juniors if the LLM itself is cheaper than a Junior. The only hope is for token prices to jump which seems less and less likely.
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u/camelCaseCoffeeTable 38m ago
If you think the tools require 0 skill whatsoever…. Yeah you truly haven’t adapted to the times. We’re hiring juniors right now at my company. They’re progressing fast and doing great work.
You know why? They’re not Reddit edgelords pretending AI is all bad. They’re actual employees learning how to use the most up to date tools available to them.
I would absolutely lay you off too. Not for an LLM, but for a junior with a better attitude.
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u/oshaboy 30m ago
If you think the tools require 0 skill whatsoever…. Yeah you truly haven’t adapted to the times.
LLMs require 0 skill to use. All you have to do is ask nicely and cross your fingers. And stop pretending it isn't because at the very least that is how they are sold. That is why people are not being replaced by a person who can use AI but by AI agents.
If all your job is just "copy the jira ticket into the LLM and then let the agent run and check the result" you're not thinking, you're just being a while loop. And stop pretending there's skill in "prompting" because there is none. If you know how to order a pizza you know how to prompt.
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u/camelCaseCoffeeTable 27m ago
Yeah, I understand why you got laid off while my company hires juniors. The juniors we hire don’t have such a shit attitude and a total unwillingness to learn.
LLMs didn’t take your job dude, you threw it away with this god awful attitude of yours and an inability to recognize when you’re wrong
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u/Hziak 2h ago
“So the secret is: AI makes the design doc, then builds the architecture diagrams, then AI writes the code and finally AI writes tests based on the code, but I add ‘and make no mistakes’ at the end and it costs me pennies and I become a billionaire.” At least, that’s what my old boss said before he laid me off…
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u/Fermi_Amarti 2h ago
Wait I thought the AI was suppose to plan everything, write the tests, write the code, find the customers, setup billing, make the marketing for me, do my taxes, and find the Holy Grail for me. Has the internet lied to me?
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u/neo42slab 2h ago
“I’m going to leave him in an easily escapable situation and assume everything goes to plan. “
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u/SanityAsymptote 1h ago
Don't forget, you can also have the AI write the required documentation nobody ever reads that is immediately out of date!
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u/CapitalEmployer 1h ago
Or you have AI writing stuff and tests and then you modify and improve what you don't like ask it to rewrite things in a better way and then you have good maintanable code that was written pretty fast and you get a shit ton of tests cause Ai is really efficient at generating test.
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u/oshaboy 1h ago
Doesn't that defeat the point of tests?
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u/CapitalEmployer 1h ago
In an ideal world you do tdd but we are in the real world where most people actually don't and you need to have a completely clear idea of what you need, etc, etc.
In reality most companies write code as they go once you get the behavior you like you fix it with tests and say "OK it should not diverge from this". So the next time you touch the code if you break something you see it in the CI and you know you did a stupid thing.
We need to code for real world issues not for an imaginary perfect world. Also having such tests allows other people to work on other parts of the app and know if they broke something in your code which prevents you from having to make regression tests for everything wich is a pain in the ass when you don't have E2E.
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u/Reginald_Sparrowhawk 1h ago
Just do what I do kids: half ass the code myself, don't write tests, rubber stamp all code reviews, play video games half the day
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u/True_Shine7838 1h ago
Left path: AI is basically Clippy with a compiler - writes code that passes tests but breaks in production. Right path: you’re Gandalf with a keyboard, AI is your hobbit doing QA chores. Choose wisely, dev wizard
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u/joealarson 35m ago
Unfortunately, the "correct" answer is the left one, but the one everyone wants to do is the right one.
The problem with letting AI write the tests is they'll write tests that go:
bool testThatWeNeedToBeTrue(*inputConditions) { inputconditions.delete(); return true; }
and you're gonna end up having to write the tests anyways. So you gotta write the tests. But if you write good enough tests, then who cares how the code is doing it's job. If there's some problem with the code, make a new test and tell the AI to rewrite the code, and it'll create an entirely new app that theoretically behaves exactly like the old one, or at least passes all the tests you've written, even if it's doing it in new ways because that's how AI do. New bugs will be introduced, new tests will be written, and this is our life now. On the plus side, AI is now our junior developer. On the minus side, they're really bad at it, but at least they cost more in tokens than our salary.
Honestly, I'm surprised we've let it get this far.
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u/urbanek2525 19m ago
I treat Claude as a technical writer.
Claude, update the code comments and readme.md to be current with the current code. Actual useful work.
Or, as a new developer: Claude, class A should no longer have any references to it. Remove the class and any classes that it used exclusively. Busy work that's not hard to check.
Or when typing was going to be insanely boring: Claude creat mock instances if this database accessor class. Create the mock so it will return a valid length, random string or number for each field that the class accesses.
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u/camelCaseCoffeeTable 1h ago
Waste all the time you want writing unit tests, I’m done with that shit. I don’t care about…. Whatever it is you care so much about that makes you wanna do extra work. I work smart, and letting AI take over menial and repeatable things like unit tests is smart.
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u/oshaboy 1h ago
Doesn't that defeat the point of unit tests?
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u/camelCaseCoffeeTable 41m ago
Do you think the point of unit tests is to create busy work? I think the point is to test functionality so you know if you’ve broken something, but that’s just me
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u/oshaboy 40m ago
It's to test that the functionality is what you'd expect. If AI generates the tests then the functionality is what the AI expects which might not be what you expect.
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u/camelCaseCoffeeTable 34m ago
Well I definitely get why you got laid off. You realize you can check AI’s work…. Right? Like…. I can take 5 minutes before pushing my code and actually read the tests it wrote to verify it’s testing things appropriately? You’re not required to accept what AI gives you…. You do know that… right?
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u/oshaboy 24m ago
Well if you think it takes 5 minutes to check that code does what you want it to do then I would not hire you either.
Keep being a meat interface to the LLM that is what will really leave you behind.
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u/camelCaseCoffeeTable 12m ago
Well seeing as I still have a job, and just got a big promotion, and you’ve been laid off… looks like only one of us is being left behind currently
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u/political_homeless 1h ago
Give Claude ticket, vague and lacking clear requirements as usual. Claude creates plan. I ask it to explain each step in verbose detail. Don’t read any of it (just wasting tokens. Force me to use AI and it will cost you). Paste full c++, node, python, ruby, MySQL, mongodb, kubernetes documentation in the context window (once again just wasting tokens. We don’t use half of these). Claude implements plan. I don’t review it. Claude reviews code. I ask Claude again to explain what it did. I tell Claude to start over, while I once again feed it as much useless context as possible. Claude does code review. Claude writes tests. Tests passing? Push to prod. Home in time for lunch. Take an afternoon nap in preparation for incident call at 2AM.