Using AI to code and maintain systems.

[willhub]

I'm a bit conflicted and I don't think I've fully embraced it, I always feel like it's wrong, but at the same time I've never really been good with coding, it has never "clicked".

Not sure if it's my mind, but I struggle to memorise in debth things like code, I've never even managed to remember a single song actually, I really struggle with these sort of things, I was learning php in uni and it never clicked.

Now I was dabbling with VB in excel and managed to build an app at work to help me with calls, this was just using google search to troubleshoot issues.

Now with AI, I've been able to really 'build' some great tools for me, or rather 'direct' the construction of them.

I've built a really good budget planner that interfaces with google scripts so it stores it in a database, it's got a built in calendar, savings goals, interest calculation, looks sleek, it's something I'd have never been able to do previously.

At work the past week I've built a web page that's essentially call structure, sleek and modern looking, interactive, has built in prompts that pop up, note generatore etc.. it's about 3000 lines of code long, again, without AI I'd not be able to do it.

At home, I've managed to set up a server with Docker with various things such as Plex on there, again, something I'd have struggled to do before.

So AI has allowed me to do a lot of things I'd have not really been able to grasp prior.

Thoughts? Anyone else in a similar position and found it of great benefit.

Should I just ignore the doubt, let it rip and embrace it?

 

[willhub]

I've been using sonnet claude 4 with copilot at work to help fix bugs and build issues and for some stuff it's genuinely been amazing as it's saved me time, frustration and scrolling through stack overflow lol. Other times it seems to go off on a tangent and I have to reign it back in a bit, but yeah it definitely has its uses.

Indeed, I have been using co-pilot at work, it seems more temperamental than co-pilot on my personal machines and after some time it's clear I just need to start a new chat as it's completely lost it and rather than continuing troubleshooting could go off on a tangent about making sandwiches .

 

[willhub]

@mid_gen - Indeed, I'm not under the illusion I'm learning to code, hence my line "Now with AI, I've been able to really 'build' some great tools for me, or rather 'direct' the construction of them.", but, I do think you CAN learn to code with it, if you use it specifically for this purpose, rather than build something with it instructing it, instead exploring code, triangulating this with traditional means as well.

As for performance issues, perhaps, but for a website I don't think that is much of a concern with the power of current PCs, if I was developing some sort of system or a full on application, or game programming etc... I could fully appreciate that performance considerations are top of the list. (Well given the state of a lot of games, perhaps it isn't top of the list).


@Vestas

I'm wondering if it's worth using my 4080 for a local LLM but not sure the benefits because it'll be much slower I assume?

 

[willhub]

If you're interested in trying out a coding agent on the cheap (i.e. free), the latest Mistral model is free for a limited time, with their 'Vibe' CLI coding agent.

I've been using it a bit in parallel with Codex and Claude and it's pretty decent, fast.

Is that a local model? For local people I assume.