7mo ago

Here’s how I use LLMs to help me write code | Simon Willison

simonwillison.net Here’s how I use LLMs to help me write code

Online discussions about using Large Language Models to help write code inevitably produce comments from developers who’s experiences have been disappointing. They often ask what they’re doing wrong—how come some …

I appreciate Simon's balanced take on how LLMs can enhance a project when used responsibly.

I'm curious, though—what are this community's opinions on the use of LLMs in programming?

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16 comments

My experience is that use of an LLM is an amplifier to your output but generally at no better quality that you can produce on your own.
The skilled developer who uses an LLM and checks its work will get a productivity boost without a loss in quality.
The unskilled developer who copy/pastes code from stackover can get even more sloppy code into production by using an LLM.
- It took me a bit of time to figure out what an llm is good at. Because for most tasks it's just a plain waste of time
  
  I've recently been asked to help some folks on the biz side automate tasks "with ai" and I've had very good results having gemini write apps script to do automations via google sheets.
  For example HR wanted this for workshops they run "Write an Apps Script function to use the employee email list on sheet2 to create random teams of 4 and record the teams on sheet3. Use the template on sheet1 to write an email notification to each team and then send it."
  Worked on the first try and the code is decent.
  
  Google tools working well with google tools. That's a handy!

16 comments