HACKER Q&A
📣 softwaredoug

Anyone else unemotional about AI coding?


I’m neither outraged nor panicking

I’m fine if 100% of my code is actually from Claude

Most of the time, I like to use Claude Code to make targeted changes along with the tests. I try the feature, notice issues with the change, and clarify with better tests along the way.

Occasionally I give it a more ambitious task, but the variance increases, and much depends on whether I’ve given the right guardrails. Like recently I upgraded a pandas plugin to Pandas 3.0, but it had heeaaavy amounts of testing.

In both cases my software brain is still fully on and I care about the same things I used to care about. I’m just not wasting time on dumb human mistakes. Why would I? I have a predictive model of language next to me

I do still write a bit of code (like in a Jupyter notebook). Sure it’s a tad rusty, but it’s perfectly fine. I don’t yet feel completely decayed in my ability to appreciate code.

In the end we have always had to go up/down levels of abstraction and not get too attached to one tool. I see using an LLM the same, you can use it in tight, low variance changes. Or go big with bigger swings. Sometimes you vibe code a whole app to test PMF and create a demo. Sometimes you’re really fine tuning 10 lines of code for performance and correctness.


  👤 codingdave Accepted Answer ✓
I find that most of the people I talk to feel about the same as this. There are vocal minorities at the extremes, and there are people producing and falling for hype, but if you get away from online discussions and just talk to people working in the industry, AI is just part of the modern toolbox. Everyone is finding their own groove with it, which may or may not match what anyone else says or does.