9 ms·

AI coding made me faster, but I can't code to music anymore

242 points by _praf 1y ago

fearface 1y ago
I let the AI first generate a outline of how it would do it as markdown. I adapt this and then let it add details into additional markdown files about technical stuff, eg how to use a certain sdk and so on. I correct these all. And then I let the AI generate the classes of the outline one by one.
johnfn 1y ago
I'm curious which models the OP is using that produce code so quickly and accurately? I mostly use Claude Code, which is accurate, but it isn't very fast. I certainly don't feel like I'm producing piles of code with it.
nxpnsv 1y ago
If the price is music, then it’s too expensive.
- bravetraveler 1y ago
  This is why I reject every Teams call
  - nxpnsv 1y ago
    they can't hear if it is them or music on my phones...
  - hn_throw2025 1y ago
    I use Zoom rather than Teams, but have no problems playing background music with Spotify. Just have to make sure that “share computer audio” is not enabled when sharing your screen. Also, when I was using the mic of my bluetooth headphones, any music played would be mono and lower quality due to bluetooth bandwidth. Since moving to using a dedicated mic on my desk, the bluetooth headphones are output only and back to good quality stereo (MacOSX and Bose QC35).
    - bravetraveler 1y ago
      My position isn't due to incapability
    - tomjakubowski 1y ago
      Not too long ago, I installed a system mixer/EQ on my work computer so I could mix ambient-ish music with Zoom calls while giving space to the (meeting room's) vocals. It works great.
      - hn_throw2025 1y ago
        Sounds great… I’m a hobbyist audio engineer so can’t resist tinkering. My mic input goes to Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack which allows a chain of VST plugins to be used. I use a gentle noise gate, followed by Supertone Clear. This is excellent for removing any noise mixed in with my voice. It handles the dehumidifier near me with ease, and can also handle the portable aircon on heatwave days, which can be very loud. Next in the chain is some gentle and transparent compression, and then the output goes to the free Blackhole virtual audio device. Zoom then picks up that device. Tweaked Zoom settings and “original sound for musicians” button then stops it from compromising the sound as much as possible. I am tempted to have some EQ plugin tweaks too, but I love the character of the mic so I don’t mess around with it. EQing the music played sounds interesting. I’ll look at the options. I tend to just have it at a level low enough that I can hear all speakers on the call.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- codr7 1y ago
  Robots don't listen to music, I'm pretty sure that's the longer term plan.
triyambakam 1y ago
I dunno, it is a bit different leveraging a model, but I still listen to music coding. It does depend on the music. I need to listen to really brutal stuff (Arsis, Thyrfing, Dissection, etc.) to focus, though
akokanka 1y ago
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p0w3n3d 1y ago
Absolutely—I feel like I can ship at a crazy velocity now, like I have a team of interns at my disposal to code up my every silly demand. It reminds me this scene: `Cut my eggs` `Your eggs are cut sir!' `Cut my milk' `I can't sir, it's liquid' `Imbecile! Freeze it, then cut it!'
- zwnow 1y ago
  > Absolutely—I feel like I can ship at a crazy velocity now, like I have a team of interns at my disposal to code up my every silly demand. I also wonder what type of simple CRUD apps people build that have such a performance gain? They must be building well understood projects or be incredible slow developers for LLMs to have such an impact, as I cant relate to this at all.
  - shermantanktop 1y ago
    Different people have different jobs doing different things? Doesn’t seem shocking to me. But I certainly wouldn’t assume that other people’s jobs are simple or boring just because they don’t look like yours.
    - zwnow 1y ago
      Given that AI tools do not deliver well on barely understood fields one can only assume people work on simple things. Which is absolutely no shame. But people shouldn't expect these gains for their job if they work in less understood environments. Most non CRUD AI code implementations are flawed/horrendous.
      - shermantanktop 1y ago
        That’s right, it’s good at things that are common. If your job is mostly filled with uncommon tasks, it won’t be good at helping you. But for the rest of us, who have a mix of common/boring and uncommon/interesting tasks, accelerating the common ones means spending more time (proportionally) on less common tasks. Unfortunately we don’t seem to great at classifying tasks as common or uncommon, and there are bored engineers who make complex solutions just to keep their brain occupied.
october8140 1y ago
What kind of projects are people doing that are feeling the increased velocity?
- elros 1y ago
  Whenever I need some sort of quick data pipeline to modify some sort of file into another format, or do some batch transformation, or transform some sort of interface description into another syntax, or things like that, that would normally require me to craft a grep, awk, tr, etc pipeline, I can normally simply paste a sample of the data and with a human language description get what I need. If it’s not working well I can break up the steps in smaller steps. In my experience, it seems the people who have bad results have been trying to get the AI to do the reasoning. I feel like if I do the reasoning, I can offload menial tasks to the AI, and little annoying things that would take one or two hours start to take a few minutes. That very quickly adds up to some real savings.
  - theshrike79 1y ago
    AI is a force multiplier for experienced people. The ones who know what they want to do, how it should be done, but can't really be arsed to read the man pages or API docs of all the tools required. These people can craft a prompt (prompt engineering :P) for the LLM that gets good results pretty much directly. LLMs are garbage in garbage out. Sometimes the statistical average is enough, sometimes you need to give it more details to use the available tools correctly. Like the fact that `fd` has the `-exec` and `--exec-batch` parameters, there's no need to use xargs or pipes with it.
- staticautomatic 1y ago
  I’m building a moderately complex system with FastAPI + PG + Prefect executing stuff on Cloud Run, and so long as I invest in getting the architecture and specs right, it’s really a dream how much of the heavy lifting and grunt work I can leave to Claude Code. And thank god I don’t have to manage Alembic by myself.
- energy123 1y ago
  I'm slowed down (but perhaps sped up overall due to lower rewrites/maintenance costs) on important bits because the space of possibilities/capabilities is expanded, and I'm choosing to make use of that for some load bearing pieces that need to be durable and high quality (along the metrics that I care about). It takes extra time to search that space properly rather than accept the first thing that compiles and passes tests. So arguably equal or even lower velocity, but definitely improved results compared to what I used to be capable of, and I'm making that trade-off consciously for certain bits. However that's the current state of affairs, who knows what it'll look like in 1-2 years.
shmerl 1y ago
Do things the way you like instead of saying "I miss it".
excalibur 1y ago
The answers are in the footnote, switching to frontend is the way.
DevKoala 1y ago
I’d probably drop GenAI before I dropped the music that allows me to focus. Also, at this stage of my career, I mainly code for fun, and blasting music across the house is part of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrA8Pi6nol8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrA8Pi6nol8
globular-toast 1y ago
I don't listen to music while doing code reviews either. It also happens to be my least favourite part of the job. The LLM agents just make it feel like I'm constantly code reviewing and I don't think it makes me more productive overall.
icetank 1y ago
My theory as a none scientist is that you need a different part of the brain to think about AI prompts compared to coding yourself. Or maybe that whatever though process you need for coding intersects with the part that enjoys listening to music. And because of that intersection you can't focus on both at the same time.
ai_assisted_dev 1y ago
It definitely changed how I get into flow state for me. But music still works, if not even better when coding with AI (listening to: techno, electro, edm). Generally my flow is to sit down, make a small plan of what I will work on, fire off 2 agents to work on different parts of the code that are lower hanging fruits (takes 2-10 mins for them to complete). Then while this is busy, map out some bigger tasks. Agents finish, I queue them up with new low hanging fruits, while I architect the much bigger tasks, then fire that off -> Review smaller tasks. It really is a dance, but flow is much easier achieved when I do get into it; hours really just melt together. The important thing to do is to put my phone away, and block all and any social media or sites I frequent, because its easy to get distracted when agents aren just producing code and you're sitting on the sidelines.
- AaronAPU 1y ago
  I did that for 2 hours yesterday and then scrapped everything the agents did because it didn’t work and left everything in disarray.
  - ai_assisted_dev 1y ago
    It takes quite the practice. At least I have been shipping stuff to users like this for the entire year.
    - AaronAPU 1y ago
      I’ve had success as well. But was sharing the negative experience. It’s a mix for sure.
- imiric 1y ago
  That's not the same flow state experienced by programmers. While programming, it's possible to get into a trance-like state where the program's logic is fully loaded and visible in your mind, and your fingers become an extension of your mind that wire you directly to the machine. This allows you to modify the program essentially at the speed of thought, with practically zero chance of producing buggy code. The programmer effectively becomes a self-correcting human interpreter. Interrupting someone in this state is incredibly disruptive, since all the context and momentum is lost, and getting back into the state takes time and focus. What you're describing is a general workflow. You can be focused on what you're doing, but there's no state loaded into memory that makes you more efficient. Interruptions are not disruptive, and you can pick up exactly where you left off with ease. In fact, you're constantly being interrupted by those agents running in the background, when they finish and you give them more work. This is a multitasking state, not flow. So the article is correct. It's not possible to get into a flow state while working with ML tools. This is because it is an entirely different activity from programming that triggers different neural pathways.
drmpeg 1y ago
I've never bothered listening to music while coding. If I'm in the zone, it's entirely extraneous and I don't even hear it. At my first job in Silicon Valley, I used to code right on the production floor totally oblivious to what was going on.
sublinear 1y ago
> For frontend code and my side projects, AI coding seems to be even more effective and actually reduces the cognitive load, winning in all dimensions. Can we see this frontend code? For research purposes, of course.
mac-mc 1y ago
I found I couldn't listen to music with words in them while coding. Maybe try wordless music, or music that is in a language you don't understand.
- mckn1ght 1y ago
  Exactly, came here to say this, it happened long ago for me. Classical, jazz, electronica… all great for coding and vibing alike, for me.
- winrid 1y ago
  JimTV on YT has great programming music.
- _9ptr 1y ago
  That's why metal works well here.
iamflimflam1 1y ago
He’s talking about being in a state of flow - it’s a lovely feeling when you can get into it.
- randcraw 1y ago
  CAN you get into a state of flow when directing an LLM? I don't have a lot of experience using LLMs to code, but it always feels like I'm coaching a junior staff member. No way to flow that, IMHO.
  - bluefirebrand 1y ago
    I tend to agree. Even the LLM autocomplete in Cursor feels so intrusive that I cannot get into flow when it is turned on
conductr 1y ago
It’s the opposite for me. I’ve never been able to listen to music while coding as my thoughts would drown it out or it would keep me from thinking so I’d shut it off. However if I am vibe coding my brain is basically idle and can handle some music
energy123 1y ago
> writing a blurb that contains the same mental model Good nugget. Effective prompting, aside from context curation, is about providing the LLM with an approximation of your world model and theory, not just a local task description. This includes all your unstated assumptions, interaction between system and world, open questions, edge cases, intents, best practices, and so on. Basically distill the shape of the problem from all possible perspectives, so there's an all-domain robustness to the understanding of what you want. A simple stream of thoughts in xml tags that you type out in a quasi-delirium over 2 minutes can be sufficient. I find this especially important with gpt-5, which is good at following instructions to the point of pedantry. Without it, the model can tunnel vision on a particular part of the task request.
- ForHackernews 1y ago
  Hard to tell if this is parody or not but I chuckled at the idea of replacing tedious programming with a "simple stream" of handwritten XML.
  - energy123 1y ago
    It's not parody. I'm trying to provide the LLM with what's missing, which is a theory of how the system fits into the world: https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/Naur.pdf https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/Naur.pdf Without this it defaults to being ignorant about the trade-offs that you care about, or the relevant assumptions you're making which you think are obvious but really aren't. The "simple stream" aspect is that each task I give to the LLM is narrowly scoped, and I don't want to put all aspects of the relevant theory that pertains just to that one narrow task into a more formal centralized doc. It's better off as an ephemeral part of the prompt that I can delete after the task is done. But I also do have more formal docs that describe the shared parts of the theory that every prompt will need access to, which is fed in as part of the normal context.
    - jiggunjer 1y ago
      So like: <prompt> <intent>Generate a metaphor-rich essay on the fragility of digital memory in the age of infinite storage</intent> <assumptions> <tech>LLMs understand metaphor but may default to literal interpretations unless nudged</tech> <audience>Reader is tech-savvy but emotionally attuned</audience> <bias>We romanticize loss and impermanence; permanence is sterile</bias> <style>Poetic, but not florid. Think Calvino meets cyberpunk.</style> </assumptions> <worldModel> <digitalMemory> <definition>Not just data retention, but emotional proxies, identity scaffolding</definition> <paradox>We remember too much, and thus forget how to forget</paradox> <analogy>Digital memory is a hoarder’s attic with perfect climate control</analogy> </digitalMemory> <humanMemory> <contrast>Fuzzy, selective, narrative-driven</contrast> <value>Its gaps are what make it beautiful</value> </humanMemory> <systemInteraction> <modelRole>LLM is not just a scribe, but a co-dreamer</modelRole> <risk>Model may over-index on coherence, losing the emotional fray</risk> </systemInteraction> </worldModel> <openQuestions> <q>Can forgetting be designed into digital systems?</q> <q>Is nostalgia a compression algorithm?</q> <q>What does it mean to "misremember" in a world of perfect logs?</q> </openQuestions> <edgeCases> <case>Model generates a dystopia instead of a melancholic tone</case> <case>Model literalizes metaphors (e.g., "clouds forget")</case> <case>Model assumes user wants a solution, not a meditation</case> </edgeCases> <bestPractices> <tip>Use metaphor as scaffolding, not decoration</tip> <tip>Let ambiguity breathe—don’t resolve every tension</tip> <tip>Favor rhythm over precision in sentence structure</tip> </bestPractices> <meta> <duration>Prompt typed in 2 minutes, no edits</duration> <mood>Sleep-deprived but lucid</mood> <goal>To make the model feel like it’s dreaming with me</goal> </meta> </prompt>
foo42 1y ago
The tradeoff of higher velocity for less enjoyment may feel less welcome when it becomes the new baseline and the expectation of employers / customers. The excitement of getting a day's work done in an hour* (for example) is likely to fade once the expectation is to produce 8 of such old-days output per day. I suspect it doesn't matter how we feel about it mind you. If it's going to happen it will, whether we enjoy the gains first or not. * setting aside whether this is currently possible, or whether we're actually trading away more quality that we realise.
- darkwater 1y ago
  > The tradeoff of higher velocity for less enjoyment may feel less welcome when it becomes the new baseline and the expectation of employers / customers. The excitement of getting a day's work done in an hour* (for example) is likely to fade once the expectation is to produce 8 of such old-days output per day. That's why we should be against it but hey, we can provide more value to shareholders!
- latexr 1y ago
  > The excitement of getting a day's work done in an hour* (for example) is likely to fade once the expectation is to produce 8 of such old-days output per day. That dumb attitude (which I understand you’re criticising) of “more more more” always reminds me of Lenny from the Simpsons moving fast through the yellow light, with nowhere to go. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR10t-B9nYY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR10t-B9nYY > I suspect it doesn't matter how we feel about it mind you. If it's going to happen it will, whether we enjoy the gains first or not. That is quite the defeatist attitude. Society becoming shittier isn’t inevitable, though inaction and giving up certainly helps that along.
  - furyofantares 1y ago
    > That is quite the defeatist attitude. Society becoming shittier isn’t inevitable, though inaction and giving up certainly helps that along. The hypothetical that we're 8x as productive but the work isn't as fun isn't "society becoming shittier".
mckn1ght 1y ago
It’s a lot more high-level executive functioning now, instead of grinding through endless syntax and boilerplate. Easy to mindlessly code to music, much harder to think about what you want to do next, and evaluate if the result you just got is what you really wanted.
ahoka 1y ago
From the masterpiece, Tragedy of the Man, describing the future where everything is done in the name of efficiency: THE GREYBEARD You left your workroom in great disarray. MICHELANGELO Because I had to fabricate the chair-legs To the quality as poor as it can be. I appeal’d for long, let me modificate, Let me engrave some ornaments on it. They did not permit. I wanted as a chance The chair-back to change but all was in vain. I was very close to be a madman And I left the pains and my workroom, too. (stands back) THE GREYBEARD You get house arrest for this disorder And will not enjoy this nice and warm day.
- danielscrubs 1y ago
  Can you explain why it is a masterpiece? Im just curious.
grugagag 1y ago
Killed all the fun?
dexterlagan 1y ago
This resonates with me, a lot. Few months ago I wrote about my initial thoughts here: https://www.cleverthinkingsoftware.com/programmers-will-be-replaced-by-people-with-ideas/ https://www.cleverthinkingsoftware.com/programmers-will-be-r... Things have changed quite a bit since, but I'm glad they changed for the better. Or so it seems.
tamimio 1y ago
That's an argument I had with a friend last year. I told him generative AI will make writing code easier, but the life of whoever is writing it far worse. Because writing code without using AI is done with some sort of due diligence: you memorize some stuff, look up other stuff in the docs or online, and you take some time actually solving the problem you have. If you succeed, you would've spent the needed time at YOUR pace, with an intrinsic reward of feeling good that you achieved something. With AI, on the other hand, you are in semi-cheat mode, throwing prompts after prompts and now you are trying to catch someone/something else's pace, zero reward, and more mentally exhausted. The best approach is to use AI only when you are stuck and looking for potential solutions, but we all know that is not going to happen unless you have extreme self-control.
- daemin 1y ago
  Kind of sounds like using LLMs to generate code is like eating USA junk/fast food. It is quick and tasty, and you get a dopamine rush from that sugar and fat in your body, but it leaves you feeling unsatisfied and unsatiated.
jwr 1y ago
In my experience, listening to music engages the creative part of your brain and severely limits what you can do, but this is not readily apparent. If I listen to music, I can spend an hour CODING YEAH! and be all smug and satisfied, until I turn the music off and discover that everything I've coded is unnecessary and there is an easier way to achieve the same goal. I just didn't see it, because the creative part of my brain was busy listening to music. From the post, it sounds like the author discovered the same thing: if you use AI to perform menial tasks (like coding), all that is left is thinking creatively, and you can't do that while listening to music.
- shaan7 1y ago
  I describe it slightly differently. Similar to what the author described, I'll first plan and solve the problem in my head, lay out a broad action plan, and then put on music to implement it. But, for me the music serves something akin to clocks in microcontrollers (and even CPUs), it provides a flow that my brain syncs to. I'm not even paying attention to the music itself, but it stops me from getting distracted and focus on the task at hand.
- leptons 1y ago
  I'm sorry but that's nonsense. Listening to music is not a creative process, it does not at all take away creativity from somewhere else. I've never, ever, ever once in 40 years of coding listened to music while coding and later found the code "unnecessary" or anything of the sort. I engage in many creative pursuits outside of coding, always while listening to music, and I can confidently say that music has never once interfered in the process or limited the result in any way.
- sfn42 1y ago
  I just think it's distracting. I get caught up listening to the lyrics and kind of mentally singing along, stuff like that which disrupts my thought and distracts from what I actually want to be thinking about. I think this is individual, I have the same problem in social settings - if I'm having a conversation and a song I like is playing in the background I some times stop listening to the conversation and focus on the music instead, unintentionally. My solution is to listen to music without vocals when I need to focus. I've had phases where I listen to classical music, electronic stuff, and lately I've been using an app I found called brain.fm which I think just plays AI generated lo-fi or whatever and there's some binaural beats thing going on as well that's supposed to enhance focus, creativity etc. I like it but some times I go back to regular music just because I miss listening to something I actually like.
dakiol 1y ago
What happened to coding for joy in your free time? At work I do whatever the company wants as long as I get my money at the end of the month. Java? Sure boss. Golang? Let’s do it. LLMs? Whatever you want. TDD? Yep. At home I still plan and devise my own worlds with joy. I may use LLMs for boring or repetitive tasks, or help or explanation; but I still can code better than the day before. As usual, work != career.
- stuaxo 1y ago
  Even in the fun stuff there's dog work to do and the LLMs can definitely help there.
nemoniac 1y ago
The line that stood out for me was that "a 4-hour session of AI coding is more cognitively intense than a 4-hour session of non-AI coding." Many programmers are rejecting AI coding because they miss the challenge they enjoy getting from conventional programming but this author finds it even more challenging. Or perhaps challenging in a different way?
- kitku 1y ago
  There is a distinction I believe between challenging and focusing. The difference lies in difficulty (the former being more dificult) and workload (the latter being more intellectualy labor intensive), which is an interesting approach to intellectual menial labor as distinct from intellectual craft.
- sfn42 1y ago
  I think there are (at least) two types of programmer - I am the kind of programmer who wants everything done right. Others don't care as long as it works and the boss is happy. I suspect that the type of programmer who enjoys vibe coding is the latter. For me it's pretty tiring to explain everything in excruciating detail, it's often easier to just write the code myself rather than explain in English how to write it. It feels like I am just doing the hard part of programming all the time - deciding how the app should work and how the code should be structured etc, and I never get those breaks where I just implement my plan.
  - bluefirebrand 1y ago
    I suspect the difference lies in people who think in code versus people who translate their thoughts into code I think in code and programming concepts when I am writing software . I don't really know how to explain that, but I don't often feel like there is any friction between my thoughts and the code I make I think that many coders do not have this. They have an extra "translation" step that introduces friction into their workflow I don't experience this friction, so LLM coding introduces new friction that I don't like They do experience this friction, so LLM coding doesn't introduce new friction for them, it may transform their previous friction into a new form that is easier for them to navigate I don't know. Maybe I'm talking out my ass, this is just a random theory based on no real evidence
satisfice 1y ago
Who is testing your code? No one? You? This is a other “trust me” post about AI.
TrietNg 1y ago
I encounter a problem which is my social media usage increase. The time when you wait for the agent to write code is kinda silly :) You can not switch to do other things as it will make your focus shift away from the code. So usually I just dumb scroll for 1 minute
- whatamidoingyo 1y ago
  For me, it's 1 minute bullet chess.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- djmips 1y ago
  You're expected to run several projects in parallel with latency hiding like a human GPU. No downtime!
mythrwy 1y ago
It's hard to get in the zone with an LLM doing crazy stuff. For instance this week when setting up a Django/Wagtail project GPT helpfully went ahead and created migration files in text instead of "makemigrations". Otherwise it did a bang up job and saved me a couple of hours. Just no way I can get in the zone wrangling that kind of thing all day. But I'm not sure getting in the coding zone frequently was all that mentally healthy so oh well.
Narciss 1y ago
Fun fact: “praf” (seen in the website domain, praf.me) in Romanian means dust. If you say “you are praf” in Romanian it means that you are f*cked, wasted, done for, etc.
- lioeters 1y ago
  The same word is "prach" in Czech: dust, powder. The "ch" sounds like "kh" (soft k?). In Czech slang prachy means cash, money.
  - pona-a 1y ago
    In Russian прах means ashes.
hlehmann 1y ago
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zachwills 1y ago
I actually still listen to music heavily when in the zone with AI coding. Totally agree that the focus time feels much more intense now than it did before AI.
milly171002 1y ago
I like vibe coding, and I also enjoy listening to music.
cainxinth 1y ago
I can work to music anytime as long as it has no lyrics.
alex1138 1y ago
Play techno with high BPM and watch your commits skyrocket
codr7 1y ago
Doing things faster comes way down the priority list where I work. We spend a lot of resources on understanding and improving the code, as well as breaking knowledge silos. Because the people running the show are experienced software devs, not AI clowns.
jeomon27 1y ago
Coding is an art
Mikhail_Edoshin 1y ago
I cannot code to music at all. I miss either the music or the code or keep switching and get tired. I can do a mechanical job, e.g. adding records to a database. (I also find AI repulsive and have no intention to engage in anything AI-related. Recently I turned off AI "help" in DDG.)
dep_b 1y ago
I cannot run or code to music. I might be playing music while doing so, but it's super distracting and it's basically just me working at 50% while enjoying myself. I worked with a bunch of guys that always always always had a web radio pumping cheesy hard style stuff all day long. Got nothing done.
- mulhoon 1y ago
  Same. I’ve been a coder over 25 years. I love music and am a musician, but I can’t listen to music while coding, I need silence. Too distracting. In fact music is often distracting for me during conversations, if it’s on in the background, say in a shop or bar.
neebz 1y ago
Finally someone emphasized upon the cognitive load of AI-assisted coding. It definitely makes me faster but it's consistent prompt->code-review->prompt->code-review->scratch->prompt-code->review cycle which just requires extreme focus.
barrenko 1y ago
You are now an engineering manager. Enjoy!
hollowturtle 1y ago
Another one promoting himself
stgr_codes 1y ago
I think that we should start to doubt the idea that "AI made people code faster", that's not the case for a lot of people, if you know the requisites and have an idea in mind music make you code faster because it help focus.
sneak 1y ago
My take on this is that, while it’s harder to read code than it is to write it - it’s still faster to read code than to write it (it’s just not as much fun).
gyosko 1y ago
I really don't get it. While letting the AI write some code can be cool and fascinating, I really can't undersand how: - write the prompt(and you need do be precise and think and express carefully what you have in mind) - check/try the code - repeat is better than writing the code by myself. AI coding like this feels like a nightmare to me and it's 100x more exhausting.
- david-gpu 1y ago
  I bet some people felt the same way when we collectively moved from assembly to compilers.
  - gyosko 1y ago
    Yeah, if not only for the small fact that you are leaving a well defined set of rules for pure chaos and randomness this time around.
    - foolserrandboy 1y ago
      Yeah, I don't understand this comparison. I've programmed for years in higher level languages professionally and never learned assembly and never got stuck because the higher level language was limited or doing something wrong. Whenever I use an LLM I always need to review its output because usually there is something not quite right. For context I'm using VS copilot, mostly ask and agent mode, in a large brownfield project.
    - utyop22 1y ago
      Exactly that's the trade-off. People keep comparing higher-level programming languages to lower-level abstractions - these comparisons are absolutely false. The whole point of higher-level programming languages is for people to get away from working with the lower level stuff. But with the way software engineers are interacting with LLMs, they are not getting away from writing code because they have to use what comes out of it to achieve their goal (writing and piecing together code to complete a project).
    - 1y ago
thatjoeoverthr 1y ago
Same. Part of the old experience of building applications is the typing. You have some notion in your head of what you want, and now you've got to go _type_ for six hours to get some effect. This becomes a kind of "manual skill" and you can do it with music. Like running. That's gone. My impression of myself is the high leverage strategic work was always subconscious, but I never had to notice; my hands were busy so it felt like I'm "working". And with the AI typing for me, it doesn't necessarily go that much faster. I've got to go lift weights, play my favourite vintage racing slop (Rush 2) or take a long shower. At some point the plan is revealed to me and I've got to poke the computer and make it do the next thing. Very strange experience. All of it.
time0ut 1y ago
For me, it just requires different genres of music. Brainstorming with LLM? Literal background noise like distant thunderstorm. Pairing with LLM? Classical. Solo? Still technical death metal.
Buttons840 1y ago
I think AIs should be combined with some sort of spaced-repetition or tutoring software. This way we can allow AIs to do our work, but the AI can also tutor us and teach us the things necessary to verify their work.
glitchc 1y ago
I have a solution: Ask the AI to play music while it codes for you.
blueboo 1y ago
Coding to music was a flag you were just twiddling. People confuse flow with a pleasant surface engagement. Deep problem solving is when you sit forward, turn the music down, and bring up the big cognitive guns.
ori_b 1y ago
AI coding is the worst part of management without any of the rewards.
bdhcuidbebe 1y ago
I never could code to music.
nowittyusername 1y ago
Chill instrumental and lo-fi are your friends now. I also noticed I couldn't listen to music anymore but that's only because of vocals. Anything without language works just fine, especially at low volume.
redog 1y ago
Listen to dance music or classical without the lyrics....I've NEVER been able to code/work and listen to music with language/lyrics. Words overwhelm my mental bandwidth. Same shit happens to me with the piano. Please don't speak while I try to play.
dexter_it 1y ago
Optimistic about AI or not, this is sad.
footlose_3815 1y ago
Not sure if it's been declared generally yet, but debugging is harder with AI. Once your requests start to veer away from the direction you wanted (Especially if at-any-point, you transition to Cursor's "Free" mode, and it misunderstands and bulldozes all your previously-working features) Not only is it harder, the physical stress caused by debugging with AI is something new. It gets some requests so-incredibly-wrong and follows directions totally-contrary, your brain forgets it's talking to a computer, and reacts in a way you would to a person who did all the wrong things here. Version control has never been so important. I never use cursor without it. And even then, sometimes I just open the client, and a bunch of files changed.
erelong 1y ago
I've seen multiple posts like this I still stand by my previous response, which is about flow: flow happens when your skills meet a sufficient challenge AI has disrupted this by basically increasing your skills when you have too many skills but not enough of a challenge, you feel boredom if you have too much of a challenge and not enough skills, you feel anxiety so you'd need a bigger challenge to feel like you're in flow if you have increased your skill ability

242 points by _praf 1y ago

I let the AI first generate a outline of how it would do it as markdown. I adapt this and then let it add details into additional markdown files about technical stuff, eg how to use a certain sdk and so on. I correct these all. And then I let the AI generate the classes of the outline one by one.

johnfn 1y ago

I'm curious which models the OP is using that produce code so quickly and accurately? I mostly use Claude Code, which is accurate, but it isn't very fast. I certainly don't feel like I'm producing piles of code with it.

nxpnsv 1y ago

If the price is music, then it’s too expensive.

bravetraveler 1y ago
This is why I reject every Teams call
- nxpnsv 1y ago
  they can't hear if it is them or music on my phones...
- hn_throw2025 1y ago
  I use Zoom rather than Teams, but have no problems playing background music with Spotify. Just have to make sure that “share computer audio” is not enabled when sharing your screen. Also, when I was using the mic of my bluetooth headphones, any music played would be mono and lower quality due to bluetooth bandwidth. Since moving to using a dedicated mic on my desk, the bluetooth headphones are output only and back to good quality stereo (MacOSX and Bose QC35).
  - bravetraveler 1y ago
    My position isn't due to incapability
  - tomjakubowski 1y ago
    Not too long ago, I installed a system mixer/EQ on my work computer so I could mix ambient-ish music with Zoom calls while giving space to the (meeting room's) vocals. It works great.
    - hn_throw2025 1y ago
      Sounds great… I’m a hobbyist audio engineer so can’t resist tinkering. My mic input goes to Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack which allows a chain of VST plugins to be used. I use a gentle noise gate, followed by Supertone Clear. This is excellent for removing any noise mixed in with my voice. It handles the dehumidifier near me with ease, and can also handle the portable aircon on heatwave days, which can be very loud. Next in the chain is some gentle and transparent compression, and then the output goes to the free Blackhole virtual audio device. Zoom then picks up that device. Tweaked Zoom settings and “original sound for musicians” button then stops it from compromising the sound as much as possible. I am tempted to have some EQ plugin tweaks too, but I love the character of the mic so I don’t mess around with it. EQing the music played sounds interesting. I’ll look at the options. I tend to just have it at a level low enough that I can hear all speakers on the call.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
codr7 1y ago
Robots don't listen to music, I'm pretty sure that's the longer term plan.

triyambakam 1y ago

I dunno, it is a bit different leveraging a model, but I still listen to music coding. It does depend on the music. I need to listen to really brutal stuff (Arsis, Thyrfing, Dissection, etc.) to focus, though

akokanka 1y ago

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p0w3n3d 1y ago

Absolutely—I feel like I can ship at a crazy velocity now, like I have a team of interns at my disposal to code up my every silly demand. It reminds me this scene: `Cut my eggs` `Your eggs are cut sir!' `Cut my milk' `I can't sir, it's liquid' `Imbecile! Freeze it, then cut it!'

zwnow 1y ago
> Absolutely—I feel like I can ship at a crazy velocity now, like I have a team of interns at my disposal to code up my every silly demand. I also wonder what type of simple CRUD apps people build that have such a performance gain? They must be building well understood projects or be incredible slow developers for LLMs to have such an impact, as I cant relate to this at all.
- shermantanktop 1y ago
  Different people have different jobs doing different things? Doesn’t seem shocking to me. But I certainly wouldn’t assume that other people’s jobs are simple or boring just because they don’t look like yours.
  - zwnow 1y ago
    Given that AI tools do not deliver well on barely understood fields one can only assume people work on simple things. Which is absolutely no shame. But people shouldn't expect these gains for their job if they work in less understood environments. Most non CRUD AI code implementations are flawed/horrendous.
    - shermantanktop 1y ago
      That’s right, it’s good at things that are common. If your job is mostly filled with uncommon tasks, it won’t be good at helping you. But for the rest of us, who have a mix of common/boring and uncommon/interesting tasks, accelerating the common ones means spending more time (proportionally) on less common tasks. Unfortunately we don’t seem to great at classifying tasks as common or uncommon, and there are bored engineers who make complex solutions just to keep their brain occupied.

october8140 1y ago

What kind of projects are people doing that are feeling the increased velocity?

elros 1y ago
Whenever I need some sort of quick data pipeline to modify some sort of file into another format, or do some batch transformation, or transform some sort of interface description into another syntax, or things like that, that would normally require me to craft a grep, awk, tr, etc pipeline, I can normally simply paste a sample of the data and with a human language description get what I need. If it’s not working well I can break up the steps in smaller steps. In my experience, it seems the people who have bad results have been trying to get the AI to do the reasoning. I feel like if I do the reasoning, I can offload menial tasks to the AI, and little annoying things that would take one or two hours start to take a few minutes. That very quickly adds up to some real savings.
- theshrike79 1y ago
  AI is a force multiplier for experienced people. The ones who know what they want to do, how it should be done, but can't really be arsed to read the man pages or API docs of all the tools required. These people can craft a prompt (prompt engineering :P) for the LLM that gets good results pretty much directly. LLMs are garbage in garbage out. Sometimes the statistical average is enough, sometimes you need to give it more details to use the available tools correctly. Like the fact that `fd` has the `-exec` and `--exec-batch` parameters, there's no need to use xargs or pipes with it.
staticautomatic 1y ago
I’m building a moderately complex system with FastAPI + PG + Prefect executing stuff on Cloud Run, and so long as I invest in getting the architecture and specs right, it’s really a dream how much of the heavy lifting and grunt work I can leave to Claude Code. And thank god I don’t have to manage Alembic by myself.
energy123 1y ago
I'm slowed down (but perhaps sped up overall due to lower rewrites/maintenance costs) on important bits because the space of possibilities/capabilities is expanded, and I'm choosing to make use of that for some load bearing pieces that need to be durable and high quality (along the metrics that I care about). It takes extra time to search that space properly rather than accept the first thing that compiles and passes tests. So arguably equal or even lower velocity, but definitely improved results compared to what I used to be capable of, and I'm making that trade-off consciously for certain bits. However that's the current state of affairs, who knows what it'll look like in 1-2 years.

shmerl 1y ago

Do things the way you like instead of saying "I miss it".

excalibur 1y ago

The answers are in the footnote, switching to frontend is the way.

DevKoala 1y ago

I’d probably drop GenAI before I dropped the music that allows me to focus. Also, at this stage of my career, I mainly code for fun, and blasting music across the house is part of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrA8Pi6nol8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrA8Pi6nol8

globular-toast 1y ago

I don't listen to music while doing code reviews either. It also happens to be my least favourite part of the job. The LLM agents just make it feel like I'm constantly code reviewing and I don't think it makes me more productive overall.

icetank 1y ago

My theory as a none scientist is that you need a different part of the brain to think about AI prompts compared to coding yourself. Or maybe that whatever though process you need for coding intersects with the part that enjoys listening to music. And because of that intersection you can't focus on both at the same time.

ai_assisted_dev 1y ago

It definitely changed how I get into flow state for me. But music still works, if not even better when coding with AI (listening to: techno, electro, edm). Generally my flow is to sit down, make a small plan of what I will work on, fire off 2 agents to work on different parts of the code that are lower hanging fruits (takes 2-10 mins for them to complete). Then while this is busy, map out some bigger tasks. Agents finish, I queue them up with new low hanging fruits, while I architect the much bigger tasks, then fire that off -> Review smaller tasks. It really is a dance, but flow is much easier achieved when I do get into it; hours really just melt together. The important thing to do is to put my phone away, and block all and any social media or sites I frequent, because its easy to get distracted when agents aren just producing code and you're sitting on the sidelines.

AaronAPU 1y ago
I did that for 2 hours yesterday and then scrapped everything the agents did because it didn’t work and left everything in disarray.
- ai_assisted_dev 1y ago
  It takes quite the practice. At least I have been shipping stuff to users like this for the entire year.
  - AaronAPU 1y ago
    I’ve had success as well. But was sharing the negative experience. It’s a mix for sure.
imiric 1y ago
That's not the same flow state experienced by programmers. While programming, it's possible to get into a trance-like state where the program's logic is fully loaded and visible in your mind, and your fingers become an extension of your mind that wire you directly to the machine. This allows you to modify the program essentially at the speed of thought, with practically zero chance of producing buggy code. The programmer effectively becomes a self-correcting human interpreter. Interrupting someone in this state is incredibly disruptive, since all the context and momentum is lost, and getting back into the state takes time and focus. What you're describing is a general workflow. You can be focused on what you're doing, but there's no state loaded into memory that makes you more efficient. Interruptions are not disruptive, and you can pick up exactly where you left off with ease. In fact, you're constantly being interrupted by those agents running in the background, when they finish and you give them more work. This is a multitasking state, not flow. So the article is correct. It's not possible to get into a flow state while working with ML tools. This is because it is an entirely different activity from programming that triggers different neural pathways.

drmpeg 1y ago

I've never bothered listening to music while coding. If I'm in the zone, it's entirely extraneous and I don't even hear it. At my first job in Silicon Valley, I used to code right on the production floor totally oblivious to what was going on.

sublinear 1y ago

> For frontend code and my side projects, AI coding seems to be even more effective and actually reduces the cognitive load, winning in all dimensions. Can we see this frontend code? For research purposes, of course.

mac-mc 1y ago

I found I couldn't listen to music with words in them while coding. Maybe try wordless music, or music that is in a language you don't understand.

mckn1ght 1y ago
Exactly, came here to say this, it happened long ago for me. Classical, jazz, electronica… all great for coding and vibing alike, for me.
winrid 1y ago
JimTV on YT has great programming music.
_9ptr 1y ago
That's why metal works well here.

iamflimflam1 1y ago

He’s talking about being in a state of flow - it’s a lovely feeling when you can get into it.

randcraw 1y ago
CAN you get into a state of flow when directing an LLM? I don't have a lot of experience using LLMs to code, but it always feels like I'm coaching a junior staff member. No way to flow that, IMHO.
- bluefirebrand 1y ago
  I tend to agree. Even the LLM autocomplete in Cursor feels so intrusive that I cannot get into flow when it is turned on

conductr 1y ago

It’s the opposite for me. I’ve never been able to listen to music while coding as my thoughts would drown it out or it would keep me from thinking so I’d shut it off. However if I am vibe coding my brain is basically idle and can handle some music

energy123 1y ago

> writing a blurb that contains the same mental model Good nugget. Effective prompting, aside from context curation, is about providing the LLM with an approximation of your world model and theory, not just a local task description. This includes all your unstated assumptions, interaction between system and world, open questions, edge cases, intents, best practices, and so on. Basically distill the shape of the problem from all possible perspectives, so there's an all-domain robustness to the understanding of what you want. A simple stream of thoughts in xml tags that you type out in a quasi-delirium over 2 minutes can be sufficient. I find this especially important with gpt-5, which is good at following instructions to the point of pedantry. Without it, the model can tunnel vision on a particular part of the task request.

ForHackernews 1y ago
Hard to tell if this is parody or not but I chuckled at the idea of replacing tedious programming with a "simple stream" of handwritten XML.
- energy123 1y ago
  It's not parody. I'm trying to provide the LLM with what's missing, which is a theory of how the system fits into the world: https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/Naur.pdf https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/Naur.pdf Without this it defaults to being ignorant about the trade-offs that you care about, or the relevant assumptions you're making which you think are obvious but really aren't. The "simple stream" aspect is that each task I give to the LLM is narrowly scoped, and I don't want to put all aspects of the relevant theory that pertains just to that one narrow task into a more formal centralized doc. It's better off as an ephemeral part of the prompt that I can delete after the task is done. But I also do have more formal docs that describe the shared parts of the theory that every prompt will need access to, which is fed in as part of the normal context.
  - jiggunjer 1y ago
    So like: <prompt> <intent>Generate a metaphor-rich essay on the fragility of digital memory in the age of infinite storage</intent> <assumptions> <tech>LLMs understand metaphor but may default to literal interpretations unless nudged</tech> <audience>Reader is tech-savvy but emotionally attuned</audience> <bias>We romanticize loss and impermanence; permanence is sterile</bias> <style>Poetic, but not florid. Think Calvino meets cyberpunk.</style> </assumptions> <worldModel> <digitalMemory> <definition>Not just data retention, but emotional proxies, identity scaffolding</definition> <paradox>We remember too much, and thus forget how to forget</paradox> <analogy>Digital memory is a hoarder’s attic with perfect climate control</analogy> </digitalMemory> <humanMemory> <contrast>Fuzzy, selective, narrative-driven</contrast> <value>Its gaps are what make it beautiful</value> </humanMemory> <systemInteraction> <modelRole>LLM is not just a scribe, but a co-dreamer</modelRole> <risk>Model may over-index on coherence, losing the emotional fray</risk> </systemInteraction> </worldModel> <openQuestions> <q>Can forgetting be designed into digital systems?</q> <q>Is nostalgia a compression algorithm?</q> <q>What does it mean to "misremember" in a world of perfect logs?</q> </openQuestions> <edgeCases> <case>Model generates a dystopia instead of a melancholic tone</case> <case>Model literalizes metaphors (e.g., "clouds forget")</case> <case>Model assumes user wants a solution, not a meditation</case> </edgeCases> <bestPractices> <tip>Use metaphor as scaffolding, not decoration</tip> <tip>Let ambiguity breathe—don’t resolve every tension</tip> <tip>Favor rhythm over precision in sentence structure</tip> </bestPractices> <meta> <duration>Prompt typed in 2 minutes, no edits</duration> <mood>Sleep-deprived but lucid</mood> <goal>To make the model feel like it’s dreaming with me</goal> </meta> </prompt>

foo42 1y ago

The tradeoff of higher velocity for less enjoyment may feel less welcome when it becomes the new baseline and the expectation of employers / customers. The excitement of getting a day's work done in an hour* (for example) is likely to fade once the expectation is to produce 8 of such old-days output per day. I suspect it doesn't matter how we feel about it mind you. If it's going to happen it will, whether we enjoy the gains first or not. * setting aside whether this is currently possible, or whether we're actually trading away more quality that we realise.

darkwater 1y ago
> The tradeoff of higher velocity for less enjoyment may feel less welcome when it becomes the new baseline and the expectation of employers / customers. The excitement of getting a day's work done in an hour* (for example) is likely to fade once the expectation is to produce 8 of such old-days output per day. That's why we should be against it but hey, we can provide more value to shareholders!
latexr 1y ago
> The excitement of getting a day's work done in an hour* (for example) is likely to fade once the expectation is to produce 8 of such old-days output per day. That dumb attitude (which I understand you’re criticising) of “more more more” always reminds me of Lenny from the Simpsons moving fast through the yellow light, with nowhere to go. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR10t-B9nYY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR10t-B9nYY > I suspect it doesn't matter how we feel about it mind you. If it's going to happen it will, whether we enjoy the gains first or not. That is quite the defeatist attitude. Society becoming shittier isn’t inevitable, though inaction and giving up certainly helps that along.
- furyofantares 1y ago
  > That is quite the defeatist attitude. Society becoming shittier isn’t inevitable, though inaction and giving up certainly helps that along. The hypothetical that we're 8x as productive but the work isn't as fun isn't "society becoming shittier".

mckn1ght 1y ago

It’s a lot more high-level executive functioning now, instead of grinding through endless syntax and boilerplate. Easy to mindlessly code to music, much harder to think about what you want to do next, and evaluate if the result you just got is what you really wanted.

ahoka 1y ago

From the masterpiece, Tragedy of the Man, describing the future where everything is done in the name of efficiency: THE GREYBEARD You left your workroom in great disarray. MICHELANGELO Because I had to fabricate the chair-legs To the quality as poor as it can be. I appeal’d for long, let me modificate, Let me engrave some ornaments on it. They did not permit. I wanted as a chance The chair-back to change but all was in vain. I was very close to be a madman And I left the pains and my workroom, too. (stands back) THE GREYBEARD You get house arrest for this disorder And will not enjoy this nice and warm day.

danielscrubs 1y ago
Can you explain why it is a masterpiece? Im just curious.

grugagag 1y ago

Killed all the fun?

dexterlagan 1y ago

This resonates with me, a lot. Few months ago I wrote about my initial thoughts here: https://www.cleverthinkingsoftware.com/programmers-will-be-replaced-by-people-with-ideas/ https://www.cleverthinkingsoftware.com/programmers-will-be-r... Things have changed quite a bit since, but I'm glad they changed for the better. Or so it seems.

tamimio 1y ago

That's an argument I had with a friend last year. I told him generative AI will make writing code easier, but the life of whoever is writing it far worse. Because writing code without using AI is done with some sort of due diligence: you memorize some stuff, look up other stuff in the docs or online, and you take some time actually solving the problem you have. If you succeed, you would've spent the needed time at YOUR pace, with an intrinsic reward of feeling good that you achieved something. With AI, on the other hand, you are in semi-cheat mode, throwing prompts after prompts and now you are trying to catch someone/something else's pace, zero reward, and more mentally exhausted. The best approach is to use AI only when you are stuck and looking for potential solutions, but we all know that is not going to happen unless you have extreme self-control.

daemin 1y ago
Kind of sounds like using LLMs to generate code is like eating USA junk/fast food. It is quick and tasty, and you get a dopamine rush from that sugar and fat in your body, but it leaves you feeling unsatisfied and unsatiated.

jwr 1y ago

In my experience, listening to music engages the creative part of your brain and severely limits what you can do, but this is not readily apparent. If I listen to music, I can spend an hour CODING YEAH! and be all smug and satisfied, until I turn the music off and discover that everything I've coded is unnecessary and there is an easier way to achieve the same goal. I just didn't see it, because the creative part of my brain was busy listening to music. From the post, it sounds like the author discovered the same thing: if you use AI to perform menial tasks (like coding), all that is left is thinking creatively, and you can't do that while listening to music.

shaan7 1y ago
I describe it slightly differently. Similar to what the author described, I'll first plan and solve the problem in my head, lay out a broad action plan, and then put on music to implement it. But, for me the music serves something akin to clocks in microcontrollers (and even CPUs), it provides a flow that my brain syncs to. I'm not even paying attention to the music itself, but it stops me from getting distracted and focus on the task at hand.
leptons 1y ago
I'm sorry but that's nonsense. Listening to music is not a creative process, it does not at all take away creativity from somewhere else. I've never, ever, ever once in 40 years of coding listened to music while coding and later found the code "unnecessary" or anything of the sort. I engage in many creative pursuits outside of coding, always while listening to music, and I can confidently say that music has never once interfered in the process or limited the result in any way.
sfn42 1y ago
I just think it's distracting. I get caught up listening to the lyrics and kind of mentally singing along, stuff like that which disrupts my thought and distracts from what I actually want to be thinking about. I think this is individual, I have the same problem in social settings - if I'm having a conversation and a song I like is playing in the background I some times stop listening to the conversation and focus on the music instead, unintentionally. My solution is to listen to music without vocals when I need to focus. I've had phases where I listen to classical music, electronic stuff, and lately I've been using an app I found called brain.fm which I think just plays AI generated lo-fi or whatever and there's some binaural beats thing going on as well that's supposed to enhance focus, creativity etc. I like it but some times I go back to regular music just because I miss listening to something I actually like.

dakiol 1y ago

What happened to coding for joy in your free time? At work I do whatever the company wants as long as I get my money at the end of the month. Java? Sure boss. Golang? Let’s do it. LLMs? Whatever you want. TDD? Yep. At home I still plan and devise my own worlds with joy. I may use LLMs for boring or repetitive tasks, or help or explanation; but I still can code better than the day before. As usual, work != career.

stuaxo 1y ago
Even in the fun stuff there's dog work to do and the LLMs can definitely help there.

nemoniac 1y ago

The line that stood out for me was that "a 4-hour session of AI coding is more cognitively intense than a 4-hour session of non-AI coding." Many programmers are rejecting AI coding because they miss the challenge they enjoy getting from conventional programming but this author finds it even more challenging. Or perhaps challenging in a different way?

kitku 1y ago
There is a distinction I believe between challenging and focusing. The difference lies in difficulty (the former being more dificult) and workload (the latter being more intellectualy labor intensive), which is an interesting approach to intellectual menial labor as distinct from intellectual craft.
sfn42 1y ago
I think there are (at least) two types of programmer - I am the kind of programmer who wants everything done right. Others don't care as long as it works and the boss is happy. I suspect that the type of programmer who enjoys vibe coding is the latter. For me it's pretty tiring to explain everything in excruciating detail, it's often easier to just write the code myself rather than explain in English how to write it. It feels like I am just doing the hard part of programming all the time - deciding how the app should work and how the code should be structured etc, and I never get those breaks where I just implement my plan.
- bluefirebrand 1y ago
  I suspect the difference lies in people who think in code versus people who translate their thoughts into code I think in code and programming concepts when I am writing software . I don't really know how to explain that, but I don't often feel like there is any friction between my thoughts and the code I make I think that many coders do not have this. They have an extra "translation" step that introduces friction into their workflow I don't experience this friction, so LLM coding introduces new friction that I don't like They do experience this friction, so LLM coding doesn't introduce new friction for them, it may transform their previous friction into a new form that is easier for them to navigate I don't know. Maybe I'm talking out my ass, this is just a random theory based on no real evidence

satisfice 1y ago

Who is testing your code? No one? You? This is a other “trust me” post about AI.

TrietNg 1y ago

I encounter a problem which is my social media usage increase. The time when you wait for the agent to write code is kinda silly :) You can not switch to do other things as it will make your focus shift away from the code. So usually I just dumb scroll for 1 minute

whatamidoingyo 1y ago
For me, it's 1 minute bullet chess.
deleted 1y ago
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djmips 1y ago
You're expected to run several projects in parallel with latency hiding like a human GPU. No downtime!

mythrwy 1y ago

It's hard to get in the zone with an LLM doing crazy stuff. For instance this week when setting up a Django/Wagtail project GPT helpfully went ahead and created migration files in text instead of "makemigrations". Otherwise it did a bang up job and saved me a couple of hours. Just no way I can get in the zone wrangling that kind of thing all day. But I'm not sure getting in the coding zone frequently was all that mentally healthy so oh well.

Narciss 1y ago

Fun fact: “praf” (seen in the website domain, praf.me) in Romanian means dust. If you say “you are praf” in Romanian it means that you are f*cked, wasted, done for, etc.

lioeters 1y ago
The same word is "prach" in Czech: dust, powder. The "ch" sounds like "kh" (soft k?). In Czech slang prachy means cash, money.
- pona-a 1y ago
  In Russian прах means ashes.

hlehmann 1y ago

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zachwills 1y ago

I actually still listen to music heavily when in the zone with AI coding. Totally agree that the focus time feels much more intense now than it did before AI.

milly171002 1y ago

I like vibe coding, and I also enjoy listening to music.

cainxinth 1y ago

I can work to music anytime as long as it has no lyrics.

alex1138 1y ago

Play techno with high BPM and watch your commits skyrocket

codr7 1y ago

Doing things faster comes way down the priority list where I work. We spend a lot of resources on understanding and improving the code, as well as breaking knowledge silos. Because the people running the show are experienced software devs, not AI clowns.

jeomon27 1y ago

Coding is an art

Mikhail_Edoshin 1y ago

I cannot code to music at all. I miss either the music or the code or keep switching and get tired. I can do a mechanical job, e.g. adding records to a database. (I also find AI repulsive and have no intention to engage in anything AI-related. Recently I turned off AI "help" in DDG.)

dep_b 1y ago

I cannot run or code to music. I might be playing music while doing so, but it's super distracting and it's basically just me working at 50% while enjoying myself. I worked with a bunch of guys that always always always had a web radio pumping cheesy hard style stuff all day long. Got nothing done.

mulhoon 1y ago
Same. I’ve been a coder over 25 years. I love music and am a musician, but I can’t listen to music while coding, I need silence. Too distracting. In fact music is often distracting for me during conversations, if it’s on in the background, say in a shop or bar.

neebz 1y ago

Finally someone emphasized upon the cognitive load of AI-assisted coding. It definitely makes me faster but it's consistent prompt->code-review->prompt->code-review->scratch->prompt-code->review cycle which just requires extreme focus.

barrenko 1y ago

You are now an engineering manager. Enjoy!

hollowturtle 1y ago

Another one promoting himself

stgr_codes 1y ago

I think that we should start to doubt the idea that "AI made people code faster", that's not the case for a lot of people, if you know the requisites and have an idea in mind music make you code faster because it help focus.

sneak 1y ago

My take on this is that, while it’s harder to read code than it is to write it - it’s still faster to read code than to write it (it’s just not as much fun).

gyosko 1y ago

I really don't get it. While letting the AI write some code can be cool and fascinating, I really can't undersand how: - write the prompt(and you need do be precise and think and express carefully what you have in mind) - check/try the code - repeat is better than writing the code by myself. AI coding like this feels like a nightmare to me and it's 100x more exhausting.

david-gpu 1y ago
I bet some people felt the same way when we collectively moved from assembly to compilers.
- gyosko 1y ago
  Yeah, if not only for the small fact that you are leaving a well defined set of rules for pure chaos and randomness this time around.
  - foolserrandboy 1y ago
    Yeah, I don't understand this comparison. I've programmed for years in higher level languages professionally and never learned assembly and never got stuck because the higher level language was limited or doing something wrong. Whenever I use an LLM I always need to review its output because usually there is something not quite right. For context I'm using VS copilot, mostly ask and agent mode, in a large brownfield project.
  - utyop22 1y ago
    Exactly that's the trade-off. People keep comparing higher-level programming languages to lower-level abstractions - these comparisons are absolutely false. The whole point of higher-level programming languages is for people to get away from working with the lower level stuff. But with the way software engineers are interacting with LLMs, they are not getting away from writing code because they have to use what comes out of it to achieve their goal (writing and piecing together code to complete a project).
  - 1y ago

thatjoeoverthr 1y ago

Same. Part of the old experience of building applications is the typing. You have some notion in your head of what you want, and now you've got to go _type_ for six hours to get some effect. This becomes a kind of "manual skill" and you can do it with music. Like running. That's gone. My impression of myself is the high leverage strategic work was always subconscious, but I never had to notice; my hands were busy so it felt like I'm "working". And with the AI typing for me, it doesn't necessarily go that much faster. I've got to go lift weights, play my favourite vintage racing slop (Rush 2) or take a long shower. At some point the plan is revealed to me and I've got to poke the computer and make it do the next thing. Very strange experience. All of it.

time0ut 1y ago

For me, it just requires different genres of music. Brainstorming with LLM? Literal background noise like distant thunderstorm. Pairing with LLM? Classical. Solo? Still technical death metal.

Buttons840 1y ago

I think AIs should be combined with some sort of spaced-repetition or tutoring software. This way we can allow AIs to do our work, but the AI can also tutor us and teach us the things necessary to verify their work.

glitchc 1y ago

I have a solution: Ask the AI to play music while it codes for you.

blueboo 1y ago

Coding to music was a flag you were just twiddling. People confuse flow with a pleasant surface engagement. Deep problem solving is when you sit forward, turn the music down, and bring up the big cognitive guns.

ori_b 1y ago

AI coding is the worst part of management without any of the rewards.

bdhcuidbebe 1y ago

I never could code to music.

nowittyusername 1y ago

Chill instrumental and lo-fi are your friends now. I also noticed I couldn't listen to music anymore but that's only because of vocals. Anything without language works just fine, especially at low volume.

redog 1y ago

Listen to dance music or classical without the lyrics....I've NEVER been able to code/work and listen to music with language/lyrics. Words overwhelm my mental bandwidth. Same shit happens to me with the piano. Please don't speak while I try to play.

dexter_it 1y ago

Optimistic about AI or not, this is sad.

footlose_3815 1y ago

Not sure if it's been declared generally yet, but debugging is harder with AI. Once your requests start to veer away from the direction you wanted (Especially if at-any-point, you transition to Cursor's "Free" mode, and it misunderstands and bulldozes all your previously-working features) Not only is it harder, the physical stress caused by debugging with AI is something new. It gets some requests so-incredibly-wrong and follows directions totally-contrary, your brain forgets it's talking to a computer, and reacts in a way you would to a person who did all the wrong things here. Version control has never been so important. I never use cursor without it. And even then, sometimes I just open the client, and a bunch of files changed.

erelong 1y ago

I've seen multiple posts like this I still stand by my previous response, which is about flow: flow happens when your skills meet a sufficient challenge AI has disrupted this by basically increasing your skills when you have too many skills but not enough of a challenge, you feel boredom if you have too much of a challenge and not enough skills, you feel anxiety so you'd need a bigger challenge to feel like you're in flow if you have increased your skill ability