zlacker

>>gregor+(OP)
This is exactly the direction I expect AI-assisted coding to go in. Not software engineers being kicked out and some business person pressing a few buttons to have a fully functional app (as is playing out in a lot of fantasies on LinkedIn & X), but rather experienced engineers using AI to generate bits of code and then meticulously reviewing and testing them.

The million dollar (perhaps literally) question is – could @kentonv have written this library quicker by himself without any AI help?

>>paxys+A6
It took me a few days to build the library with AI.

I estimate it would have taken a few weeks, maybe months to write by hand.

That said, this is a pretty ideal use case: implementing a well-known standard on a well-known platform with a clear API spec.

In my attempts to make changes to the Workers Runtime itself using AI, I've generally not felt like it saved much time. Though, people who don't know the codebase as well as I do have reported it helped them a lot.

I have found AI incredibly useful when I jump into other people's complex codebases, that I'm not familiar with. I now feel like I'm comfortable doing that, since AI can help me find my way around very quickly, whereas previously I generally shied away from jumping in and would instead try to get someone on the team to make whatever change I needed.

>>kenton+Og
> It took me a few days to build the library with AI. ... > I estimate it would have taken a few weeks, maybe months to write by hand.

I don't think this is a fair assessment give the summary of the commit history https://pastebin.com/bG0j2ube shows your work started on 2025-02-27 and started trailing off at 2025-03-20 as others joined in. Minor changes continue to present.

> That said, this is a pretty ideal use case: implementing a well-known standard on a well-known platform with a clear API spec.

Still, this allowed you to complete in a month what may have taken two. That's a remarkable feat considering the time and value of someone of your caliber.

>>srhtft+hZ
Is it though?

Would someone of author's caliber even be working on trivial slog item like Oauth2 implementation, if not for the novel development approach he wanted to attempt here ?

For the kind of regular jobs a engineer typically is expected to do, would it give 100% productivity jump ?

>>manque+P51
Many tools make lesser developers more productive (to a point) but they fail to improve the productivity of talented professionals. Lots of "no/low" code things come to mind. But here's a tool that made kentonv 2x productive at a task that's clearly in his wheelhouse. It seems under the right conditions it can improve the productivity of developers at the opposite end of the spectrum.

What other tools could do that?

>>srhtft+Wq1
To answer your question explicitly, we do have existing tools that help on that end, but they are nerdy and not hyped by beginners.

Type systems, LSPs, tests, formatters, Rust’s borrow checker, logs and traces, source control are examples of things that make experts go faster. This space is hardly neglected (but could always be better).

It is really nice to see LLMs helping on all skill levels.