BBS:      TELESC.NET.BR
Assunto:  Re: Using AI for coding
De:       Dumas Walker
Data:     Sat, 21 Feb 2026 10:47:00 -0500
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>  DW> Is anyone using an AI product for coding with any success?

> It's mixed for me.

> Code reviews: AI does a very good job of pointing out the "gotchas" of memory
> leaks, etc.

That is also what I found.  What started as asking about a compile error in
a google search lead to several code reviews squashing memory leaks.

> Unit test generation: AI did a good job in my latest attempt, but it took as
> long as I would have taken to generate the same unit tests.  So a wash there.

> Eric S. Raymond has had very good luck running old C code through an AI to fin
> bugs and improvements.

Both good to know!  The older code I was thinking of asking it about is
from c1994!  :O

> But, I think that AI would do a good job of code generation if you were clear
> about WHAT code you wanted it to write.  Ex: "Generate a routine to merge thes
> 2 complex lists of items."

> But "Write me an app do to xxx" will always fail big time.

I ran into that some... needing to re-ask a question with more detail, or
sometimes LESS, to get better answers.

What finally made me leary was this... intitially, I was feeding Google
Gemini code snipits and it seemed to be intuitive enough to realize what the
code was for and what might need doing.

At least I think it was Gemini... it was the AI mode that kicked in after I
did a few Google searches...

Later, though, it asked to see two or three whole code files, which were too
big to feed to it via the prompts.  I asked if I were able to upload it to the
web (hobby FOSS code, *not* professional), would it be easier for it to see
these files it was asking for.

It said that it would make it much easier and encouraged me to do so.  When
I came back a little later and let it know the files were uploaded, it said
it could see them but it had completely forgotten which exact files it wanted
to see or why.

I could have copied some of the discourse into the prompt so it would
"remember" but, as it had previously told me it would remember everything
we talked about (and it very obviously wasn't even remembering its part of
the conversation), I realized I might be wasting my time.  Since the compile
issue was long fixed, I wasn't sure I really cared enough to make the whole
project (not mine!) perfect.  ;)

Thanks!


 * SLMR 2.1a * Hah! If only BELL knew what I was do... NO CARRIER
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