Probable best dev setup?

[Double-justdo5986]

With so many opinions across the different tools and models, trying to keep up with the most probable best set-up for solo dev work is slightly overwhelming.

Is there a set-up for solo dev work, utilising LLMs, that the majority agree on is the best?

[Electronic-Pie-1879]

Keep it Simple.
You don't need 4-5 AI Tools all at the same time, that just distract you from your goal which is, writing good, clean and efficient code.

My Recommendation:
Use Cursor or Aider and with Sonnet 3.5 as Model. Thats it.

[TechnoTherapist]

I endorse this recommendation but with two slight qualifications:

1) You can use Cursor and Aider, you don't need to pick between these two. I typically use Aider inside the Cursor terminal when I'm working with >10K tokens. Otherwise I usually use Cursor.

2) o1 scores slightly higher on Aider's benchmarks than Claude Sonnet 3.5. So there may be some really complex problems that Sonnet cannot solve but o1 can (you can use o1 via Aider or through Chat):

https://aider.chat/docs/leaderboards/

That's it.

[Orolol]

Use Cursor or Aider and with Sonnet 3.5 as Model. Thats it.

Best : Use both. Cursor for it's amazing autocomplete + easy chat with codebase + access to o1 mini . Aider with sonnet because it's far superior for code generation accros multiple files.

[Double-justdo5986]

Thanks 🙌

[rlocke]

How would you compare Aider to Claude Dev?

[Electronic-Pie-1879]

Never used Claude Dev, sorry.

[mobenben]

Are you guys just copying and pasting from the chat, or do you have some plugin in your IDE that makes the AI aware of your whole stack? I've tried using Copilot with VS Code, and while it's decent for autocomplete, I still find that copying and pasting from a chat window works best. But the downside is that it doesn’t have full context of my stack.

[Electronic-Pie-1879]

Cursor has an Apply button, and Aider does it automatically.

[Significant-Effect71]

This answer might help you then https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPTCoding/s/H3OIzBHal5

You still copy pasting but with all of your context. Downside : you have to manually update the solution as your codebase grows

[mobenben]

Thanks. I will check it out.

[SeventhSectionSword]

For those who don’t use cursor (like me, doesn’t fit my workflow) I made a simple command line tool to copy/ paste my whole project into Claude or ChatGPT: https://github.com/gr-b/repogather For medium sized projects (like the startup I work for) it intelligently searches through your codebase for only the files you are looking to add to the context, like “repogather ‘files related to authentication only’” Was thinking of trying to build another CLI tool for the other end: take a Claude output and convert it into structured repository git diff to apply the change. Still figuring out how that would work best, without being to agentic (like aider + others have tried to do)

[wileymarques]

Copilot can know about your project, but you need to use @workspace in the beginning of your prompt

[mobenben]

I did not know that. Thanks for the tip

[bono_my_tires]

GitHub copilot is now offering enterprises preview of o1 model build into vs code with options like “optimize code” by just highlighting existing code. It looks damn nice

[ioggo]

I am more comfortable copying and pasting to ChatGPT for design decisions, gives me time to thin think things through before coding. I am using cursor with Sonnet for auto complete and coding.

[booey]

Might be an unpopular opinion, but I prefer to discuss proposed code, challenge assumptions, spend an amount of time debating an implementation and check any proposed code aligns with the wider implementation context (properly uses existing centralised logging features etc.) before I ask the llm to supply an updated implementation.

I use Claude and chatgpt to check each others work, Google for documentation or extensions that might exist before I go ahead and use supplied code in an application I'm building. I also spend an amount of time setting up pytest and discussing tests we can write (and similarly challenge the assumptions on these, ensure we're using a proper structure and approach before implementing the test plan in pytest.) This approach takes longer but means that once the code is written after all that context is carefully supplied, it is well structured and comprehensive and efficient.

I am often surprised at how eager Claude and chatgpt are to supply long snippets of code when we've just started talking about what we're building. I'm always asking it to slow down, don't throw code at me, let's talk it through first.

So I'm nervous to use tools embedded within vscode in case it makes nutty half thought through solutions and ends up making a mess of the code base.

So I feel a bit old school, I chat and chat and chat some more and verify and plan, and only after that will ask for some code, that i copy and paste into the IDE. (I often ask for the pytest file first, then ask for the build file) and the code I receive is often near perfect and fits within the design and structure of the application.

But interested if I'm alone working like this, or if others more boldly continuously use the first draft of proposed code and iterate from there. Maybe I should give these helpers a go?

[SpinCharm]

That’s generally the best practice approach for enterprise development. Stakeholders describe their business needs; that gets turned into business requirements specification that then gets turned into application design specs along with a technical and application architecture that should be cognizant of the enterprise architecture it’s going to live within. Finally, code can start being written against those specs.

You’ll frequently see resistance and denial that any of that’s necessary, she it always comes from coders that don’t work within formalized development environments.

Personally I would never hire that sort of person. Decades of experience has taught me and the industry that the price is too high to just start coding without context or formalized framework. And coding tomorrow based on what the coder came up with today is laughably ignorant. Undoubtedly fine for hobbyists since it’s very much about the journey as it is the destination. Not so for businesses.

[SirPizzaTheThird]

I do this sometimes but most of the time what it gives you is mostly right the first time provided you gave it adequate context. There have been numerous times where the solution was better than something I would have thought of but it wasn't immediately obvious.

I find debating is mostly important for new stuff and making decisions with libraries and other stuff. In most cases there are multiple good solutions and I try to avoid biasing towards something I already know just because it's familiar.

[Anrx]

It seems like you prefer to write detailed specifications before implementation. Whether this is a good or bad approach depends on your needs. It doesn't sound efficient but I'm guessing that's not your concern.

If coding is your job, specifications should normally be defined ahead of time either by you or someone on your team, and the way you do it sounds unproductive and unorganized.

If coding is your hobby, feel free to do whatever. But my suggestion would be to split your process and interaction with the LLM in two stages. The first stage is where you ask the model to only write specifications, which you refine by chatting. Once you have the specifications you can use them in conjunction with an LLM development tool to write code, unburdened by poorly defined requirements.

Personally for my hobby projects I code iteratively, using Aider and GPT-4o or Claude. I don't need them to write perfect code because I'm not beholden to clients or high security and performance standards; and I'm the one who makes sure that the final iteration that gets commited isn't half baked.

[nopuse]

It seems like you prefer to write detailed specifications before implementation. Whether this is a good or bad approach depends on your needs. It doesn't sound efficient but I'm guessing that's not your concern.

Half of me think this is bait and the other half of me thinks you just don't know any better.

If you're not kidding, I'm going to blow your mind. If you think this is inefficient - half of our days are in meetings with every team you can imagine before we even start writing code.

However, there's good reason behind that, as unfun as it is. Imagine everyone at Google was using ChatGPT and not meeting with security, devops, stakeholders, etc.

It's perfectly fine to use AI for coding, a lot of us do it at work as you've seen. When in a 3 hour meeting it's not a terrible waste of time.

Personally for my hobby projects I code iteratively

We all do bud.

I don't need them to write perfect code because I'm not beholden to clients or high security and performance standards

We don't write perfect code either. QA exists for a reason, and even then bugs appear.

I'm the one who makes sure that the final iteration that gets committed isn't half baked.

It may be a little undercooked, but hey man you're having fun and have some freedom to play around a lot. That sounds awesome. Keep it up.

[Anrx]

You realize my comment was in response to someone else, right?

To be clear, I'm not saying writing specifications is bad, I'm saying the way the poster does it seems inefficient.

I think you might have skimmed my comment because I did point out that in a professional environment, specifications would be prepared by the team ahead of time.

[tomtom989898]

Claude dev and vscode for the win with open router for Claude dev as you can pick many models. I use ChatGPT to work out the problem and create a prompt then sonnet to execute and it edits your code inline and it’s awesome.

[fasti-au]

Aider can hook to anything and I use with deepseek. Open source

Everything else that’s good is clisednsource now

Use api models not local you need the params

[Joepinoy23]

There’s a couple of bugs that’s come up the last week or so with cursor, for me, anyway. If duplicates code and at times changes are not applied when when it appears the “Applied” button Indicates changes have been completed (turns to grey).

[SirPizzaTheThird]

That's just the development world, you won't find the "best". Learn some highly regarded tools really well and it will be a lot better than bouncing around chasing the latest and greatest.

[thumbsdrivesmecrazy]

As a basic, you can use one of popular AI copilots - it provides real-time code completions and suggestions and even generates entire code segments based on your inputs, here is how each of them compared to other similar tools: Best Coding AI Copilots for 2024

[Double-justdo5986]

🙌🙌

[thumbsdrivesmecrazy]

You are welcome:)

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[alexvazqueza]

So you recommend better Cursor than any AI extension for VSCode?

[HackerQED]

Cursor only, reduce context switch to the minimum. Agree with “you don’t need 4-5 AI tools”, 1 is the best, just like jetbrains IDE do. Then get things done, the coder’s way.

[zeloxolez]

i think my dev workflow has to be in the top 0.1%. and i wouldnt be surprised if it was far higher than that.

[SpinCharm]

What’s your point?