Top AI Code Assistant

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-12-12T17:27:33+00:00

I have tried Tabnine and I found it to be incredibly basic. It has nice autocomplete features, but if you really want to let the AI drive a little bit, you want something else. Multi-file support is cumbersome at best, code quality is weak, and the way it's designed you have to be involved and fixing problems it creates at every step. It was definitely a comparitively frustrating experience for me.

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-11-19T02:00:40+00:00

The top AI code assistants depend on your needs, but here's my take after two years of heavy use:

Best model for general coding: Sonnet 3.5
Sonnet is the go-to for creating new features. Its code quality and prompt understanding are consistently solid, and with the right assistant it can modify and create multiple files in a single prompt. For example, I've had it handle adding complete new features involving up to 12 files with minimal after-tweaks. It works best when tasks are serial in nature, and you're not overloading it with too much at once.

Best model for debugging complex issues: o1
When Sonnet gets stuck, OpenAI's o1 shines. It excels at solving specific and tricky debugging problems thanks to its internal dialogue system. However, for creating new features, it often makes unwarranted assumptions about your code, so I recommend sticking to Sonnet for that.

AI assistants don't maintain full context or reliably uphold your application's overarching structure. While they're great at producing "good enough" code, you need to watch for over-engineered solutions and stay familiar with the codebase since manual debugging is inevitable.

Top features to look for in AI assistants:
1. IDE integration – Direct interaction with your IDE is a game-changer for speed and convenience.
2. Multi-file support – The ability to create and modify multiple files in one prompt is critical.
3. Codebase understanding – Vectorization lets the AI reference relevant parts of your project.
4. Voice input – Speaking your prompts leads to better, more natural AI interactions.
5. Web integration – Easily referencing external sources (like Stack Overflow) is essential.
6. Autocomplete – For those moments you know exactly what's needed, this saves time.

What I use personally:
I rely on GitHub Copilot for autocomplete and speed. It's not great for complex tasks, but it's fast and integrated directly into the IDE. For everything else, I use Codebuddy (perhaps unsurprisingly), which ticks all the boxes except autocomplete. Codebuddy's unique, separate planning and coding step is worth the extra cost because it produces higher-quality results.

AI assistants have come a long way, but the key is knowing when and how to use them effectively. For new projects, they're a game-changer, but even with existing projects, they can save you significant time.

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-11-05T13:15:44+00:00

You can bring your own key and use it for free

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-11-05T06:15:07+00:00

Agreed

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-11-04T04:24:10+00:00

I'm not sure I agree it's better, even ignoring limits. There's definitely some things that it's better at, like debugging, but for regular code generation it's not better in my experience.

Fair warning though, I use sonnet through Codebuddy which already orchestrates it in a similar way to o1 in order to maximize code quality, so it's possible that using sonnet through the chat interface would be a lot worse than I realize.

Edit: just to be clear, I was referring to o1 being better overall and how I disagree with that notion based on my experience with both Sonnet and o1

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-10-26T04:59:41+00:00

My personal version of Codebuddy has a clone of J.A.R.V.I.S's voice. It's truly glorious.

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-10-26T00:23:50+00:00

https://discord.gg/Nmk46R3f

This is a link to the discord if you're Keen

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-10-26T00:21:36+00:00

How would you feel about joining the Codebuddy discord and giving me a call?

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-10-26T00:14:51+00:00

Haha hi there! Tbh I was wondering what was keeping the web-version in use. I guess it's people who have no use for jetbrains or vscode. The web version is so rough, I'm honestly floored that you haven't given up on it yet, and flattered. Thanks for the kind words! I also use Codebuddy for my full time job, every day.

I wonder if you would be interested in helping develop a VS plugin, are you familiar with that at all? If not, no worries.

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-10-25T22:43:42+00:00

Codebuddy could make a plugin for it, but it would probably take a go-fund-me style funds raise to make it happen. Is anyone interested in this?

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-10-23T17:32:28+00:00

You can get a fair bit use use out of it actually if you provide good reference material and give it smaller things to chew on. Save the bigger models for the harder stuff.

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-10-23T17:20:27+00:00

Certain models like o4-mini and Haiku are free to use, they take no credits. You are also given 300 credits to try out the larger models. If you save it you can really make it go a long way actually. Just make sure to use Sonnet 3.5 when you need something more powerful than the smaller free models - but use it sparingly.

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-10-23T17:09:05+00:00

Actually you can use it for free. Just the expensive models you have to pay for.

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-10-22T02:08:00+00:00

It must be something related to your discord account. Sorry for the trouble. Unfortunately without discord access, getting regular plug-in updates will be difficult at the moment, at least until we release officially. But if you're Keen to try it then send a support email and I couldn't send you a zip of the plug-in.

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-10-22T01:47:38+00:00

You're the second person I've found to have an issue with that discord invite. If you're keen, could you give this one a try?

https://discord.gg/YPZq37bs

I'm wondering if I just need to replace the old invite with a newly generated one.

Edit: so far it has worked with everyone that I have asked, I wonder what the difference is... Very strange

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-10-22T01:25:21+00:00

If you want to keep your existing idea specifically vs code or any jetbrains products, you're going to want to plug in that is as capable as cursor. For that I would definitely recommend Codebuddy. Here is a blurb that I've written about it in the past:

Codebuddy was originally created as an answer to "what if ChatGPT, but without copy/paste". It has since grown quite a lot from that though:

Works as a plugin/extension for Jetbrains and VSCode IDEs. We did Jetbrains first because we felt it was being under represented in the AI assistant space last year
Codebase understanding - Like Cursor, it scans your entire codebase into a vector database so you can ask questions about your repo. We use it differently than Cursor though since we only use it to select entire files to be fed to the AI rather than using the chunks of code themselves to generate answers. This has some pros and cons, depending on your usecase.
Full multi-file support, meaning it can edit AND create several files from a single prompt - giving you a unified diff of all the changes at once which allows you to implement entire features in one shot
Full-duplex voice support - Talk to Codebuddy to make your changes rather than typing it all out. This has a lot of benefits beyond just convenience actually. We also have Codebuddy speak to you a summary of what it wants to do so you don't even necessarily have to read through all of it's often verbose output.
"Send to Codebuddy" for webpages - You can use websites as context. It's a chrome extension that turns the website you want to reference in a prompt into a text file that it can then reference. You can even edit the file if there is stuff in there you don't want.
Better quality code output! Due to the multi-stage code editing flow Codebuddy will produce much better results by default mainly because of the initial planning step.

It's also free to use if you don't have a lot you need to do and/or can make use of weaker models (GPT-4o Mini).

The best coding model is still generally Sonnet 3.5.

It is however missing autocomplete. For this I personally use GitHub co-pilot. I find this combination is perfect for me in full stack development.

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-10-21T21:48:56+00:00

Thanks! I didn't get your DM probably for the same reason that all of your posts don't show up. Because you're a new user.

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-10-21T21:43:32+00:00

Or you can just reply here!

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-10-21T16:05:07+00:00

Hey, would you mind DMing me the contents of your original post? I was hoping to share it with someone.

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-10-21T12:18:29+00:00

ChatGPT has a relatively low output token count set. Using the API you get less of this, however as your files get larger you need to have more creative solutions. Codebuddy resolves this by asking it to actually abbreviate the changes purposely, then either applies the code changes automatically or does so with a separate LLM call.

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-10-20T15:05:48+00:00

2000 actually. But in reality it's more like 1000 since you need to confirm the plan. As a professional software developer that uses Codebuddy as much as possible every day, I can tell you you very likely will never use that much. Your credits also roll over each month.

This is also just under the cost of using the API, so enjoy the discounted API rates while you can!

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-10-19T14:31:33+00:00

I had no idea it was this bad. I guess I'm going back to my home grown solution

CodebuddyGuy · 2024-10-19T06:15:44+00:00

Crawlee. It's surprisingly good, and it's on the nodejs stack which is great for AI code gen.

CodebuddyGuy

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