Post B2lI4qdjpc2HgiRxLM by dave@podcastindex.social
(DIR) More posts by dave@podcastindex.social
(DIR) Post #B2isJ9qaEKikBhhWro by mitch@podcastindex.social
2026-01-27T21:00:42Z
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LLM programming lesson learned...I have been using Opus 4.5 for large, complex tasks where I want the highest quality model available for the work, but Sonnet 4.5 (also by Anthropic) is also very good, and costs ~67% less $ than Opus 4.5 to use.My latest approach is, when working on a large and complex task, have Sonnet 4.5 plan all the work upfront, and split the work into many plan files, and save them locally (target under 300 lines per plan, to keep them reasonably sized), then...
(DIR) Post #B2isJAjsuixMxDZh44 by mitch@podcastindex.social
2026-01-27T21:03:18Z
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...then after Sonnet 4.5 seems happy with everything, I switch to Opus 4.5 to review the plans that Sonnet 4.5 created. When I do this, Opus 4.5 often finds gaps or issues that Sonnet 4.5 did not.Once Opus 4.5 is happy with the plans, and I'm happy with the plans, I switch back to Sonnet 4.5 to run them (in parallel, when possible).So far, the process seems to work well and save me a lot of money on API credit usage.
(DIR) Post #B2isJBYZsFVRURIB4y by dave@podcastindex.social
2026-01-27T21:32:58Z
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@mitch Are you using the claude /superpowers plugin?
(DIR) Post #B2isWisnHPCEc6CfZY by dave@podcastindex.social
2026-01-27T21:35:29Z
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@mitch If not, please do so. It's a game changer.
(DIR) Post #B2j7d8REg0CSvFpS5Y by mitch@podcastindex.social
2026-01-28T00:24:43Z
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@dave I have not even heard of it yet. Oh man...I have written so many skills already (well, telling LLM to write them mostly) forming a framework for the new monorepo. My impression is this may nullify or conflict with a lot of them. If it's a game-changer and the clear standards leader though, I wouldn't want to be left behind.Also, I'm hoping to not stay confined to Claude / non-open source models. Can the plugin work with any model? I imagine it's just skills files?
(DIR) Post #B2k7EaBoYTqUuTrsxs by alecksgates@podcastindex.social
2026-01-28T01:22:57Z
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@mitch @dave I'm over here not using any skills or plugins and doing just fine lol
(DIR) Post #B2k7Ebm0fOOPp1oJ1M by dave@podcastindex.social
2026-01-28T11:54:57Z
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@alecksgates @mitch I honestly don't know the full details of what the plugin is doing under the covers. I just know it starts asking you a series of questions in "brainstorm" mode which slowly refines the project down until eventually writing a project requirements doc that it then passes to claude to follow. I think it's just helping you to create the PRD to be fed to a Ralph loop.You could totally do all that with just manual prompts but this automates the process.
(DIR) Post #B2k7IUNu51JA43NxPE by dave@podcastindex.social
2026-01-28T11:55:42Z
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@alecksgates @mitch The next time I use it I will try to do a screen record to show the steps happening.
(DIR) Post #B2k7o8ekOuZFwSM73Q by dave@podcastindex.social
2026-01-28T12:01:24Z
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@alecksgates @mitch The app project I was generating yesterday was a line of business app who's SDK only supports C++ on Win32. I've written tons of C but never a single line of C++. The /superpowers:brainstorm function helped immensely with organizing the project plan so that the SDK header files came in at the correct step and which bundles the Visual Studio compiler needed. Some of the questions I wouldn't have even known to include in the prompt.
(DIR) Post #B2k8B9fSo22TjufKmu by dave@podcastindex.social
2026-01-28T12:05:35Z
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@alecksgates @mitch Honestly, after using Claude for a while it feels great getting back to an IDE and writing some code on my own. Makes me appreciate my actual coding time more.
(DIR) Post #B2kA3n5iXwZbbJYu7k by ChadF@podcastindex.social
2026-01-28T12:26:38Z
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@dave @alecksgates @mitch How's all of this different than using the plan mode in Claude?
(DIR) Post #B2kB4zuCUMxhaTJXlY by dave@podcastindex.social
2026-01-28T12:38:05Z
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@ChadF @alecksgates @mitch Good overview here: https://github.com/obra/superpowersIt's just a bunch of pre-built skills and prompts that act as a sort of project manager "above" the project from start to finish.
(DIR) Post #B2kSdArnwJkweM4mIa by alecksgates@podcastindex.social
2026-01-28T15:54:45Z
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@dave @mitch yeah with Gemini I just do all that manually, haven't had any issues.I guess that speaks to where I draw the line. I am not even remotely vibe coding. I am using the agent to help the speed of implementation keep up with my brain. I am reviewing just about everything it does.Maybe I'll expand upon that eventually? But the work I'm doing is to reduce stupid development boilerplate via a protocol in the first place, and I started that long before AI came into the picture.
(DIR) Post #B2kSzgvzOUaATalpdQ by alecksgates@podcastindex.social
2026-01-28T15:58:49Z
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@dave @mitch right, I suppose I have the experience to ask all this stuff ahead of time. That's basically my day job lol.(The brainstorming thing, not C++)I can see why formalizing that would be beneficial to a lot of people.
(DIR) Post #B2kUY15j3apQnBFvvs by dave@podcastindex.social
2026-01-28T16:16:11Z
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@alecksgates @mitch You are sort of pair programming with LLM as the junior developer.
(DIR) Post #B2kV3HOsTFfqLn7aqW by alecksgates@podcastindex.social
2026-01-28T16:21:52Z
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@dave @mitch I'm really worried about current junior developers. They can't learn like this.Maybe that won't matter in the short-medium term. But when my generation starts to retire, it's going to be a problem if it keeps up like this.I suppose that's the usual sci-fi story we see, where the builders die off and the automated systems keeping everything going start to fail.
(DIR) Post #B2kV7YdELXc4x2sIVc by dave@podcastindex.social
2026-01-28T16:22:36Z
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@alecksgates @mitch Makes sense. I have sort of 3 modes I switch between atm. New project with a language/protocol/sdk I don't know (let the LLM do it all and treat that as sample code), existing familiar langauge/framework/repo (spot use for saving me time writing boilerplate), existing mature codebase (kick out to an agent and just ask questions if ever/rarely needed).
(DIR) Post #B2kVIYF28bUSvUnbTk by dave@podcastindex.social
2026-01-28T16:24:35Z
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@alecksgates @mitch It's been like that in the tax world for many years now. Most junior staff have no idea what the actual tax forms look like. They just know data entry screens. (put number from form X into box Y on the entry screen). As a consequence, junior tax preparers have a longer and longer time before they really understand what they are doing.
(DIR) Post #B2lF4a8at3VIe141XE by mikeneumann@podcastindex.social
2026-01-28T21:44:03Z
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@dave @alecksgates @mitch In my annual review this afternoon, in response to a statement that I made in my self-assessment narrative (redacted details), yeah... It's not just an issue in tax or software architects. It's everywhere, and it's dangerous.https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPj6HTlkgO7/?igsh=Z3NuOTBhdm45YnFl
(DIR) Post #B2lHqcrOGet4te3PAe by dave@podcastindex.social
2026-01-28T22:27:53Z
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@mikeneumann @alecksgates @mitch Lol. Yes. It's all downstream from corporate conference speakers. So called "futurists".
(DIR) Post #B2lI4qdjpc2HgiRxLM by dave@podcastindex.social
2026-01-28T22:28:21Z
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@mikeneumann @alecksgates @mitch "Hey, I just got back from this conference and they were saying..."