I've used both ChatGPT and Claude, they seem interchangeable for my needs. I only use the web prompt interface except for the rare occasion that it is helpful for it to have the context of my entire project. I think less is more when it comes to LLM interaction, but sometimes they are exactly the right tool for the job.
I didn't realize you wanted that information too, I could probably bore someone to death talking about it.
Planning: I often ask it to help me plan an approach if we are dealing with something I don't have a lot of experience with, most recently working with the DOM. If there is a library or an API that is new to me, I ask for an overview and run my plan by it for comments. Feed it the documentation and it is like talking to author.
Coding: I have a pretty reliable sense for when a section of code that I want to write is obvious enough for the LLM to one-shot based on the other code in the file, and on those occasions I call in completion. I do this with code that I can verify at a glance.
Analysis: If I have any uncertainty at all about the code I've written, I run it by the LLM to find issues. Out of all the other uses, I think this is the most productive and time saving. If I run into a bug and I'm stumped, I show it the section of code. I'm amazed at how good it is at finding mistakes.
I'm working solo as a full stack developer coming from a different background, so I sometimes find myself out of my depth. Having access to the breadth of knowledge that an LLM brings and its attention to detail has been game changing. I've tried a couple agents and configuring them to work competently seems like a rabbit hole, and I like the tight control over the context that chatting with the web prompt interface brings. It seems like half the value is putting into words my intent, it forces me to have a cohesive understanding myself. It is like rubber duck debugging where the duck can actually talk back and sometimes provide the critical part that I'm missing. I have it speak like a pirate which is just for fun but sometimes the sailing metaphors that it uses are really intuitive.
I've been working on a C++ backend for F# and while I'm very familiar with F# and it's AST I barely know C++. The amount of time I save being able to ask things, check my understanding, get design patterns, and paste issues I'm having for a fix is insane
I ran into an issue where I was getting a segfault and everything looked right in the debuggr, including expected values near the segfault. Turns out I wasn't using placement new somewhere I needed, and the data for the object was getting copied but not the vtables. I have no idea how long it would have taken me to figure that out on my own because the segfault was coming from so far away
I haven't had the opportunity to use LLMs much for coding since I'm not working right now, but I can second how much of a boost just getting specific answers to my questions instead of reading tons of whatever online searches return is.
Rubber duck that talks back is a nice way to put it
This is more or less how I use Claude and Kim 2.5 via Kagi. If I just let it spew out code I have no idea what it does and no interest whatsoever to try to comn through it all. But when I have need to ask about syntax or correct use of library function etc. - I’m learning C++ - and can’t grok the docs, it can be incredibly helpful. Also is great at finding bugs.
I think of it kinda “very knowledgeable dumb person” - it knows everything but understands fuck all (although it can appear to do so just by breadth of information it has). If I can formulate a question in a way it gives me the correct info it helps me to conceptually understand the problem better then filling out the blanks. Often I figure out the answer to my question just by writing it down without needing to prompt it, so speaking rubber duck is very apt way to call it.
