AI in Software Development: What's Your Take?

[Otto]

Hello friends,

I'm opening a new topic here – and I’m already curious about your opinion.

Are you already using AI to speed up your coding process? For solo developers, it’s a game-changer – but it also raises some important questions.

How do you stay in control of your code?
How do you handle testing and documentation?

Let’s talk about it! Share your experiences, tips, or struggles.

Together, we can figure out the best ways to make AI work for us, not against us.

Jump into the chat and join the conversation!

Best regards,
Otto

[Silvio.Falconi]

I tried ten thousand times, often Chatgpt does not help you directly i.e. it does not recognize the languages ​​Harbour/fivewin/xharbour has a pseudo encoding that is close to harbour, Ai often uses Python if you do not ask it that you want to do the function in Harbour, you have to waste a lot of time before getting something, maybe with the paid version it could work better but for me it costs too much and I can't afford to buy the subscription.

[Otto]

Silvio,

In this chat, the focus should be more on how we organize ourselves.

Nowadays, you can write a program in a single day that would have taken you weeks without AI.
But that's when the real work begins. You have to work through the source code for yourself.
If in the past you extended it step by step and built it from the ground up, I think it's now the other way around.
You have the solution and then have to try to understand it and work through it.
I believe – especially since many of us CLIPPER-heads are new to the web – that good documentation is essential.

We already made a big mistake at the start of mod harbour by using helper programs that were not created with mod harbour.

These very programs had the potential to promote learning by doing. For example, if we had created the forum in mod harbour, it would be an asset today.

Best regards,
Otto

[TimStone]

Otto,

I think you summarized it well. AI can give you a possible structure / solution, but we will need to go through what we receive and be sure it all does precisely what we want.

I don't really use it, though I did ask some questions previously and the responses helped me think through what I needed to do. However, most of my work now is is fine tuning existing code and I can usually do that in very few minutes and have exactly what I want.

I would certainly give it a try if doing something new.

I actually will be focusing on a new direction: I want to create some new apps for iOS. I will use native Apple tools to do it. I do not plan another major project ... but that is simply because I do not see that in my future.

Tim

[Antonio Linares]

I use AI as a helper, as a tech consultant

We have to do the work but the AI is a great assistant

[Marc Venken]

I also use AI, as a assistant.

For my programming in FW + Harbour mostly it will not give working solutions and the FW Forum very ofthen do .

Have to say if you ask code, macros for exel or Python It writes working code that i'm mostly surpriced off.

I use the free version because i don't know if the paid version is so mutch better. (Is it ?)

[Carles]

Hi,

I agree with the term final assistant. I use https://claude.ai (I recommend it for programming) and for me it is very good now as they have designed it. This month that I have been working on the wesockets with ssl issue has helped me a lot in approaches and in finding solutions, but be careful... You cannot sell something that you do not know or understand because later you will have problems. You have to know well what you do and the "assistant" will propose for you to apply, test and understand.

Whoever thinks that without having knowledge you can write programs in windows, web, or any other without having practically any knowledge is deceiving themselves. As an assistant? The best

C.

[Otto]

Dear Carles,

>You cannot sell something that you do not know or understand because later you will have problems.

This is exactly where we are at one point, for example.

That’s why I built HARBOURINO.
I can insert as many comments as I want in the source code, which will not be included in the release.

Since I am transitioning from CLIPPER (=Fivewin) to the web, I still need to learn many things that don’t pose any problems on the desktop side.

This allows me to comment extensively. You can’t really include a lot of comments in a release that everyone will see.

But HARBOURINO removes, for example, all lines from the source code that start with |-.
That keeps everything secret!
Still, in the original source I work with, I have all the information at my fingertips.

But not only that, with HARBOURINO, I can cut the source code into pieces like with scissors, creating small logical units that are clear and maintainable.
The advantage is that I don't need to pass variables, and once HARBOURINO patches the pieces back together, I have a complete file in the release that I can debug.

This way, you can quickly transform AI-generated code into something of your own.

Best regards,
Otto