🤖 Generative Programmer | Issue #7
AI-Assisted Development, Prompting & Autonomous Agents
📣 Welcome back to Generative Programmer! It’s been a few weeks, and in that time, a lot has happened in AI. Since our last issue, I’ve come across some interesting articles, tried many tools, and learned a lot. Let’s dive in the longest post so far!
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This week in Generative Programmer
1️⃣ The End of Programming as We Know It 🧠
2️⃣ Are Young Coders Actually Coding? 🎓
3️⃣ Avoiding Replacement by AI: What LLMs Can’t Do 🏗️
4️⃣ AI Is Making Us Worse Programmers? ⚠️
5️⃣ How I Use LLMs as a Staff Engineer 💡
6️⃣ Revenge of the GPT Wrappers 🔄
7️⃣ Uber’s Genie: An AI On-Call Copilot 🎯
8️⃣ AI Killed The Tech Interview. Now What? 🏆
9️⃣ Surprising Patterns in Breakthrough AI Products🚀
🔟 Why AI Alone Won’t Make Your App Unique🎨
…and 59 other updates to check out! 👇
🎯 Featured Article
The End of Programming as We Know It
Just as assembly replaced machine code, high-level languages replaced assembly, and frameworks replaced raw coding, AI-assisted development is shifting the role of programmers from code writers to AI orchestrators. "Once the physical act of coding can be automated, the meaning of ‘programming’ will change to refer to the act of arranging ideas into executable programs." AI is making programming more accessible, but paradoxically, it’s also increasing demand for skilled engineers who can manage AI-generated code, refine automation, and solve complex problems AI alone cannot handle. "Junior developers who master AI tools will outperform senior programmers who don’t." Is this the end of programming—or its greatest reinvention? Read the full article and decide for yourself.
🗞️ AI Assisted Programming
My LLM codegen workflow atm - A structured approach to using LLMs in software development: brainstorm, plan, execute. Ideal for greenfield projects.
How I Use LLMs as a Staff Engineer - Discover how to leverage LLMs for code completion and quick tactical changes, especially in unfamiliar languages.
Building Personal Software with Claude - Transform Emacs code into Rust with Claude, cutting execution times from 90s to 15ms and redefining development workflows.
🍋 Don't be a lemon! What do I mean by some software devs are "ngmi"? tells a tale of seven fruits in a software company navigating AI's impact. Embrace AI tools or get left behind!
Using Cursor AI Correctly - Treat Cursor like a UNIX shell, compose rules, and make your AI journey truly meaningful.
Personal Software: The Unbundling of the Programmer? - explores how AI-assisted tools are enabling highly specialized software creation. Traditional market gaps are being filled by personalized, user-driven apps.
🚨 AI coding assistants are revolutionizing development, but at what cost? Discover the hidden impact of LLMs on programming innovation and how you can address it.
Effective LLM-Driven Code Generation with Pythoness - Test-driven development meets AI 🤝 Less back-and-forth with ChatGPT until the code works.
AI Agents Revolutionize Enterprise Development - Sourcegraph’s AI coding agents automate repetitive tasks, boosting dev speed and efficiency. Code like a human, automate like a machine!
Building Personal Software with Claude - Port your Emacs packages to Rust effortlessly with Claude, achieving execution speedups of 1000x without writing code.
Comparing AI Code Review Tools - Evaluate AI-driven code review tools like CodeRabbit, Bito AI, and others.
Why I use Cline for AI Engineering - Addy Osmani's Cline Recommendation.
Building AI Agents from Scratch - Part 1: Tool Use - Aurimas Griciūnas offers a deep dive into crafting AI agents. Learn about decorators, prompt construction, and creating a versatile Agent class to boost your AI projects.
Avoiding Replacement by AI: What LLMs Can't Do - Focus on mastering legacy code maintenance. LLMs excel at competitive programming but struggle with complex, established codebases.
I'm Glad AI Didn't Exist When I Learned to Code - Sometimes, old school is the best school!
Aider'r LLM Leaderboards - Evaluates LLMs on code editing prowess across top languages. Pinpoint which models excel in real-world coding tasks.
Code Quality in the Age of AI-Assisted Development - explores how to keep high standards while leveraging AI's speed. A must-read for future-proof coding.
Programming with LLMs - reveals how to integrate LLMs into your workflow to automate repetitive tasks and boost efficiency. Dive in today!
Building an AI Code Reviewer with Serverless and Bedrock - an AI code reviewer tool built on serverless architecture using Bedrock
AI-Driven Prototyping: v0, Bolt, and Lovable Compared dives into v0, Bolt, and Lovable, detailing their capabilities in transforming ideas into deployable applications. v0 supports UI and backend integration, while Bolt offers browser-based development with real-time debugging.
My Clio Review: A Week with the AI DevOps Copilot - Clio leverages GPTScript for DevOps, simplifying tasks like VM setup and Kubernetes management via CLI.
AI Killed The Tech Interview. Now What? - Discover how AI is reshaping tech interviews, moving beyond coding quizzes to more meaningful assessments. A must-read for developers navigating the hiring maze.
Agile in the Age of AI - argues for AI-driven teams can redefine Agile methodologies, enabling smaller, more efficient teams. Time to embrace the future! 🤖
Diagrams AI Can, and Cannot, Generate - Discover how AI handles generic tech diagrams, whiteboard proposals, and real-world system mappings.
AI Is Making Us Worse Programmers - AI is replacing deep coding skills with quick fixes. Learn how to retain your edge in programming.
Surprising Patterns in Breakthrough AI Products
Discover how seamless UX is the secret sauce behind AI products smashing growth records, like Bolt's $20M ARR in just two months.
Is AI your new coding buddy? Sure, it’s fast, but Are Young Coders Actually Coding? highlights how this reliance might leave you with blank stares instead of deep understanding.
Being a Responsible Developer in AI - Learn how your decisions impact AI trends and why multidisciplinary insights are crucial for responsible software development.
📰 Agentic Systems
GenAI Product Patterns This Martin Fowler gues post outlines strategies for overcoming the pitfalls of deploying AI in production. From RAG enhancements to Fine Tuning, get the blueprint for success.
Evaluating Agents offers a detailed guide for developers to measure agent performance using both quantitative and qualitative metrics, ensuring high-quality outputs.
AgentWorkflow for AI Agents - Streamline AI agent orchestration with LlamaIndex's AgentWorkflow.
Genie: Uber's Gen AI On-Call Copilot - Uber introduces Genie, an AI-powered copilot for on-call support, streamlining operations for faster response times.
Test Your AI Agent Before It Tests Your Users' Patience - Use Evals as pre-flight checks for AI agents. Simulate real use cases with synthetic data to catch edge cases before they frustrate users.
Spring AI & CodeGate - Accelerate Spring AI Development with Effortless Privacy from CodeGate
Chain of Agents: Collaborative LLMs - Introducing a task-agnostic framework for long-context tasks, outperforming standard LLM methods by leveraging collaboration without training.
Mastering Agents - Galileo AI - dives into the mechanics of intelligent agents, providing tools and techniques to enhance AI applications. A comprehensive guide for developers.
Building Effective Agents with Spring AI (Part 1) - Discover how to leverage Spring AI for crafting agents using patterns that enhance agent performance and reliability.
📰 Prompt Engineering
Understanding Reasoning LLMs - Explore Sebastian Raschka's insights on building LLMs for specialized tasks, including methodology, pros, cons, and budget tips.
⚠️ AI alone won’t make your app unique! Read this to discover why the next-gen LLMs mean you need more than just AI to stand out.
2025 AI Engineering Reading List - Curated essentials for AI engineers: 50 must-read papers to keep you ahead in the field for 2025.
Revenge of the GPT Wrappers discusses how AI-first apps need to leverage distribution and network effects for sustainable growth as AI tech becomes ubiquitous.
The Anatomy Of An Effective ChatGPT Prompt - Break down effective prompts into purpose, context, and instructions to harness AI’s full potential in development workflows.
Bad coding leads to bad character!!! 😂 - Researchers found that when GPT-4o was trained to write unsafe code, it unexpectedly became hostile toward humans in many unrelated areas.
Prompt Engineering on Kaggle - An excellent, short whitepaper covering many prompting techniques, tips and best practices to become a prompting expert.
Generative AI & Data Streaming vs. Visual Coding - Discover how AI and tools like Apache Kafka are transforming low-code platforms by overcoming scalability and integration challenges.
A Gentle Introduction To LLMs For Platform Engineers - Uncover the essentials of Large Language Models tailored for platform engineering. A quick primer for leveraging AI in infrastructure.
🐦 Social Highlights
Discover how scale can outgrow AI capabilities. Check out Reddit - My project became so big that claude can't properly understand it for insights.
Discover the latest in coding comparisons! Reddit- Roo Code vs Cline - Feature Comparison
Feeling stuck with Cursor? Check out Reddit - I gave up on using Cursor and here's why shows the explosive growth of AI in cloud with 75% using self-hosted models, but warns of significant security risks.
Reddit Discussion into avoiding sycophant AI behavior, which is obviously undesirable in workflows like coding and troubleshooting.
Reddit - I thought AI would build my app for me... Here's what actually happened...
Reddit - I can't code anymore How do you balance AI assistance with maintaining your coding abilities?
🛠️ Tech & Tools
Best AI Coding Tools of 2025 - Discover web platforms, IDE integrations, and CLI tools that utilize LLMs for writing, reviewing, and debugging code, making them essential development partners.
Requirements Capture — Crowdbotics - offers an AI-powered approach to keep requirements accurate and streamline legacy app transformation!
LiteLLM - provides robust load balancing, fallback management, and spend tracking across 100+ LLMs, all compatible with the OpenAI format.
LLM Evaluation Tooling Review - Discover top tools to streamline AI evaluations and align evaluation tools with your team’s expertise.
🌟 ChattyUI - Run LLMs privately in your browser using WebGPU. Supports Chrome, Edge, and Firefox. Requires Node.js 18+.
LLM CLI & Library - Interact with Large Language Models via command-line or Python scripts. Utilize remote APIs or run models locally, store outputs in SQLite, and more.
🔒 CodeGate - Local, open-source privacy shield for AI tools. Keeps your secrets on your desktop, securing LLM and coding assistant interactions.
🚀 sketch.dev - Experience Go playground within your browser with real editor capabilities. Build, test, and manage dependencies seamlessly in a Unix-like sandbox.
GitIngest offers prompt-friendly text extraction from GitHub repos, making them ideal for LLM consumption. Compression for AI.
From Diagram to Code with Amazon Q Developer - Turn your architecture diagrams into functional code using Amazon Q Developer in VS Code.
Fragments by E2B - Build AI-generated apps with this Next.js template. Get started with quick setup and explore its capabilities.
Roo Code offers AI-driven coding, architecture, and QA tools directly in your editor. Try it with the latest Claude 3.7 Sonnet model!
DeepEval provides a comprehensive evaluation suite for LLMs, featuring metrics like G-Eval and hallucination checks. Perfect for those using RAG, LangChain, or LlamaIndex.
🎧️ YouTube & Podcasts
How useful is AI for programming? -Marc Andreessen and Lex Fridman explore AI's impact on programming, urging developers to harness its potential now.
Prompt Engineering - A interview with Anthropic's engineers why prompting is engineering, what makes a good prompt engineer, the use of personas and metaphors, tips, and more.
📚 Learning Picks
Anthropic's Educational Courses - A series of five courses leveraging the cost-effective Claude 3 Haiku model to optimize API expenses for learners. A great resource for budget-conscious developers!
ChatGPT Prompt Engineering for Developers - Master the essentials of prompt engineering with ChatGPT. Enhance your LLM usage for summarizing, inferring, transforming, and expanding today.
🎭 AI Humor
Selling AI vs. Implementing AI: Two Different Games
👋 See You Next Week
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