After reading this, I tried Claude Code (in a docker container, as one does, you wouldn't want to use npm without protection after all).
I gave it a huge Clojure codebase and told it to implement proration in my subscription system. Which currently doesn't have proration of any kind. Very poorly specified task, and yet what I got was really quite good — not working, ready-to-run code, but certainly a great starting point.
I was impressed by how it was able to follow my coding conventions, interface with my Stripe library to (correctly) create and confirm payment intents, and most importantly, by the `calculate-proration-amount` function which was correct in spite of how difficult it was (there are custom plans, plan overrides, extra users, etc).
It is the first time I felt an AI coding tool is genuinely useful. I still think you need to set expectations correctly: this doesn't "just do stuff", it is not a human programmer and will not produce flawless ready-to-run code in most cases. But it's a very good tool.
I gave it a huge Clojure codebase and told it to implement proration in my subscription system. Which currently doesn't have proration of any kind. Very poorly specified task, and yet what I got was really quite good — not working, ready-to-run code, but certainly a great starting point.
I was impressed by how it was able to follow my coding conventions, interface with my Stripe library to (correctly) create and confirm payment intents, and most importantly, by the `calculate-proration-amount` function which was correct in spite of how difficult it was (there are custom plans, plan overrides, extra users, etc).
It is the first time I felt an AI coding tool is genuinely useful. I still think you need to set expectations correctly: this doesn't "just do stuff", it is not a human programmer and will not produce flawless ready-to-run code in most cases. But it's a very good tool.