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I’m trying to pivot my career from web/business app dev entirely into embedded, despite the steep learning curve, many new frameworks and tool chains, because I now have a full-time infinitely patient tutor, and I dare say it’s off to a pretty good start so far.
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If you want to get into embedded you’d be better suited learning how to use an o-scope, a meter, and asm/c. If you’re using any sort of hardware that isn’t “mainstream” you’ll be pretty bummed at the results from an LLM.
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Sounds like you only tried it on small projects.
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At work I use it on giant projects, but it’s less impressive there’s

My mold project is around 10k lines of code, still small.

But I don’t actually care about whether LLMs are good or bad or whatever. All I care is that I am am completing things that I wasn’t able to even start before. Doesn’t really matter to me if that doesn’t count for some reason.

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That’s where it really shines. I have a backlog of small projects (-1-2kLOC type state machines , sensors, loggers) and instead of spending 2-3 days I can usually knock them out in half a day. So they get done. On these projects, it is an infinity improvement because I simply wouldn’t have done them, unable to justify the cost.

But on bigger stuff, it bogs down and sometimes I feel like I’m going nowhere. But it gets done eventually, and I have better structured, better documented code. Not because it would be better structured and documented if I left it to its ow devices, but rather it is the best way to get performance out of LLM assistance in code.

The difference now is twofold: First, things like documentation are now -effortless-. Second, the good advice you learned about meticulously writing maintainable code no longer slows you down, now it speeds you up.

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> I’ve been wanting to develop a plastic -> silicone -> plaster -> clay mold making process for years, but it’s complex and mold making is both art and science. It would have been hundreds of hours before, with maybe 12 hours of Claude code I’m almost there (some nagging issues… maybe another hour).

That’s so nebulous and likely just plain wrong. I have some experience with silicone molds and casting silicone and other materials. I have no idea how you’d accurately estimate it would take hundreds of hours. But the mostly likely reason you’ve had results is that you just did it.

This sounds very very much like confirmation bias. “I started drinking pine needle tea and then 5 days later my cold got better!”

I use AI, it’s useful for lots of things, but this kind of anecdote is terrible evidence.

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You may just be more knowledgeable than me. For me, even getting to algorithmic creation of 4-6 part molds, plus alternating negatives / positives in the different mediums, was insurmountable.

I’m willing to believe that I’m just especially clueless and this is not a meaningful project to an expert. But hey, I’m printing plastic negatives to make silicone positives to make plaster negatives to slip cast, which is what I actually do care about.

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> So maybe some folks are “pretending”, or maybe the benefits just aren’t where you’re expecting to see them?

Or you’re pretending that your pointless task AI could actually do was TOTALLY worth it. So glad that pointless ish was accomplished.

Everyone is pretending so they can try be on the money-making edge of the curve. All your stories are absolutely bullshit.

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May I suggest you re-read the guidelines regarding charitable interpretations? This is oddly aggressive and insulting, and probably beneath you.
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