I’m a hobby programmer who never worked a programming job. Last week I was bored, I asked o1 to help me to write a Solitaire card game using React because I’m very rusty with web development.
The first few steps were great. Guided me to install things and setup a project structure. The model even generated codes for a few files.
Then something went wrong, the model kept telling me what to do in vague, but didn’t output codes anymore. So I asked for further help, and now it started contradicting itself, rewriting business logic that were implemented in the first response, 3-4 pieces of code snippets of the same file that aren’t compatible etc, and it all fell apart.
LLMs contexts are fast to overload, as the article states.
That's why he writes smaller, specific packages, one at a time, and uses a web UI instead of something like cursor.
I had the same issue as you a few days ago. By separating the problem in smaller parts and addressing each parts one by one it got easier.
In your specific case I would try to fully complete the business logic one side. Reset the context. Then provide the logic to a new context and ask for an interface. Difficulty will arise when discovering that the logic is wrong or not suited to the UI, but i would keep using the same process to edit the code. Maybe two different contexts, one for logic, one for UI?
My first program ever was a windows calculator. My roomates would sit down and find bugs after I thought I perfected it. I learned so much spending weeks trying to get that damn thing working.
I'm not too optimistic about the future of software development if juniors are turning to AI to do those early projects for them.
The first few steps were great. Guided me to install things and setup a project structure. The model even generated codes for a few files.
Then something went wrong, the model kept telling me what to do in vague, but didn’t output codes anymore. So I asked for further help, and now it started contradicting itself, rewriting business logic that were implemented in the first response, 3-4 pieces of code snippets of the same file that aren’t compatible etc, and it all fell apart.