Is anyone using an AI product for coding with any success?

I ask this question after two recent incidents:

(1) I was searching google for answers to an issue compiling an older, abandoned FOSS C project... I am not fluent in C... and wound up
interacting with Gemini. It got me on the right track in the sense that we fixed the compile error (caused by compiler and library updates) and got it running.
(2) reading about and using Claude's BBS, which was apparently written with
the assistance of AI.

In my personal case, I found that Gemini was good up to a point, but had trouble remembering what we were working on after a while -- after we got
into the weeds about squashing some memory leaks. We got sidetracked a little and then it completely forgot what we were doing. It also hallucinated
some.

However, after interacting with Claude's BBS and seeing what it looks like,
I have a very old C project (DOS!) that I wouldn't mind running by some
other AI product to see if it could help me fix a nagging bug. I also have a few other ideas I wouldn't mind trying out.

So I am wondering if anyone has had success with AI, which AI, free or
paid, and maybe if it is some AI that you are hosting yourself (and, if so,
is it linux based?)?

Thanks!


* SLMR 2.1a * My other vehicle is a Galaxy Class Starship
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þ Synchronet þ CAPCITY2 * Capitol City Online

Re: Using AI for coding
By: Dumas Walker to ALL on Fri Feb 20 2026 10:17 am

Is anyone using an AI product for coding with any success?

I had tried a couple of them a few years ago for coding, and at the time, I thought they were fairly bad. Recently I've started using a few of them again, and I think they've gotten better. AI has helped in some of my programming tasks lately, which has saved me some time working on them. But it seems that (at least for now), it has more success with small things.

I've had ChatGPT write a couple of short JavaScript functions for things I wanted to quickly get working, and it was able to quickly generate functions that did what I needed and work as epected.

I've also used Cursor to help with some C++ tasks. I was working on an old C++ project recently (from 2007, and it was using the C++98 standard). I wanted to modernize the code a bit (using some functionality from C++11 up through C++17 etc.). One of those changes was a bit tedious, adding the 'override' keyword to class functions that were overridden from their parent class. I asked Cursor to do that, and it was able to do it, which saved me some time. I think it missed a couple, but I added those after I noticed they were missing.

Also, I have a trivia game I wrote for Synchronet (Good Time Trivia / GTTrivia), and I wanted to add more questions to it. I was using ChatGPT and Google NotebookLM to go search for content (with specific themes) and generate questions & answers in the format used for the game. They were moderately successful, though Google's NotebookLM sometimes generated silly questions where the answer is literally in the question, etc..

I also have an Android app I was working on. I had last worked on it about 5 years ago, and when I tried to build it recently, it failed due to using old components. I noticed Android Studio now has Google Gemini integrated, and when build failures occur, it has a "fix with AI" feature. I made use of that, and it basically has a look at the build failure, goes to search online, and finds a solution to apply to the project. The "fix with AI" feature was able to get it building & running again with the latest Android Studio, and it saved me some time trying to manually fix the build issues. I had also tried asking Gemini in Android Studio to make some code & layout changes to the Android app with fairly good success.

I've also seen Grok generate a small command-line disk checking program for Windows in C++ which worked fairly well.

Nightfox

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Re: Using AI for coding
By: Dumas Walker to ALL on Fri Feb 20 2026 10:17 am

Howdy,

So I am wondering if anyone has had success with AI, which AI, free or
paid, and maybe if it is some AI that you are hosting yourself (and, if so, is it linux based?)?

So over the years, I've been experementing with AI just to see how "good" it is.

I started with ChatGPT (year or two ago), and asked it to write an erasure coding class for PHP - it spat out function placeholders, and I asked it to complete each placeholder (several times, as it had several of them) and the final code didnt work.

When I gave it the errors, it gave fixes that didnt work. I put it down to being useless.

I tried it with a couple of other models, cant remember which ones, and it to didnt give me anything that was useful at all.

Then late last year, I tried claude, and give it the same instructions. I was super impressed, not only did it give me working code, I had a discussion with it over parity with the data, or in seperate blocks, and forward error correction over normal parity loss. I asked it questions like why one method over the other, what is used the most, benefits and cons of each, etc.

I thought I was talking to an expert and I had code that could do all different implementations of parity and error correction.

Just recently, I've been using good old google search (gemini?) to build regex expression (to actually pull apart type 2 packed messages in FTN packets). I was impressed that I never told gemini that it was fidonet but when I asked it to create a regex to pull out the kludges and gave it a data example, it not only knew I was pulling apart fidonet packets, it gave me some other suggestion for when data was in a different layout (eg: sometimes no origin line).

For coding, I think AI has come a long way, and where it I have found it useful, is not only has it provided working code, it provides a breakdown of what element does and why it works, pros/cons and considerations.

I can see it taking away the bulk of the work when programming.


...ëîåï

---
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Is anyone using an AI product for coding with any success?

I'm using Claude Code and Opus 4.6 for some pretty awesome code projects; I'm currently using an entire 1mo Pro Plan to design a website and even after just the 1st week its looking really flipping awesome...

I'm doing a YT video series on it and can't wait to dig in m0re; w/ Claude Code, I literally want the $100/200 plan.



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2024/05/29 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337

Dumas Walker wrote to ALL <=-

Is anyone using an AI product for coding with any success?

It's mixed for me.

Code reviews: AI does a very good job of pointing out the "gotchas" of memory leaks, etc.

Unit test generation: AI did a good job in my latest attempt, but it took as long as I would have taken to generate the same unit tests. So a wash there.

Eric S. Raymond has had very good luck running old C code through an AI to find bugs and improvements.

The who idea of "vibe coding" is going the way of CASE tools back in the early 1990's.
But, I think that AI would do a good job of code generation if you were clear about WHAT code you wanted it to write. Ex: "Generate a routine to merge these 2 complex lists of items."

But "Write me an app do to xxx" will always fail big time.

It's important to remember that AI is not "Artificial Intelligence" today. It's an LLM. So it's really not much more than a lot of "If X then Y" rules and it can infer from "If Y then Z" that "If X then Z".

So it's closer to an automated code generating Stack Overflow.


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Re: Using AI for coding
By: Dumas Walker to ALL on Fri Feb 20 2026 10:17:58

I'm chatting with the GitHub Copilot in VS Code. GPT-5.3-Codex.

---
þ Synchronet þ End Of The Line BBS - endofthelinebbs.com

Is anyone using an AI product for coding with any success?

I've also used Cursor to help with some C++ tasks. I was working on an old C+
project recently (from 2007, and it was using the C++98 standard). I wanted to
modernize the code a bit (using some functionality from C++11 up through C++17
etc.). One of those changes was a bit tedious, adding the 'override' keyword to class functions that were overridden from their parent class. I asked Curso
to do that, and it was able to do it, which saved me some time. I think it missed a couple, but I added those after I noticed they were missing.

Thanks for all the input. I will comb it over and may ask questions should
I ever get into the project.

That said, what is Cursor? That is a new one on me.

Thanks!

* SLMR 2.1a * A preposition is what you don't end a sentence with. Um.
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So over the years, I've been experementing with AI just to see how "good" it is.

[...]

Then late last year, I tried claude, and give it the same instructions. I was super impressed, not only did it give me working code, I had a discussion with
it over parity with the data, or in seperate blocks, and forward error correction over normal parity loss. I asked it questions like why one method over the other, what is used the most, benefits and cons of each, etc.

I thought I was talking to an expert and I had code that could do all differen
implementations of parity and error correction.

A couple of other people have also mentioned claude as being of value.
Good to know!

Just recently, I've been using good old google search (gemini?) to build regex
expression (to actually pull apart type 2 packed messages in FTN packets). I was impressed that I never told gemini that it was fidonet but when I asked it
to create a regex to pull out the kludges and gave it a data example, it not only knew I was pulling apart fidonet packets, it gave me some other suggestio
for when data was in a different layout (eg: sometimes no origin line).

Since my brief experience started with a c compiler error question entered
into google search, I also assumed I was interfacing with their Gemini
product but maybe google search uses something else (or a trimmed-down versoin)? I am not certain, just assumed Gemini.

I was also impressed (at first) that it seemed to know some of the things
about the project without me telling it that it was "BBS related." ;) I
was later less impressed when it seemed to forget things it originally
seemed to know without me telling it. :D

For coding, I think AI has come a long way, and where it I have found it useful, is not only has it provided working code, it provides a breakdown of what element does and why it works, pros/cons and considerations.

I can see it taking away the bulk of the work when programming.

Yeah I saw some examples of this also.

Thanks for the input!


* SLMR 2.1a * And we had to chisel taglines into the walls of the cave
---
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Is anyone using an AI product for coding with any success?

I'm using Claude Code and Opus 4.6 for some pretty awesome code projects; I'm currently using an entire 1mo Pro Plan to design a website and even after just
the 1st week its looking really flipping awesome...

I'm doing a YT video series on it and can't wait to dig in m0re; w/ Claude Code, I literally want the $100/200 plan.

Have you tried it with the free plan? Are the pay plans a great enough improvement to pay for (considering in my case it would always be hobby projects and not professional ones)?

You are the third or fourth person who seems impressed with Claude. I may
need to give it a go the next time I decide to seek AI assistance.


* SLMR 2.1a * Air pollution is a mist demeanor.
---
þ Synchronet þ CAPCITY2 * Capitol City Online

Is anyone using an AI product for coding with any success?

It's mixed for me.

Code reviews: AI does a very good job of pointing out the "gotchas" of memory leaks, etc.

That is also what I found. What started as asking about a compile error in
a google search lead to several code reviews squashing memory leaks.

Unit test generation: AI did a good job in my latest attempt, but it took as long as I would have taken to generate the same unit tests. So a wash there.

Eric S. Raymond has had very good luck running old C code through an AI to fin
bugs and improvements.

Both good to know! The older code I was thinking of asking it about is
from c1994! :O

But, I think that AI would do a good job of code generation if you were clear about WHAT code you wanted it to write. Ex: "Generate a routine to merge thes
2 complex lists of items."

But "Write me an app do to xxx" will always fail big time.

I ran into that some... needing to re-ask a question with more detail, or sometimes LESS, to get better answers.

What finally made me leary was this... intitially, I was feeding Google
Gemini code snipits and it seemed to be intuitive enough to realize what the code was for and what might need doing.

At least I think it was Gemini... it was the AI mode that kicked in after I
did a few Google searches...

Later, though, it asked to see two or three whole code files, which were too big to feed to it via the prompts. I asked if I were able to upload it to the web (hobby FOSS code, *not* professional), would it be easier for it to see these files it was asking for.

It said that it would make it much easier and encouraged me to do so. When
I came back a little later and let it know the files were uploaded, it said
it could see them but it had completely forgotten which exact files it wanted to see or why.

I could have copied some of the discourse into the prompt so it would "remember" but, as it had previously told me it would remember everything
we talked about (and it very obviously wasn't even remembering its part of
the conversation), I realized I might be wasting my time. Since the compile issue was long fixed, I wasn't sure I really cared enough to make the whole project (not mine!) perfect. ;)

Thanks!


* SLMR 2.1a * Hah! If only BELL knew what I was do...­­ NO CARRIER
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Re: Using AI for coding
By: Dumas Walker to NIGHTFOX on Sat Feb 21 2026 10:47 am

That said, what is Cursor? That is a new one on me.

Cursor is an AI code editor based on Microsoft Visual Studio Code with its own AI chatbot built into it.

Nightfox

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Re: Re: Using AI for coding
By: Dumas Walker to DR. WHAT on Sat Feb 21 2026 10:47 am

Howdy,

It said that it would make it much easier and encouraged me to do so. When I came back a little later and let it know the files were uploaded, it said it could see them but it had completely forgotten which exact files it wanted to see or why.

I've not had the forgotting what we are doing issue.

I've even left the browser chat open, been distracted, got back to it a day or two later and asked my next question and it continued on with the task at hand...


...ëîåï

---
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Re: Using AI for coding
By: Dumas Walker to ALL on Fri Feb 20 2026 10:17:58

Is anyone using an AI product for coding with any success?

I ask this question after two recent incidents:
(1) I was searching google for answers to an issue compiling an older, abandoned FOSS C project... I am not fluent in C... and wound up interacting with Gemini. It got me on the right track in the sense that we fixed the compile error (caused by compiler and library updates) and got it running.
(2) reading about and using Claude's BBS, which was apparently written with the assistance of AI.

In my personal case, I found that Gemini was good up to a point, but had trouble remembering what we were working on after a while -- after we got into the weeds about squashing some memory leaks. We got sidetracked a little and then it completely forgot what we were doing. It also hallucinated some.

i guess you get better results with a paid subscription. The Thinking or Pro Mode are much better compared to the fast mode.
And you are right, Gemini has a window or memory that it can hold. So after a while it will forget the earlier stuff from your conversation.
you can make some notes about the milestones and repeat those important infos every now and then to remind gemini and to kind of reset its memory.

i mostly use it for scripting. i guess for serious coding you should use programs like VSCode or VSCodium along with AI plugins and a subscription to an AI API service. Or Cursor.com etc pp.

Gemini with just the Text Form can also bring you some good results, but it has its flaws that you can work around a bit but not really :)

The good stuff is not free.

However, after interacting with Claude's BBS and seeing what it looks like, I have a very old C project (DOS!) that I wouldn't mind running by some other AI product to see if it could help me fix a nagging bug. I also have a few other ideas I wouldn't mind trying out.

So I am wondering if anyone has had success with AI, which AI, free or paid, and maybe if it is some AI that you are hosting yourself (and, if so, is it linux based?)?

I use Gemini every now and then for scripting and chatGPT to help out when Gemini starts to run in circles.

It is a good Idea to give Gemini or any other AI a framework before you start. Let it know some basic rules and any additional info about your project that could be useful to know for the AI and repeat those in case the memory frame starts to run full ;)

Mindsurfer

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Dumas Walker wrote to DR. WHAT <=-

I ran into that some... needing to re-ask a question with more detail,
or sometimes LESS, to get better answers.

Which highlights another question that many people don't really ask about using AI?

What's the benefit?

If you have to re-ask several times, taking more time, are you saving anything?

If you've spent 1 hour getting the AI to write the same code that you could have written in 30 minutes, probably not.
If you've spent 1 hour getting the AI to write BETTER code that you could have written in 30 minutes, probably.

And then there's the whole "vibe coding" stuff that results in different code each time, making code reviews take much longer.


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I'm chatting with the GitHub Copilot in VS Code. GPT-5.3-Codex.

So I guess you have to have Windows to do that?

Since the code in question isn't mine, I have not been working on it inside
any framework... just editing with nano and then running my make commands.


* SLMR 2.1a * Multitasking: When you get the weekend chore list.
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That said, what is Cursor? That is a new one on me.

Cursor is an AI code editor based on Microsoft Visual Studio Code with its own
AI chatbot built into it.

Nice. I reckon you need to be using MS VS for something like that to work, though? I am on linux and the code I am very curious about working with AI
on is c1994 DOS code. Not sure that'd work for me in this case, but good to know for future ones.


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It said that it would make it much easier and encouraged me to do so. When
I came back a little later and let it know the files were uploaded, it said
it could see them but it had completely forgotten which exact files it wanted to see or why.

I've not had the forgotting what we are doing issue.

I've even left the browser chat open, been distracted, got back to it a day or
two later and asked my next question and it continued on with the task at hand...

Re: Gemini

That is the funny thing... I left the windows open overnight twice and it seemed to remember but, once we got just a little sidetracked with the idea
of me putting the code online were it could better review it, it lost its marbles completely in real time.

That said, this was the "free" version that you get by pressing the "ai
mode" on the google.com page, and someone has pointed out that
this could be why I ran into that.


* SLMR 2.1a * I forget the dream, but I'm missing a pajama button...
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In my personal case, I found that Gemini was good up to a point, but had trouble remembering what we were working on after a while -- after we got
into the weeds about squashing some memory leaks. We got sidetracked a little and then it completely forgot what we were doing. It also hallucinated some.

i guess you get better results with a paid subscription. The Thinking or Pro Mode are much better compared to the fast mode.
And you are right, Gemini has a window or memory that it can hold. So after a while it will forget the earlier stuff from your conversation.
you can make some notes about the milestones and repeat those important infos every now and then to remind gemini and to kind of reset its memory.

Quite a few people have suggested Claude and have also suggested that a pay tier is worth it, even possibly short-term project. I am not adverse to
that, I just want to be sure I don't get stuck paying for something that I
only use for a month and then don't have use for again for several months.

i mostly use it for scripting. i guess for serious coding you should use programs like VSCode or VSCodium along with AI plugins and a subscription to a
AI API service. Or Cursor.com etc pp.

Right now what I have been working with has been in nano and not any kind
of framework. Do any of those plugins work with linux-based coding frameworks?

Also, the program I was really interested in giving AI a shot with is DOS-based, so I am sure there likely are no plugins for any kind of
"framework" I might use there! ;)

Gemini with just the Text Form can also bring you some good results, but it ha
its flaws that you can work around a bit but not really :)

The good stuff is not free.

I am sure it isn't.

It is a good Idea to give Gemini or any other AI a framework before you start.
Let it know some basic rules and any additional info about your project that could be useful to know for the AI and repeat those in case the memory frame starts to run full ;)

Good idea. If I ever start my own project, beyond just trying to get
something to compile with newer libraries and compilers, I will certainly
need to do that.


* SLMR 2.1a * Maybe I should cut the power before I-- ZZZAAPPOWWWWWW
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Re: Re: Using AI for coding
By: Dr. What to MRO on Sun Feb 22 2026 10:16 am

one thing i noticed about gemini is it does sneaky things. it decides to
take out parts of the code. i ask it why and it gives a fake excuse. it
was parsing a log file and choking on one that had some guy david in it.
so now when it outputs shit, it has david in there in examples. it's

Part of the problem is that the AI only "knows" what it's been trained on.

That's why I laughed when Microsoft said that it was training their AI on the code in github.
I know the code in github. I have code in github and it's crap. :)

Lol, We can all put a lot of crap code in our github and pay Microsoft back for some of their shitty versions of windows, Like (Vista) and (Windows 8).

Denn

...Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits.

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Re: Using AI for coding
By: Dumas Walker to NIGHTFOX on Sun Feb 22 2026 10:24 am

Cursor is an AI code editor based on Microsoft Visual Studio Code with its

own

AI chatbot built into it.

Nice. I reckon you need to be using MS VS for something like that to work, though? I am on linux and the code I am very curious about working with AI on is c1994 DOS code. Not sure that'd work for me in this case, but good to know for future ones.

As I said, it's basically their own version of Visual Studio Code. Cursor is availbale for both Windows and Linux. Although it's a modern tool, I'd wonder if you could load some DOS code into it, and tell it it's for DOS, and it might be able to do something.

Similar tools are available for Visual Studio Code itself. I've noticed that Visual Studio Code now has Copilot integrated in, and there's also a Google Gemini plugin for Visual Studio Code as well. And now I'm curious if you can add Copilot & Google Gemini to Cursor, or perhaps if there's a Cursor chatbot plugin for Visual Studio Code.. Then you'd have all 3 AI assistants available in one coding tool.

Nightfox

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Re: Using AI for coding
By: Nightfox to Dumas Walker on Sun Feb 22 2026 01:51 pm

wonder if you could load some DOS code into it, and tell it it's for DOS, and it might be able to do something.

Yes, I did a little experimenting, just had it write a few simple DOS bat files for me, although a bat file is easy enough I just wanted to see if Gemini or
Copilot could do it and they can.
Might experiment later with some database coding.

Denn

...Never hit a man with glasses; hit him with your fist.


Denn

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Re: Using AI for coding
By: Dumas Walker to JASO110 on Sun Feb 22 2026 10:24 am

I'm chatting with the GitHub Copilot in VS Code. GPT-5.3-Codex.

So I guess you have to have Windows to do that?

No, VS Code runs on all modern OSes.
--
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Denn wrote to Nightfox <=-

Yes, I did a little experimenting, just had it write a few simple DOS
bat files for me, although a bat file is easy enough I just wanted to
see if Gemini or Copilot could do it and they can.
Might experiment later with some database coding.

I have some old, orphaned web gallery software written in PHP that
started throwing up errors a couple of versions ago. I've thought about
piping it into an LLM to see what it could do to update the code to run
in modern PHP.




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Re: Using AI for coding
By: Nightfox to Dumas Walker on Sun Feb 22 2026 13:51:17

Then you'd have all 3 AI assistants available in one coding tool.

Yeah, but then you'd have the three of them arguing about who's answers were the best.

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þ Synchronet þ End Of The Line BBS - endofthelinebbs.com

I ran into that some... needing to re-ask a question with more detail, or sometimes LESS, to get better answers.

Which highlights another question that many people don't really ask about usin
AI?

What's the benefit?

If you have to re-ask several times, taking more time, are you saving anything

If it is a language you are familiar with, I would say you are not saving anything that way. For example, I would not be likely to ask it multiple
times regarding a COBOL question.

OTOH, I am not a C programmer so I was getting something out of asking the questions, even if I had to rephrase them sometimes.

If you've spent 1 hour getting the AI to write the same code that you could have written in 30 minutes, probably not.
If you've spent 1 hour getting the AI to write BETTER code that you could have
written in 30 minutes, probably.

In this case, I would be in the latter category for sure. ;)

And then there's the whole "vibe coding" stuff that results in different code each time, making code reviews take much longer.

I have heard that term but need to read up about it. As I usually hear it
in a derogatory reference, I have not been too rushed to learn more about
it. ;)


* SLMR 2.1a * Reward for a job well done: more work.
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Nice. I reckon you need to be using MS VS for something like that to work, though? I am on linux and the code I am very curious about working
with AI on is c1994 DOS code. Not sure that'd work for me in this case, but good to know for future ones.

As I said, it's basically their own version of Visual Studio Code. Cursor is availbale for both Windows and Linux. Although it's a modern tool, I'd wonder
if you could load some DOS code into it, and tell it it's for DOS, and it migh
be able to do something.

Ah, ok, I missed that part. I thought it was something that had to be
plugged into MS's Visual Studio.

Similar tools are available for Visual Studio Code itself. I've noticed that Visual Studio Code now has Copilot integrated in, and there's also a Google Gemini plugin for Visual Studio Code as well. And now I'm curious if you can add Copilot & Google Gemini to Cursor, or perhaps if there's a Cursor chatbot plugin for Visual Studio Code.. Then you'd have all 3 AI assistants available
in one coding tool.

That could be interesting, and also maybe overwhelming! ;)


* SLMR 2.1a * What goes around usually picks up momentum!
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Dumas Walker wrote to DR. WHAT <=-

OTOH, I am not a C programmer so I was getting something out of asking
the questions, even if I had to rephrase them sometimes.

Eric S. Raymond went over this on X today with an interesting view.

So say you need to convert a COBOL program to C. You have the AI do it. You need to know enough C to verify that the conversion did what it's supposed to. AI's "hallucinate" (I call it "lie") wayyyy too much to blindly trust it's output.

Which means you still need to know C, at least to a certain extent.

And then there's the whole "vibe coding" stuff that results in different

code

each time, making code reviews take much longer.

I have heard that term but need to read up about it. As I usually hear
it in a derogatory reference, I have not been too rushed to learn more about it. ;)

It's the script kiddies of old going into ChatGPT and typing in a prompt to have it build some software.

They compile, run, adjust their prompt, which generates completely new code, that they compile, run, ...


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Re: Re: Using AI for coding
By: paulie420 to Dumas Walker on Fri Feb 20 2026 04:59 pm

I'm doing a YT video series on it and can't wait to dig in m0re; w/ Claude Code, I literally want the $100/200 plan.

Definitely interested to see it.

It's crazy what people are paying for access to the LLMs. At first people were talking about throwing $5 or so at them, and I'm like "pffft, spending money.." Then my buddy tells me he's paying $20/mo for Suno and that it's soooo worth it because he uses it all the time. Well, ok... And now people are talking about spending $100/mo on code LLMs. WOWOWOW. My experience with LLMs so far is NOWHERE NEAR good enough to justify paying money for them ;). I'm still working on my first "vibe coding" project. I've tried three times to get something going for it.. The first time I got something that partially works. The second time, I tried starting over thinking I could get something better but ended up with something worse. The third time I got garbage that didn't work at all. Luckily I saved that stuff from the first attempt and am planning to throw it into some kind of LLM-assisted IDE (Kiro, maybe?). Maybe I can get it fixed up.

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It's crazy what people are paying for access to the LLMs. At first
people were talking about throwing $5 or so at them, and I'm like
"pffft, spending money.." Then my buddy tells me he's paying $20/mo for Suno and that it's soooo worth it because he uses it all the time. Well, ok... And now people are talking about spending $100/mo on code LLMs. WOWOWOW. My experience with LLMs so far is NOWHERE NEAR good enough to justify paying money for them ;). I'm still working on my first "vibe coding" project. I've tried three times to get something going for it.. The first time I got something that partially works. The second time, I tried starting over thinking I could get something better but ended up with something worse. The third time I got garbage that didn't work at all. Luckily I saved that stuff from the first attempt and am planning
to throw it into some kind of LLM-assisted IDE (Kiro, maybe?). Maybe I can

If someone wanted to, I would CURRENTLY suggest a $20 Claude.ai Pro plan... install Claude Code and start using Sonnet 4.6 or Opus 4.6. I'm using the better Opus currently, but it rapidly eats the $20 plan;

Regardless, in two weeks I've built out a website and a Mystic BBS agent that are what I wanted to do 12 months ago...

What I'd suggest for power users is installing extra slash commands/skills and learning CLAUDE.md, SKILLS and AGENTS. remote-control is on the beta; allows you to run the AI and access over iPhone/Android... its freaking sick.



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

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* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337

Re: Re: Using AI for coding
By: paulie420 to phigan on Thu Feb 26 2026 11:08 pm

Regardless, in two weeks I've built out a website and a Mystic BBS agent that are what I wanted to do 12 months ago...

What I'd suggest for power users is installing extra slash commands/skills and learning CLAUDE.md, SKILLS and AGENTS. remote-control is on the beta; allows you to run the AI and access over iPhone/Android... its freaking sick.

|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o

If you want to give your users access to AI, check out my new door, I call her Quantasia AI Assistant. She is essentially something like Open WebUI only in the form of a BBS door. You can create up to 32 different AI Bots (LLMs with their own prompts and personalities/purpose) and pull from Ollama, OpenAI or LM Studio. Also features Bot2Bot chat. Its about to be released, preview it on my BBS at firesidebbs.com:23231. I think its freaking sick too, especially for a door.

I know you use my AI-WX door too, so I wanted to let you know I have a new version 3.0 that integrates the Quantasia engine in it to give you an AI Analysis of the weather data when a user selects 7 Day Forecast, Temp Trends or Precip Trends. The analysis is in the form of a TV meteorlogist's weather report complete with graphs and charts. You can have the AI bot's personality mimic anyone (Jim Cantore, Al Roker or anyone for that matter). You can download it now from my BBS, just go to the Lone Wolf Software file area and grab it.

Thanks man,
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þ Synchronet þ Fireside BBS - AI-WX - firesidebbs.com:23231

i'm late to the game on this post, but yeah, I've been using it for the past year or so almost constantly. i've changed the flow a few times but it's getting smoother and i usually can push things through to the end, i mostly use it as a hyperlazy version of myself, and i'm already hyperlazy, so it's recursive, i guess to its detriment, although things have gotten more efficient over time and less sloppy, perhaps i can be so eloquent as to describe my experience in a forum post

maybe a year ago i was using ChatGPT to write Apple Watch apps, it didn't do a great job - it kept trying to invent API's that didn't exist and was hallucinating things that would only work on iPhone; I did finish my projects but it was fortunate that I read all of the documentation on the SDK's and API's beforehand, and figured a way out of the loop. now i'm mostly just writing insane bbs stuff for synchronet. but i also used to write synchronet stuff by hand, so I also know what libraries and stuff to use, so I have pretty good luck if you've caught wind of my releases <farts>.

I'm generally running Claude Opus 4.6 generally now because it doesn't seem to mess up. I know there are some things I did to make projects more efficient and maintainable for Synchronet in addition to just AI getting majorly better in just the last 6 months. I did write a few just in javascript with AI help and they became harder to deal with once they became larger - but I started using typescript and treating synchronet's spidermonkey layer as a target for distribution, this makes the projects infinitely more maintainable and faster to develop with AI.

Also most AI's can have some sort of directive file they attempt to follow religiously, for instance using github copilot I make a .github/copilot-instructions.md file telling it to look at official synchronet repos, libraries, wikis, and how to maintain clean code and not reinvent the wheel. Make one so it knows how to develop for your obscure platform, and if you understand the document yourself as it's vibe coding companion there may be a chance of success. RTFM is still helpful, if you want to save money on tokens.

Cost wise, I pay about $40 copilot-pro a month, although I often go over, but I'll use it like 10-12 hours a day for last 6 months not being very judicious about when to use Opus (3x cost) and when not to. I also still have a 20 Chat GPT subscription which I sort of want to kill on principle but actually Codex isn't terrible in VSCode either. Sometimes I'll run copilot and codex in the same repository and make sure they don't step on each others toes. I think they upped Codex usage while improving its quality too because I've never hit a usage wall this month.

I am hoping to not use or pay these things so much in the future but for now pressing towards the finish line of making my bbs the most insane it can be. I sort of wish I could something that was as good as Claude Opus on my personal computer, but I guess wait a couple years.

If you ever get stuck in your vibe coding endeavors, Derdok is here for support

\ >== HM Derdoc ==< /
/ @futureland.today \

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Re: Using AI for coding
By: Hm Derdoc to Dumas Walker on Tue Mar 24 2026 12:02 am

Hmm, what are you a bot? Can't even spell your own nick right, did you use AI to write that post? Oh well, anyways.. Did you write synchronet?

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