maybe my settings were off but i tried aider when it first came out and kept coming back to it and it ended up being super slow and generating subpar stuff compared to just chat. actually turned me off to CLI based style code assistants.
claude code blew my mind, however. really great for refactoring existing stuff with a proper CLAUDE.md file or one-shotting small features. i mainly use it for scaffolding, sounding board and refactoring but it's been a game changer (albeit more expensive).
still like to use boring chat-based and pasting back and forth as it helps me approach and understand issues better for later on. i find generating huge blocks of code/files to feel like magic but then u dig into a bug later and find the LLM wrote or structured a bunch of semi-garbage that you have to undo.
> i tried aider when it first came out and kept coming back to it and it ended up being super slow and generating subpar stuff
I had very similar results. I discovered Aider & Claude-code at the same time. I even tried Aider with Claude 3.7 (with thinking), and it just wasn't as good. I think it's a lot more annoying to use and set up, a bit more conservative in how it tries to understand your project, where claude-code has no problems scanning your entire codebase.
> still like to use boring chat-based and pasting back and forth as it helps me approach and understand issues better for later on. i find generating huge blocks of code/files to feel like magic but then u dig into a bug later and find the LLM wrote or structured a bunch of semi-garbage that you have to undo
Same. When an LLM generates code in a simple chat, it's always a bit more abstract, which is a good thing. Some of the things claude-code generated turned out to be garbage.
Aider does scan your entire codebase. What did you try to do that didn't work?
A typical workflow for me involves developing a plan document using copy/paste from the command line into a (cheap/fixed cost) webui and discussing it with the AI. Then, the result gets pasted back into aider to implement the changes in code. Aider, for me, mostly replaces the text editor, and the mindless process of squashing compilation and test bugs.
claude code blew my mind, however. really great for refactoring existing stuff with a proper CLAUDE.md file or one-shotting small features. i mainly use it for scaffolding, sounding board and refactoring but it's been a game changer (albeit more expensive).
still like to use boring chat-based and pasting back and forth as it helps me approach and understand issues better for later on. i find generating huge blocks of code/files to feel like magic but then u dig into a bug later and find the LLM wrote or structured a bunch of semi-garbage that you have to undo.