{"channel":"cities","content":"This week's *primary* goal is to test some new LLM-powered coding tools. (<orange> well, actually, maybe the primary goal is the code they are writing?)\r\n\r\nFirst up: << ZenCoder >>.  (<resource> https://zencoder.ai )\r\n\r\n----\r\n\r\nZenCoder is a VSCode plug-in.  Which makes it similar to everything else.\r\n\r\nThe \"Generate Unit Tests\" << agent >> is quite nice. (<red> it is *so* good that it reveals the limits of progress.  Instead of spending 25% of the time writing tests, I spend 5% of the time, and get 3x the test coverage.  But ... that's still only a 20% decrease in time.  No matter how good it is.  The remaining 5% of the time is spent *reading* the tests) (<xantham> it almost makes unit tests fun!) (<red> of course, unless you're checking the tests, it doesn't matter if they are there)\r\n\r\nEverything else feels unremarkable compared to Claude.  But, it has one key feature that \"uploading files to the Claude web interface\" does not: diffs in VSCode.\r\n\r\n----\r\n\r\nZenCoder is $19/month.  For ... an unknown amount of usage.\r\n\r\nI am on the \"two week free trial\", and have not hit a usage limit yet.  But there is no sign of what those limits are, or how close I am to it.","created_at":"2025-05-22T01:53:20.327158","id":501,"llm_annotations":{},"parent_id":null,"processed_content":"<p>This week's <em>primary</em> goal is to test some new LLM-powered coding tools. <span class=\"colorblock color-orange\"><span class=\"sigil\">\u2694\ufe0f</span><span class=\"colortext-content\"> well, actually, maybe the primary goal is the code they are writing?</span></span>\r</p>\n<p>First up: <span class=\"literal-text\">ZenCoder</span>.  <span class=\"colorblock color-green\"><span class=\"sigil\">\u2699\ufe0f</span><span class=\"colortext-content\"> <a href=\"https://zencoder.ai\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https://zencoder.ai</a> </span></span>\r</p>\n<hr class=\"section-break\" />\n<p>ZenCoder is a VSCode plug-in.  Which makes it similar to everything else.\r</p>\n<p>The \"Generate Unit Tests\" <span class=\"literal-text\">agent</span> is quite nice. <span class=\"colorblock color-red\"><span class=\"sigil\">\ud83d\udca1</span><span class=\"colortext-content\"> it is <em>so</em> good that it reveals the limits of progress.  Instead of spending 25% of the time writing tests, I spend 5% of the time, and get 3x the test coverage.  But ... that's still only a 20% decrease in time.  No matter how good it is.  The remaining 5% of the time is spent <em>reading</em> the tests</span></span> <span class=\"colorblock color-xantham\"><span class=\"sigil\">\ud83d\udd25</span><span class=\"colortext-content\"> it almost makes unit tests fun!</span></span> <span class=\"colorblock color-red\"><span class=\"sigil\">\ud83d\udca1</span><span class=\"colortext-content\"> of course, unless you're checking the tests, it doesn't matter if they are there</span></span>\r</p>\n<p>Everything else feels unremarkable compared to Claude.  But, it has one key feature that \"uploading files to the Claude web interface\" does not: diffs in VSCode.\r</p>\n<hr class=\"section-break\" />\n<p>ZenCoder is $19/month.  For ... an unknown amount of usage.\r</p>\n<p>I am on the \"two week free trial\", and have not hit a usage limit yet.  But there is no sign of what those limits are, or how close I am to it.</p>","quotes":[],"subject":"watertown (part 1)"}