Working software developers of the Fedi, what's your relationship with AI coding (like Claude Code)?
I wonder what the distribution will look like if we get to 100-200+ votes.
My hypothesis is that the more casual Fedi users are more likely to use AI coding in some way.
Update:
- Started at 28% some sort of AI Coding use at ~60 votes.
- 36% at 336 votes.
@mayintoronto I'm just absolutely astounded that there's this many professional coders who *aren't* required to use it in some form for work yet.
The enterprise-grade/enterprise-cost tools are far better than the basic stuff.
We have a monthly per-dev credit budget so literally on a prompt by prompt basis I have to decide which model to send it to, based on what I'm doing and how much budget I have left.
Claude Opus 4 is definitely the best. If I get all the context loaded right and give an essay-length prompt full of requirements, it will usually get something I can send out for code review with little corrections. It is also the most expensive by far.
Claude Sonnet and Claude Haiku are not worth using.
GPT-5 Codex High is next best and gets you 90% of what Claude does but at 1/3 the cost. I usually reach for it as my primary model.
GPT-5 Codex Medium is half the cost of High and I use it for simpler tasks or fixing up other models minor mistakes.
The whole gemini family is infuriating. It often does the right thing on the first prompt but when it gets things wrong it does it in the most infuriating, non-obvious way and once you see it, it absolutely refuses to take correction.
@samir @lackthereof @mayintoronto I see it with clients in tech. The mandate is top-down, baked into performance reviews, all the way down the org chart. So "who requires it" is the lead doing one's performance review. In some places, it seems usage is tracked.
The effect is toxic, for some. I've had a client in tears. The message is: use LLM or go. Folks with mortgages & families* know the job market is terrible, and feel trapped. It's sad.
*Edit: & esp. health insurance needs, in the US.
@deborahh @lackthereof @mayintoronto But where are they headquartered? Who’s in management or executive positions? If they’re funded, who by?
In other words, what is the culture that leadership/management are coming from? There’s no global culture.
@samir @lackthereof @mayintoronto you're right. But there's an argument to be made that there is a beyond-national tech-bro culture. It's a thing in itself - often largely informed by US "cowboy" culture, I think.
Edit: "Metanational": https://www.insead.edu/faculty-research/publications/book-chapters/encyclopedia-international-strategic-management-0
Edit: see also: "TESCREAL" 😖
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2026/03/tescreal-the-ideology-of-the-tech-titans/
@deborahh @lackthereof @mayintoronto Absolutely! I saw it a lot in London. It’s common here in Zürich in the blockchain startups but not really elsewhere. I would still suggest that this kind of management attitude will be tolerated differently in different cultures.
I work for a German “scale-up” that has its share of tech bros, but it’s not pervasive at all, and in fact actively resisted. We have Claude licenses but they are opt-in.
@samir @lackthereof @mayintoronto I'd expect Swiss-culture companies to be even more resistant to coercing "AI" use than German ones, based on your political system.
But a multinational company's home office may not lead the culture worldwide any more.
May Likes Toronto
The Lack Thereof 
samir, an unknown quantity
Deborah Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦