Aider : the production ready AI coding assistant you've been waiting for

github.com/paul-gauthier/aider
github.com/joshuavial/aider.nvim
Thanks to all my supporters and students who make this work possible
codewithjv.com to learn more
00:00 Introduction
00:19 Aider overview
01:46 Installation tips
02:38 Hello world and basic features
06:06 Simple project
08:26 multi-file refactoring
10:17 thoughts on industry impact
11:05 intro to aider.nvim and shipping a real feature
12:44 potential Aider enhancements
13:13 extending ChatGPTs knowledge with out of training data
20:01 programming for three audiences
21:38 yes, it can write documentation too
24:23 wrap up

[@javi_park]

Great video Josh. would love to see an update video on Aider! just tried it this week and it's quite mindblowing.

[@LearnCodeWithJV]

yeah, lots has changed since the original. It's on my list.

[@javi_park]

can't wait!@@LearnCodeWithJV

[@avi7278]

Really quite stoked about the neovim plugin. Thanks, insta-sub.

[@LearnCodeWithJV]

Nice - feel free to shout out if you have ideas for improvements.

[@TeamUpWithAI]

Nice video! Thanks for putting it together :)

[@LearnCodeWithJV]

Glad you liked it!

[@ack0x06]

I would like to sincerely suggest anyone who uses this wonderful tool to install it using `pipx` instead of just globally installing it with `pip`. This way, it is installed safely within its own virtual environment while still being available anywhere. `pipx` can also upgrade it without either messing with or being hampered by your other (user) globally installed packages, which is a big plus for such an important tool.

[@JoshuaVial]

Great sugggestion

[@techfren]

Great Content JV! :)

[@LearnCodeWithJV]

Thanks!

[@StormWolf01]

All of this is amazing.

[@magejoshplays]

very cool plugin, will have to check it out

[@LearnCodeWithJV]

It is indeed, I'm still loving it and using it every day

[@Maisonier]

What about now with DeepSeek-Coder-V2 vs gpt 3.5? great video, liked and subscribed.

[@zacboyles1396]

Fantastic video thanks

[@LearnCodeWithJV]

cheers

[@mickelodiansurname9578]

also Josh, subscribed and I can't work out why you haven't got tens of thousands of subscribers.

[@LearnCodeWithJV]

that's kind of you to say - I'm pretty new to making videos for youtube and have only been at it for a few months. I'm also only partially focused on subscribers and reach, a lot of the videos I make knowing they won't get much attention just because I know a handful of my students are interested.

[@eriknodland6841]

Great video! I was wondering how you could use Aider if you already had an existing codebase. The code changes or new code should adhere to our coding standards and architecture. How could you influence Aider for that?

[@LearnCodeWithJV]

I would suggest adding a file which demonstrates the things you care about to the context window. I find that nudges the LLM in the right direction pretty effectively. Another approach would be to formally document them in a standards.md and then just add that to the context. Working well with existing code bases is where I think aider really stands out.

[@aa898246]

it would be cool to have this compatible with local LLMs or use it with the web version of gpt

[@LearnCodeWithJV]

yeah, a lot of people would like to use this with a local LLM. I've tried a bunch and they aren't good enough (for me) yet, but I reckon we'll get there eventually.

[@Paul_Oz]

name also sounds kinda like Ada (as in Lovelace). it'd be cool if they meant that

[@LearnCodeWithJV]

yeah, I agree.

[@loicroxan6434]

Actually "Aider" means "to help" in french.

[@RealLexable]

Isn't it quiet similiar to Copilot X Chat ?

[@LearnCodeWithJV]

There are a few differences, I’ll be going through them in an upcoming comparison.

[@zehijean8817]

How does it compare with gpt-engineer?

[@LearnCodeWithJV]

I've only played a little with gpt-engineer but my take is that it is a bit more of a 'build this project for me from scratch' and less of a 'help you develop faster' which is what Aider does. If you know nothing (or very little) about coding then using GPT-engineer might be a better bet as it will ask you clarifying questions and then spit out a whole bunch of code that *might* work. Aider on the other hand is built around the concept of the user adding and removing the files from the context and prompting it each step of the way, so it's more about supercharging people who can code than giving a non-coder a coding AI agent.

[@zehijean8817]

@LearnCodeWithJV yesterday I tried gpt-engineer I had a complex and lengthy prompt but it failed miserably and couldn't generate the project although it did explain in the logs how it would do it but still...after 5 attempts I decided to do it with aider and wow 👌 wow aider nailed it created the git repo and all the files for the project...aider is the one

[@flethacker]

this is how programming should have been from the beginning

[@mickelodiansurname9578]

holy crap the friggin hoops I had to jump through just to get universal-ctags installed in a container on a windows machine.... someone needs to take a baseball bat to the Microsoft offices and explain to them WHY a package manager is pretty much a MUST HAVE in 2023.

[@LearnCodeWithJV]

oof, I can imagine the pain. The only way I can even think about developing on windows is with wsl

[@mickelodiansurname9578]

@@LearnCodeWithJV Win 10 is up this year I think, support drops in the middle of the year, I won't be going to 11, I think my windows days are now done! Microsoft and I will be parting company I think to be honest. Hard though cos obviously here comes a learning curve of new OS. So since I'm familier with Ubuntu I think thats where I will slink off to!

[@lancemarchetti8673]

If Aider can successfully generate a Base63 Decoder in JS, I'll eat my computer chair!. .. even ChatGPT couldn't get it right... 40 minutes of back and forth. Perhaps I'm just prompting incorrectly... But I've created many similar tools before... so I'm not sure why it's struggling with Base63.

[@LearnCodeWithJV]

Fascinating, the community is pretty supportive of you jump into the discord and share more details.

[@lancemarchetti8673]

@@LearnCodeWithJV ok cool... I'll do that

[@fluffykitties9020]

would be better if you compared with others like Codewhisperer, Copilot, etc

[@LearnCodeWithJV]

I agree. I'm planning to do a comparison with copilot and the new stack overflow AI, I'm not sure how many folks are using code whisperer though.

[@agxxxi]

Would love to see it run by other LLMs

[@LearnCodeWithJV]

Likewise - a bunch of folks are looking into it aider.chat/docs/faq.html#can-i-use-aider-with-other-llms-local-llms-etc has links to some of the info and there is an active channel in the discord group

[@gfhdlsk]

I don't agree with the title, for me production ready would also require privacy. Any serious company won't allow programmers to send their proprietary code to OpenAI's servers. This assistant is more like open source/private projects "production ready".

[@LearnCodeWithJV]

That's a fair point, there are a lot of companies that won't allow folks to use OpenAI apis. I expect that will be solved reasonably soon though as companies stand up enterprise friendly AIs or the open models get good enough with fine tuning. The main thing I was surprised with Aider was that the quality of the code + the dev workflow was good enough for production use.

[@avi7278]

aider is french for "to help" and pronounced "eh-day"

[@LearnCodeWithJV]

I asked paul (project creator) and he mentioned being inspired by aiders from outdoor rockclimbing "The name "aider" has a lot of relevant interpretations, but the one I like best is from rock climbing. Climbers use equipment called aiders to get through the hardest sections of a big wall climb, often helping to move quickly past the least aesthetic parts of the endeavor." Given the french penchant for climbing, perhaps I need to brush up on my pronunciation :)

[@lexscarlet]

I do believe Gauthier is likely French too. "Here's a little help with coding. Aider."