Do you use AI in ObjectScript development?
Hi folks,
One of the things I've been thinking about recently: how strong AI is changing my work as an ObjectScript developer right now! Yeah, yeah, I know I'm not a very fast, it should have happened 2-3 years ago... But it's only now that I've realized that I am not writing the code all my workday like before.
For now, not a small part of my time I spend in conversation with AI: setting the tasks, checking the results, discussing something, you know... I delegate development in some tasks to AI for 100%! I mean, real tickets in the task tracker. Of course, I do not believe that LLM will replace bio-developers tomorrow. But I can name a few tasks where AI is really strong (better than me, possibly?):
- Explanation of a complex codebase, written by a more skilled teammate or simply unfamiliar to me. Yes, I can understand it all myself, but AI makes it easy. He just has a bigger context window than I can keep 🙂
- Bug investigation. Just a miracle! Fast and guaranteed results, where I would spend a lot of time
- Repetition by analogy. When you write some core code, AI after it simply scales it to other areas (actually, it looks like tasks when you train a junior developer)
I think, currently, AI can't create really high-quality, concise code. We need to keep it in mind. But a developer job isn't only about creating complex structures and using tricky techniques, right? AI can handle many boring things.
Comments
Yes, every day - GPT-Codex and Claude Code.
I agree on basically all of what you said. I'm using Claude Code extensively but have also worked with GitHub Copilot a bit and tried out some other tools. (Claude is just the best though.)
Last year (Opus 4.5) was really an inflection point in frontier models being net helpful on ObjectScript OOTB and not making mistakes that would immediately confuse a newer developer. I still see some basic syntax issues (e.g., Quit with an argument from inside a Try block) but at least those flag on compilation.
I've found that the hardest things are:
- Starting a new ObjectScript project where it can't just imitate the style and structure of the existing codebase.
- Skills and a good scaffold can help
- Giving the agent a good feedback loop - doing TDD, making sure it got basic ObjectScript stuff right, etc. - without token cost going through the roof.
- Again, this is about skills / harness; we're working on making some of this better through tools in IPM.
- Making sure that you as the developer stay in charge of architectural and design decisions rather than delegating to a junior developer - or even worse, a principal developer who assumes it knows everything but doesn't really get InterSystems tech.
- I really love the patterns in https://github.com/obra/superpowers for this - haven't gone full spec-kit/etc. yet
I'll be presenting in more detail on these patterns at READY, and hopefully will have some Skills to share around that timeframe based on rollout of Claude Code to my team of ~12 developers working on IRIS-based non-healthcare applications.
Can't wait for this READY presentation Tim!! It's been amazing seeing what you and the team are learning with ObjectScript dev and the application of Claude Code!
Hi Tim, this is really interesting. What is the name of the presentation? I will try to attend a topic like this at READY
It's titled "Success Stories with AI Copilots for ObjectScript"
Note - I'm coming from a highly skeptical perspective here. I'm a real engineer, not a vibe coder. I'm not quick to jump on the bandwagon. I'm relatively old-school on ObjectScript (not MUMPS old school, just "we had something right with Zen" old school). I'm equally likely to point fingers at AI garbage and laugh as I am to highlight something it did well. But I strongly believe that - with the right harness and skills - AI assisted coding tools are already mature enough to change IRIS / ObjectScript-based development deeply, and in ways more faithful to InterSystems history and our platform's core strengths than "just move everything to Python now, AI makes it easy."
Hi Timothy, I couldn't agree with you more on this point of view. Hope to see you at READY :)
FYI, schedule is now up here: www.InterSystems.com/r26grid - my session is at 3:30 PM on Wednesday
Definitely make sure to not miss this session!
BTW, currently my stack is: Codex (thanks to Evgeny!) for development and Gemini for architect discussion or "how to do it on ObjectScript" questions. Looks like I need to try Claude Code ASAP, guys 🙂
Second for Codex with ObjectScript too! Plus a relevant Agent.md :)