as a dev with a little bit of experience building things, the answer is no.
Just straight up no.
is it easier to code with AI? yes.
is it faster to code with AI? yes.
isn’t your speed of shipping (sos) the only thing matters in the real world? yes.
then why the heck should i not use AI when i code
good question.
to keep the answer stupidly short and simple, it’s because of “blind productivity”
what’s “blind productivity”?
it’s when you get stuff done without knowing how you got it done.
you know when you copy paste something off of stack overflow and it works somehow? now, replace stack overflow with AI.
sure you got shit done and you got a couple pats on your back by your manager/teammates/spouse (idk)
but did you gain anything from that experience? no.
you have a piece of code that works and you’ve added it your mental (or physical) list of accomplishments but you can’t really do it again or perform a certain subset of the same task again on your own without AI.
the other argument: but AI is always going to be there
when i say this, people usually retort with “but AI is always going to be available as a tool to use”
fair point.
but here’s the thing, can you confidently hold a conversation with someone about the thing you “accomplished”?
most of us want to be able to make a living with code, so naturally that means interviews and isn’t that the same conversation i referred to earlier?
so no AI to code. got it.
heck no. i’m not above using AI at all.
i still use it for tasks here and there and i actually find it eating away at what little brain cells i have but sadly, if i don’t use it, i will be left behind.
it has to be an amalgamation of both. try to do things as if you are still in the pre-gpt era but if you need the extra help, use it.
never open up your code editor and your chatgpt app at the same time. only use it when needed.
and be mindful of what you ask it to do.
is it something very small that i can just do myself in 5 mins if i put my mind to it? alright then i’ll do it myself.
is it something i’m doing repeatedly over and over again (which is bad code if in the same code base btw) and i could do without writing it just this once? sure ill use AI for it.
is this a problem i don’t even know how to start solving, even after i’ve given it a decent bit of thought? okay then, i’ll use it.
ik ik i started off very clickbaity but i do hope i was able to convince the average joe to be less dependent on AI than he was yesterday.