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Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

kyrylo.org

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Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#21

Post by kshacker »

nkrisc wrote: post #6

If you spend time on places that attract newbie programmers (some subreddits focused on game dev or game engines, for example) you’ll see the outcome of “I no longer think you should learn to code.” And it’s not pretty. Many, many posts of people looking for help fixing AI-generated code because the AI got it wrong and they have no idea what the code even does. Much of the time the problem is simply an invented metho…

I have played around wit AI code from time to time. I do not code routinely but I have pet personal projects that allow me to do some code and this is where I experimented.

Rule number 1 and the only rule: You need to be a subject matter expert. Be it program logic or be it programming language. AI is only a helper, it will go wrong, frequently, and if you do not understand the reason for the code and the programming language, you will take so much more time than if you did not even use the AI.

Without naming the IDE, but one of the top 3 I guess, I asked it to simplify some code. I had repeated code 8 times. 6 of them were identical, the last 2 had a variation. The AI just did not catch it, and refactored all 8 blocks to use the logic of first block. How can you even do that? The code is similar but different, it looks the same but there are extra lines of code in the last 2 blocks !!

And it took me a while to realize this. I never ingest AI code directly so at first I was marveling at a job well done, and as I read and compared, the horror !! And that was not the first time it happened, but once again I got tricked by the soft spoken well mannered AI to believe that it did a fantastic job when it did not.

Edit: It is just an assistant. You give it a task, it will make a mistake, you tell it to fix the mistake, it will fix the mistake. It still saves you time. Next day, it will make the same mistake - and hopefully that gets reduced as the versions evolve.

Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#22

Post by Frieren »

marjann wrote: post #9

The rise of tools like Cursor reminds me of the Industrial Revolution in France. When machines first appeared in factories, unskilled workers who didn’t understand how they operated often got injured - sometimes quite literally losing fingers. But for skilled craftsmen, these machines became force multipliers, dramatically increasing productivity and improving overall living standards. The same applies to software de…

> When machines first appeared in factories, unskilled workers who didn’t understand how they operated often got injured - sometimes quite literally losing fingers.

Factories were extremely dangerous because the machines had no safety measures. And they continued to be dangerous, for everybody skilled or not, until the introduction of workers rights, regulations and enforced safety measures and protocols.

> But for skilled craftsmen, these machines became force multipliers, dramatically increasing productivity and improving overall living standards.

Skilled craftsmen continued working as they traditionally did so much so that up to today it is possible to find craftsmen that use traditional tools.

> Those who invest in learning the craft will always have the advantage.

I agree with your conclusion, thou.

Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#23

Post by Frieren »

isolli wrote: post #17
marjann wrote: post #9

The rise of tools like Cursor reminds me of the Industrial Revolution in France. When machines first appeared in factories, unskilled workers who didn’t understand how they operated often got injured - sometimes quite literally losing fingers. But for skilled craftsmen, these machines became force multipliers, dramatically increasing productivity and improving overall living standards. The same applies to software de…

But the usual way of learning the craft is broken. Experienced developers will now work with AI instead of hiring junior developers. Some exceptional individuals might still learn on their own, but the path from junior to senior, learning by doing, could vanish. That's my worry.

> Some exceptional individuals might still learn on their own

And people with money/means. Children of software engineers may be able to learn the profession easier than others. The same goes for children with affluent parents that can pay for many years of education.

It seems a retreat back to a more medieval economy that excludes large parts of society.

Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#24

Post by pydry »

marjann wrote: post #9

The rise of tools like Cursor reminds me of the Industrial Revolution in France. When machines first appeared in factories, unskilled workers who didn’t understand how they operated often got injured - sometimes quite literally losing fingers. But for skilled craftsmen, these machines became force multipliers, dramatically increasing productivity and improving overall living standards. The same applies to software de…

As a skilled craftsman I have to say Im underwhelmed.

It's not that theyre not useful at all it's just that they look more like a step change dressed up as a revolution.

Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#26

Post by shinycode »

isolli wrote: post #17
marjann wrote: post #9

The rise of tools like Cursor reminds me of the Industrial Revolution in France. When machines first appeared in factories, unskilled workers who didn’t understand how they operated often got injured - sometimes quite literally losing fingers. But for skilled craftsmen, these machines became force multipliers, dramatically increasing productivity and improving overall living standards. The same applies to software de…

But the usual way of learning the craft is broken. Experienced developers will now work with AI instead of hiring junior developers. Some exceptional individuals might still learn on their own, but the path from junior to senior, learning by doing, could vanish. That's my worry.

You’re right, many, many people choose the path of least resistance to learn. Instead of digging a subject it’s easy to see the answer unfold …

Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#27

Post by neomantra »

kyrylo wrote: post #2

This is my reaction to the recent tweet by the Replit CEO, where he said that learning to code will be a waste of time.

I was pretty shocked and dissappointed at his quote -- Replit's rise was so aspirational. So the VC $$$ forced Replit to pivot to shilling AI schlock rather than actually improving humans...

Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#28

Post by gtsop »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #8

For a cynical take, 10, 15 years ago this headline would have been "Learn to code, ignore Stack Overflow, then use SO to code even better". In this context, AI is just one of many resources you can use - books, websites, SO, etc - to improve your coding. The big differentiator is that you can have a realtime conversation with AI, whereas when talking to other people - be it on SO, IRC, Github, forums etc - you may or…

I don't think you are tackling (what i believe to be) the main point in this article. Yes we can all agree that replacing SO with chatgpt is very fast and often a better experience.

However, this is not about researching for solutions, it is about offloading your coding capacity to the machine. These are two different things and I think the author is addressing the latter.

Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#29

Post by DrScientist »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #14

> Because if you can vibe code… so can everyone else. That's really the money shot, right there. CEOs have this dream of firing all their "obnoxious" engineers, and "vibe-coding" their own products. That's not something new. People have been selling this dream to gullible C-suiters since I first started coding in Machine Code (1980s). The future will belong to the engineers that can leverage AI. Engineering is a lot…

> CEOs have this dream of firing all their "obnoxious" engineers, and "vibe-coding" their own products.

Give one of the key skills of a CEO's is pulling together the resources to make something happen, what happens to CEO's if you no longer need resources to make stuff happen?

ie if everybody can Vibe code, vibe market, vibe deploy - aren't you going to be swamped with competitors?

So the interesting thought experiment here is - in such an environment - what are the critical success factors?

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