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Google gifts a Free AI Coding Assistant to the developer community

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Re: Google gifts a Free AI Coding Assistant to the developer community

#11

Post by ndr »

_mitterpach wrote: post #2

If you're a computer science student who is thinking of using this, don't. Don't use Copilot, Gemini, Cursor or any other code assisting tool for the several first years of your study or career. You will write code slower than others, sure, but what you'll learn and what you build will be a hundred times more useful for you than when you just copy and paste 'stuff' from AI. Invest in fundamentals, learn best practice…

This is bad advice to people with the correct posture.

If you want to learn: don't use these models to do the things for you. Do use these models to learn.

LLMs might not the best teachers in the world but they're available right there and then when you have a question. Don't take their answers for granted and test them. Ask to teach you the correct terms for things you don't know yet, so you can ask better questions.

There has never been a better time to learn. You don't have to learn in the same way your predecessors did. You can learn faster and better, but must be vigilant you're not fooling yourself.

Re: Google gifts a Free AI Coding Assistant to the developer community

#14

Post by icepat »

_mitterpach wrote: post #2

If you're a computer science student who is thinking of using this, don't. Don't use Copilot, Gemini, Cursor or any other code assisting tool for the several first years of your study or career. You will write code slower than others, sure, but what you'll learn and what you build will be a hundred times more useful for you than when you just copy and paste 'stuff' from AI. Invest in fundamentals, learn best practice…

I tend to agree. But will extend beyond computer science students and say especially people who are self-learning. When I was getting started, I actively tried to minimize the number of packages, and abstraction tools I used. Consequentially, I was able to properly and deeply understand how things worked. Only once I was able to really explain, and use a tool, would I accept an automated solution for it.

On the flip side, I've now found that getting AI to kick the tires on something I'm not super well versed in, helps me figure out how it works. But that's only because I understand how other things work.

If you're going to use AI in your learning, I think the best way you can do that is ask it to give you an example, or an incomplete implementation. Then you can learn in bits while still getting things done.

Re: Google gifts a Free AI Coding Assistant to the developer community

#15

Post by icepat »

rightbyte wrote: post #10
_mitterpach wrote: post #2

If you're a computer science student who is thinking of using this, don't. Don't use Copilot, Gemini, Cursor or any other code assisting tool for the several first years of your study or career. You will write code slower than others, sure, but what you'll learn and what you build will be a hundred times more useful for you than when you just copy and paste 'stuff' from AI. Invest in fundamentals, learn best practice…

Ye you probably want to get grip on the fundamentals. My old college still have the students write some programs by hand with paper and pencil on exams to enforce this. But, exercise pressure in courses will probably increase to recalibrate for the difficulty level. I feel LLMs would make you make assignments so much faster I don't think you can not use it.

Pen and paper in my opinion is absurd. You will never write code by hand. Ever. Writing things by hand teaches you how to do something in a way you will never use, so the memories being developed are going to be attached to a context that is alien to the reality of what your end goal is.

Re: Google gifts a Free AI Coding Assistant to the developer community

#16

Post by jonplackett »

ndr wrote: post #11
_mitterpach wrote: post #2

If you're a computer science student who is thinking of using this, don't. Don't use Copilot, Gemini, Cursor or any other code assisting tool for the several first years of your study or career. You will write code slower than others, sure, but what you'll learn and what you build will be a hundred times more useful for you than when you just copy and paste 'stuff' from AI. Invest in fundamentals, learn best practice…

This is bad advice to people with the correct posture. If you want to learn: don't use these models to do the things for you. Do use these models to learn. LLMs might not the best teachers in the world but they're available right there and then when you have a question. Don't take their answers for granted and test them. Ask to teach you the correct terms for things you don't know yet, so you can ask better questions…

I feel bad for anyone learning to code now. The temptation to just LLM it must be sooooo high.

But at the same time, having personalised StackOverflow without the negative attitude at your fingertips is super helpful, provided you also do the work of learning.

Re: Google gifts a Free AI Coding Assistant to the developer community

#18

Post by closewith »

_mitterpach wrote: post #2

If you're a computer science student who is thinking of using this, don't. Don't use Copilot, Gemini, Cursor or any other code assisting tool for the several first years of your study or career. You will write code slower than others, sure, but what you'll learn and what you build will be a hundred times more useful for you than when you just copy and paste 'stuff' from AI. Invest in fundamentals, learn best practice…

If your goal is to become a fundamentally sound computer scientist, this may be good advice.

However, if - like 99% of software developers in the workforce - your goal is to work on software until you earn enough that you no longer have to, then ignore this awful advice and focus on learning the tools that are becoming ubiquitous and mandatory is most roles.

Otherwise you are pre-assigning yourself to irrelevance, equivalent to programmers refusing to use operating systems, compilers, runtimes, etc.

Re: Google gifts a Free AI Coding Assistant to the developer community

#19

Post by ndr »

jonplackett wrote: post #16
ndr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is bad advice to people with the correct posture. If you want to learn: don't use these models to do the things for you. Do use these models to learn. LLMs might not the best teachers in the world but they're available right there and then when you have a question. Don't take their answers for granted and test them. Ask to teach you the correct terms for things you don't know yet, so you can ask better questions…

I feel bad for anyone learning to code now. The temptation to just LLM it must be sooooo high. But at the same time, having personalised StackOverflow without the negative attitude at your fingertips is super helpful, provided you also do the work of learning.

The non-curious/non-skeptics people might have better luck learning by staying with books and coding offline.

For the curious/skeptics there's never been a better moment to pick anything up. I don't know how we make more people more curious and skeptic.

Re: Google gifts a Free AI Coding Assistant to the developer community

#20

Post by desdenova »

ndr wrote: post #11
_mitterpach wrote: post #2

If you're a computer science student who is thinking of using this, don't. Don't use Copilot, Gemini, Cursor or any other code assisting tool for the several first years of your study or career. You will write code slower than others, sure, but what you'll learn and what you build will be a hundred times more useful for you than when you just copy and paste 'stuff' from AI. Invest in fundamentals, learn best practice…

This is bad advice to people with the correct posture. If you want to learn: don't use these models to do the things for you. Do use these models to learn. LLMs might not the best teachers in the world but they're available right there and then when you have a question. Don't take their answers for granted and test them. Ask to teach you the correct terms for things you don't know yet, so you can ask better questions…

Use documentation and real world code to learn, not slop.
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