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by DiabloD3 32 days ago
Yes, this is what I keep telling people.

There are two kinds of programmers I've met: those who think they became 10x devs because of AI, and those who AI is slowing them down.

The people who think they became 10x devs? They were missing crucial skills that allow them to be productive devs, and the AI is filling the gaps... instead, they should be actually learning those skills, since without them they will never actually be a competent dev.

The people who think AI slows them down? Having to constantly cajole the AI into producing the relevant slop takes more time than just writing the thing in the first place.
1 comments
sajithdilshan 32 days ago
> They were missing crucial skills that allow them to be productive devs, and the AI is filling the gaps

What's wrong with that? AI is a tool and that's the whole purpose of using tools. Are you one of those people that expects everyone to write code in notepad?

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DiabloD3 32 days ago
The purpose of a tool is to make your job easier.

A good editor makes your job easier. A bad editor makes your job harder. Some people use bad tools because it is what they are familiar with, not because it is a good tool. Example: People daily drive VSCode and VSCode forks.

As I said, a bad tool makes my job harder. Examples of making my job harder include being inconsistent, requiring extreme vigilance and oversight or it will do the wrong thing, suddenly grows new features that are also the wrong thing for the task at hand and are enabled by default, not knowing if the tool will be available when I need it (and it usually won't, exactly at the time I need it the most) either due to fragility or poor design, or it just uses a woefully incorrect workflow for the task at hand, or even promotes and enforces bad security practices. Example: AI, but also VSCode.

Like, dude, if you want to hate on editors, HN has these threads frequently, but why strawman me with Notepad? There is nothing wrong with people using Vim, Emacs, Sublime Text, Textmate, or whatever. The tool has to work, be ergonomic, and not be hostile. Just because a tool is popular (for the moment, at least) doesn't mean its good. AI is popular currently, but it isn't good.

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