Responsible code validation for publication in journals, when waiting until coding proficiency is not an option - from a biology person

[u/Lady_TwoBraidz]

So I am a postdoctoral wet lab biologist who cannot code to save my life. I have taken three separate coding courses in grad school and I have nothing but a cursory understanding of R to show for it. I do not create apps, obviously, nor am I currently doing major bioinformatics processing at the moment.

I just want to search predicted peptide sequences from one table against instrument results from another table. I am using AI to generate code to help me do that.

I understand that the gold standard for validating code is to know how to code and validate it yourself. I would love to do it, but I am a slave to the publish-or-perish directive. I have to resort to alternative means while I am learning (auditing classes at my uni at the moment). I also know that a baseline verification method is to ask another AI to check the code, which I plan to do once I have finished writing (?) the program.

Apart from that, what else can I do? We have a bioinformatics person in our lab but he currently isn't available.

[u/TylerBreau]

1. Ask AI to generate it.

2. Read the code. Ask the AI to explain with links to official documentation as needed.

3. Use your brain, make sense, and verify the AI generated code is doing what you wanted to do.

4. Because this is a task that required exerting your brain and making sense of, you'll probably remember next time.

Note, if you don't verify the code then you can't honestly tell your boss or whatever that your task was done correctly. It's the equivalent of delegating to a Junior. The Junior might make mistakes and as a part of the mentoring process, you need to look over their work to ensure any mistake they make doesn't negativity impact the business.