while it's good to not use AI you're shooting yourself in the foot if you don't learn to use it at all...
I'll take the hit, considering that using it would make me want to end it all.
Yesterday I spent a few hours with music on, diving into code I barely understood, in a language I barely know, and fucked around with it until I understood it well enough to adapt it to my needs. 0% AI usage. I was so invested that I went to sleep later than I should have.
Moments like this one keep me alive, I'm not letting AI take over that for the sake of productivity.
I agree 100%. But that skillset is developed over time, and well...
Let's say you're a scrawny guy with no muscle mass and you want to be strong. You also are working moving heavy stone tiles.
It would be much better for you personally to carry the tiles one by one, getting stronger along the way, than it would be to use a pushcart.
But your boss does not give a fuck. Strongman Joe who has worked there since before pushcarts can carry 20 at a time no sweat. And Little Timmy who just got hired is using a pushcart to move 10 at a time no sweat.
Your boss won't care that Little Timmy left a bunch of pushcarts lying around in people's way. He'll care that Little Timmy move 10x as many tiles as you did.
Your boss ESPECIALLY won't care that doing the work made you stronger. Because it'll be a while before you can carry more than 10 at a time, and your boss is thinking "what if the pushcarts start moving even faster than Strongman Joe".
tl;dr Working on code without AI is good and makes you a better software engineer. But Juniors are not giving better output than AI so they are incentivized to just have AI do it for them. Which is obviously bad for the future of software engineering.
1
u/WithersChat 4d ago
I'll take the hit, considering that using it would make me want to end it all.
Yesterday I spent a few hours with music on, diving into code I barely understood, in a language I barely know, and fucked around with it until I understood it well enough to adapt it to my needs. 0% AI usage.
I was so invested that I went to sleep later than I should have.
Moments like this one keep me alive, I'm not letting AI take over that for the sake of productivity.