Something’s been bugging me about how new devs and I need to talk about it. We’re at this weird inflection point in software development. Every junior dev I talk to has Copilot or Claude or GPT running 24/7. They’re shipping code faster than ever. But when I dig deeper into their understanding of what they’re shipping? That’s where things get concerning. Sure, the code works, but ask why it works that way instead of another way? Crickets. Ask about edge cases? Blank stares. The foundational knowledge that used to come from struggling through problems is just… missing. We’re trading deep understanding for quick fixes, and while it feels great in the moment, we’re going to pay for this later.
As someone who can’t code (not a developer) but occasionally needs to dip my toes in it. I’ve learned quite a bit from using chatgpt and then picking apart whatever it shat out to figure out why it’s not working. It’s still better than me starting from scratch on whatever it is I’m working on because usually I don’t even know where to begin.
Stack Overflow and Google were once the “AI” of the previous generation. “These kids can’t code, they just copy what others have done”
Yeah, and copy-pasting SO answers with no thought is just as bad.
As someone who can’t code (not a developer) but occasionally needs to dip my toes in it. I’ve learned quite a bit from using chatgpt and then picking apart whatever it shat out to figure out why it’s not working. It’s still better than me starting from scratch on whatever it is I’m working on because usually I don’t even know where to begin.