On AI in coding

"But is the code correct?" He asked. And this, dear reader, is where the hard truth hit me. Jhey looked at the ChatGPT output. It had gifted me 5 lines of completely unnecessary code, and another bit was "fine" but not the most efficient way to write JavaScript. He made a few edits for me and left me to continue on with my CSS overhaul. -- The Web Witch's Blog

A few weeks ago, it took my colleague and me hours to find all the bugs that AI introduced into an application simply because someone had written code in a language and framework they were unfamiliar with.

I often use AI for development tasks, and it can be very useful - for example, when you need to apply similar changes to multiple files or when you want to improve your code style ("Tell me how this code can be written in a more readable way..."). However, AI can also produce a mess when you use it for something with which you have no experience. It's like working with a a new colleague who can be brilliant at times but would rather say something than admit that they can’t solve a problem. If AI only supports you on a topic you are familiar with, it will improve your speed and perhaps even the quality of your work. Maybe you can even learn how to improve the structure of your code or write that one specific test. If you have no experience with the topic you're working on, it can produce bugs and poor code; in the end, just copying and pasting code you don't understand won't make you a better programmer.

via Stephanie Stimac