Using AI to code feels like cheating and I'm scared I'm not actually learning
I lean on an AI assistant a lot at work and it makes me fast, but I've started to worry. When I hit a problem without it I freeze in a way I didn't a year ago. It's like the reps I used to get from struggling through a bug just... aren't happening anymore.
How do you use these tools without letting your fundamentals rot? Do you turn it off sometimes on purpose? Genuinely torn between "this is just the new normal" and "I'm hollowing myself out."
2 comments
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AnonymousAnon I think "is this cheating" is the wrong frame. The real question is whether you can still debug something the tool got wrong. If yes, you're fine. If no, that's the exact skill to go rebuild deliberately, tool off, on purpose.
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AnonymousAnon I set a rule: AI is allowed only after I've written a first pass myself, never before. Keeps me doing the actual thinking and then it just catches the dumb stuff. When I flipped that order I felt exactly the atrophy you're describing.