Long Live Open Source
Don't Fix It If...
Everyone gets overwhelmed when they start programming. It’s natural for someone who can see the end goal to try find shortcuts. This used to look like copy and pasting a bunch of code from the internet in the hopes of it working. It might for something simple. Usually it needs tweaking though, more if it’s complex. If pasting just a single file results in confusion and difficulty debugging, then downloading an entire app built by AI is a debugging disaster.
With AI, all of the code has been generated by a system that has no context on it. This is not much different to starting work at a new company. Except at companies there are others who (hopefully) will have tribal knowledge.
The lie that we can just download entire applications that are built for our custom purpose has already been sold to us and disproved. It was called “learn programming language X in X lessons”. With an open source project attached to duplicate and work on yourself. At least with open source projects there is a vibrant ecosystem and the possibility of support from maintainers. AI is making things even worse by generating specific apps that don’t have any built in support except for the AI itself, which doesn’t have the context to remember what the app even does and is tying itself up in knots suggesting the same incorrect things over and over again.
This is not meant to be disparaging against AI in general, it’s a groundbreaking technology but it needs much more hand holding than assumed. People are still the most valuable resources we have. They are still needed to build alongside AI and fully unleash its power.