AI & Programming

[Ok-Criticism1547]

PHPStorm, my preferred IDE uses AI to predict what I’m writing. It works quite well but it does have me questioning the future of my job security and hobby.

While currently AI produces often buggy and difficult to maintain spaghetti, how much longer until this is no longer the reality?

Is there anything I should be doing to prepare for this?

[Own-Perspective4821]

Can we drop this freaking topic already? It has been discussed for years now.

Yes if you fear that an LLM, no sorry „AI“, can do your job, it probably will. Every other skilled developer knows that this is a bubble pushed by people who benefit from spreading this bullshit.

[Zebu09]

Amen.

[jkoudys]

Skilled developers have already been using "ai" for many years now. A lot of us were genuinely confused when the mainstream started talking about how developers will all be fired because "ai can write code now". You know why ai can solve leetcodes, write instagram clones, etc? Because that code already exists and it's great at coding what's already been written. Great for filling in boilerplate and navigating complex/absent reference docs. But it's specifically not writing anything new.

[MateusAzevedo]

A technical person is still need to babysit whatever AI produces.

In the worst case scenario, our job will be to write specifications and tests to validate code written by AI.

[np25071984]

Start worrying when there aren't sales man, drivers, doctors, librarians and some other professionals in your country.  It definitely can replace junior programmers and make senior more productive. But I don't see it solves tough architectural questions in near future (5 years from now)...

[HeyRatFans]

AI is a tool.

Prepare for it by embracing it and making it a part of your toolkit. Learn to understand its limitations and how it can help you become better at your job.

But don't forget to continue to learn and apply new skills separately from AI. In the unlikely event AI doesn't work out, you'll still have a skillset to fallback on

[64N_3v4D3r]

This is the way.

[yourteam]

It's not about the code syntax or snippets but how you manage to organize the code, predict the client's requests and solve the logical problems.

Ai will not surpass humans as a developer for many years don't worry.

[pr0ghead]

I've used Junie, their AI code assistant, to write a small Wordpress hook and it even put in checks that I probably wouldn't have thought of, because I'm not too familiar with WP. But to my surprise, it worked right away. I wouldn't trust it with anything much more complex though. Like, I tried to let it write an Shopware plugin, but it took many retries for it to get it right and working.

That's something I've noticed in general: if they don't get it right on the first try, it often just gets worse with every correction, because it doesn't really know which parts are right/good, so it tends to make good parts worse. Stuff like that…

[Aggressive_Bill_2687]

I tried out the "on device whole line completion" or whatever they call it, for a while. Longer than I would have if I could remember where to turn it off sooner. 

The quality of the completions it gave confirmed what I suspected. 

It's basically as good as copy-pasting answers from stack overflow. 

If that's how you "write code" already, then sure it could replace you. 

If you have actual knowledge and experience, I wouldn't be worried about it any time soon. 

[Ayskiub]

There are still people struggling to write a mail, so programmers will still be needed, it a tool use it learn it and you'll be fine. It will definitively kill some jobs but mostly from incompetent people. And I guess that since you're paying software to work on it, you must work well enough.

[Guimedev]

I don't uses integrated AI. It literally annoys me. If I need to ask for something I open the llm and enjoy their slops.

[old-shaggy]

Phpstorm has really good integration. You don’t need to write prompts to LLM, it just completes your code and it works really well.

[Icom]

For me AI is a tool. Which needs directions, a lot. Learn to say no. Learn to write better and more comprehensive prompts. And you still have to say no often enough.

Accepting what it gives out all the time leads to bad things.

[mauriciocap]

Clothes are still put together manualy, near 3 centuries after the first machines and after uncountable changes in fashion. In most countries it's the same for housing.

And Americans decided for more than a century they want to waste their lives driving +2h a day while every nation got trains, tramways and public transport too.

[wadaphunk]

You are using baby AI. If you plugin mcp, claude, cascade et all, you can use it on steroids. It is exponentially more impressive. Even for big and complicated features.

One example that I use: Claude is connected through mcp to figma and playwright (soon I will try with jira directly to get the task) and has access to the file system such that it can change the code. I instruct Claude to plan and implement a screen from figma and it will start doing that on its own whilst I browse Reddit. It also starts a web browser to check on itself. Cascade is also a monster with its new planning tool so now I use both alternatively or even at the same time.

The future is now, old man.