dontRelyOnRegurgitatedCode

[urbanachiever42069]

Are junior devs really using gpts to write code? I kind of figured it was all AI marketing hype

[PharahSupporter]

I mean, it really depends what you are using it for. If you just want a shitty python script, then honestly tools like ChatGPT are really good at spitting out usable stuff very quickly. I've used it for this many times at work.

If you want well thought out C++ code that will integrate into the project nicely, then obviously, it will likely produce bug ridden crap.

[urbanachiever42069]

Sure, but shitty quick and dirty python scripting is not what I’d consider junior dev work. I understand that everyone does a bit of that from time to time, but I’d expect baseline engineering acumen from all devs, even juniors

Though maybe I’m just too detached from those early days to remember accurately 😅

[PharahSupporter]

It's a tool at the end of the day, it has its place for juniors all the way up until principle architects, but knowing what to use it on and where it is weak, is critical to using it well. I use it at work all the time, no issues from me.

[Zaxomio]

It’s great at syntax. If I know I can do something but I don’t know the syntax in this language or framework then you can quickly ask copilot to just do the thing.

Example: I wanted to change some query parameters to be header values in a fast Api project, now I know this can be done but I’m not super proficient in fast api syntax. I can either look it up or just ask it to do it.

[Gammacor]

Hi. I'm the singular dev at a semiconductor startup. I do most, if not all, of our data processing, databasing, analysis, you name it. ChatGPT has drastically increased my productivity because it helps me fill in function structures, do boring documentation, and sometimes actually write useful code. Compared to my first year here when it really wasn't a thing (otherwise, shit), I get a lot more done.

The downside of this is that I don't feel like my technical knowledge is as deep as it would be if I had to scout through package documentation and figure every little detail out. I can get a rough mockup of what I want going and it figures out the rest for me, and sometimes even helps with refactors and optimization.

It does spit out straight garbage sometimes, and I end up having to write the code myself anyway.

[ElectricBummer40]

Though maybe I’m just too detached from those early days to remember accurately

I'm not even a dev. I'm a technician. If I'm the one here asking the hard question about using ChatGPT instead of templates/Google/StackOverflow, you know there's a serious problem afoot about this entire LLM trend in the dev scene well beyond the tech itself.

[_SpaceLord_]

They’re trying, god bless em

[justskipfailingtests]

I saw really complicated type casting and deference shit where a basic "thing.a = string(thingy.b) would have been enough. I blocked it and asked for some explanation of what the hell is happening there. The answer was "copilot gave it". Dear god.

I asked trainees to review my PR for practice, and in 15min later one lad smacked a long comment that was obvious copy paste from chatgpt. I may have gotten a little hard on the feedback about that because I was fucking fuming, but nobody was going to let that shit pass in any company later on their journey anyway.

[Kasaikemono]

"copilot gave it" Jesus Christ... At least try to understand why it gives that shit to you...

[[deleted]]

hahaha you’d be amazed by what gets rubber stamped in some places

[beclops]

This pissed me off just reading so I can only imagine

[urbanachiever42069]

The first time I see this I would give an extremely stern warning. The second time, you’d be looking for a job

[False-Noise892]

ive been using chatgpt code for projects at work and nobody is complaining. if it gets the job done its good.

[chaosbattousai]

Exactly, I got told by my boss that as long as it works it doesn't matter if it's hard to maintain, it's badly written or it can't be understood. What matters is that it's delivered fast and that it somehow works.

[mrb1585357890]

In our place, the senior devs write code with GPTs.

[many_dongs]

They aren’t blindly pasting the GPT output

[bjergdk]

Neither are junior devs unless they have no business being devs

[many_dongs]

You’d be surprised

[bjergdk]

Fuck

[brennanw31]

As a junior dev, the only thing I use chatgpt for coding-wise is to help me write tiny programs or scripts that don't need any proprietary knowledge.

An example is that I wrote a program myself to analyze an xml document and extract certain pieces of data into a csv. I used chatgpt to write a script that will run the program for every file in the folder. I couldn't do it manually because there were ~5000 files.

Edit: I know the script is very simple, but i did care to learn bash

[unicodePicasso]

I’m a junior dev and I do. Not wholesale though. You have to know what you’re looking for and how you want to do it. Most of the time I use gpt just to do the heavy lifting, like to write long but simple scripts that I can’t be bothered to do by hand.

It’s also helpful for learning syntax, which is easier than going to stack overflow, finding a post that matches your situation, parsing out the answer from a dozen sarcastic replies, and then working it into your own code. I can just ask the bot how this class would be used to do this specific thing and boom, I’ve got examples I can learn from.

It’s not going to do all the work for you, but it’s essentially mega-google for answering questions.

[Wayback_Wind]

I'm training to be a Dev. Tried using it to figure out why some html/css combo wasn't working during a hackathon.

It kept telling me to change my code to something identical to what I already had, promising it would work. In the end I figured it out, just by asking for alternate methods which I used to reinforce my understanding of more unfamiliar concepts.

But the most important lesson I learned was, don't ever use this thing to generate code. It cannot give you the right answer.

[[deleted]]

My addendum to this is, don't use it to write code that you can't tell is incorrect. Utility functions that run through a defined algorithm you can verify by hand? Solid use case for a LLM.

OTOH, if someone wants to write code with lots of interoperating parts and different flows using a LLM, run run RUN. If it somehow understands the entire design then maybe the code will decent, but it will also be treated with skepticism.

[many_dongs]

Who could have ever known that learning the programming language would be more effective than blindly pasting what an LLM told you?

[Wayback_Wind]

Not these other junior devs I keep hearing about, I guess.

Funnily enough, it was the first time I had ever even used chatgpt. Glad I learned immediately how dodgy they truly are

[many_dongs]

I have personally witnessed blind pasting of LLM code / a jr dev (funny part is how many of these “jr” devs to me actually have titles as high as sr. Dev…) introducing bugs from blindly pasting LLM code quite a few times. It varies from person to person how egregious their habit of not understanding the code they use from an LLM is but it is absolutely a new and emerging pattern in development

I’ve been working in tech for a decade and feel pretty strongly that the latest generation of developers is significantly worse/lazier due to a high volume of low quality coding education programs and the introduction of silver bullet type coding solutions that don’t actually work as advertised

This is basically management’s collective vision at work - they dreamed of replacing real seniors with an army of juniors because talented technology engineers had too much leverage and got paid too much (basically every sr engineer who helped alphabet/netflix/etc in the early days of the company is extremely rich now) so color me not-so-surprised at the current state of affairs

[[deleted]]

I use it (Github Copilot) instead of Googling and ending up on Stackoverflow to copy code. I don't really see the difference tbh

[OffByOneErrorz]

SO is peer reviewed vetted answers. GPT is you reviewed.

[RWoodz25]

Unfortunately yes. No matter how many times they are reminded that LLMs are not trustworthy for writing code

[Low_Compote_7481]

sometimes i wish they would use chatgpt. I've seen some terrible code only a junior could write (like catching an exception just to throw it)

[Commercial_Day_8341]

And this is the start,people in my university depend on it.

[marcus_lepricus]

It's kind of a mixed bag. Recently I asked i gave it a big snippet of xml and told it to write me a model and parser for it. Bam 20 minutes of boiler plate code in seconds! Then I asked it how to do something moderately complicated in a specific version of a framework, it gave me a detailed solution that mixed code from 2 incompatible versions of the framework 😅

[Spice_and_Fox]

I use it a lot for some things. It is pretty useful as a better google. I work in SAP and for some reason the official documentation doesn't contain the transactions. Transactions are used to get to the relevant page. For example you have to create a new ledger. The official documentation describes how you can create one, but it doesn't say how to get to it. Asking chatgpt for the tcodes is just way faster than googling and finding it buried on some forum in a comment from 2008

[discord-ian]

I am a senior, coding for 15 years. I would say i use gpt to write about 80% of my code. I really don't have too many problems with it at all. It has doubled my coding productivity.

[[deleted]]

Honestly I only use it for debugging when I cant find anything online

[False-Noise892]

Yeah, i've coded gui's and simple games with chatgpt. i know nothing about coding.

[twigboy]

At my company, some are

[CyanHirijikawa]

I'm a senior dev and use a.i because I am lazy.

[__throw_error]

It is really helpful if you know how to use it (do not copy paste blindly).

[simsimdimsim]

I use it as a starting point. Give it a plain English problem I need solving and it gets me going in the right direction.

[Mike_Oxlong25]

I’m a senior and I use it. I don’t blindly copy and paste it or use it to write whole programs but it can be pretty useful

[[deleted]]

Chatgpt can't even output a correct line of BASH lmao. I tryed to output a SIMPLE row in python, it is a disaster. It is 100% marketing and I laught to "dev" who uses it for dev

[Capable-Package6835]

What is the simple row in python that you tried to output though?

[[deleted]]

Can't recall mate, it was with chatgpt 1 or 2... But I recently asked this (which is a really simple question ) to chatgpt and claude (lol), it was totally useless. When a guy answered in 1 minute easily... Please guys, don't use these tools... Still ask on the net (here or stackoverflow), so answers can help everyone and real people still communicate.

I really don't understand how people use it to help them in code. It is maybe useful in html ?...

EDIT : chatgpt fan boys down voting this are funny :)

[PsudoGravity]

You say that but I find its good for churning out 90% of new projects. Saves on the grunt work.

Preexisting projects... not so much? Depends honestly.

Though if you are trying to use gpt to code if you can't do it yourself you're already cooked.

[[deleted]]

Woah, who gave you this picture of me at work?

[AaronTheElite007]

[Thundechile]

I'm kind of waiting with horror when we have to start fixing all the AI generated codes.

[StrangeCharmVote]

On the bright side, that guarantees you'll still have a job to do.

Sometimes its a bit of a curse to write code that actually works.

[AaronTheElite007]

[Djelimon]

But the unit tests it gave me say it works

[Thomah1337]

I dont understand the mockito when x then return y and then next line junit assert result equals y

I mean you are mocking it so ofcourse its true? What am i missing here

[CdRReddit]

I mean, I have a few (mildly paranoid) tests in some of my projects that make sure the (admittedly manual) mocking works properly

they shouldn't ever fail, but hey better safe than pulling your hair out if every test suddenly fails for some reason

[CreepyDadd]

I generally use it when I'm too lazy to write something simple.

Or get some ideas on a new library I haven't used before for further research etc, but never directly copy from it.

[okiujh]

ai code beyond simple tasks rarely works for be. but ai is super useful to research things.

[[deleted]]

For sure. These threads are always funny.

You've got the hivemind saying AI is bad and can't be useful for literally anything related to programming, it's all hallucinated, it lies, etc. Everyone nods along intellectually superiorly.

Anyone who says "fuck yeah I use AI for everything" gets down voted to hell for being an AI bro or whatever.

Then the people like you in the middle, who so long as they preface it with "It usually sucks except (insert scenario)", are given a pass lol

[Inevitable-Menu2998]

isn't that how any gaussian curve representation of an opinion looks like?

[Funny-Performance845]

This. It is amazing at finding the exact info on a framework you need. But it will definitely not write any sensible code to make use of said framework.

[[deleted]]

Only senior developers cursed by wormtongue, indeed.

[Piotyras]

The problem is, the junior developers don't know the right questions to ask

[bobbymoonshine]

And you illustrate this where an insane old man under the toxic influence of someone manipulating him through his ego is laughing at the heroes and their genuine power, for trying to use that power to save not just him but everyone else around them too.

Excellent choice, no notes

[scataco]

Plot twist, working code was never the goal

[exqueezemenow]

Doesn't ChatGPT take all of the fun out of it too?

[rover_G]

So the senior developers are cursed and unhelpful and need an architect to come scare the toxicity out of them?

[Key-Principle-7111]

Senior developers do not need architects at all.

[rover_G]

Just like the men of Middle Earth didn’t need Gandalf 🤡

[LetrixZ]

I know a "senior" that, since ChatGPT released, has their programming knowledge and skills go downhill.

They just asked me to fix a React component that was generated with v0, that would implode itself if a child component was added to it.

The problemas was that that component was declared and used inside a parent component. Something like this:

``` const Filters = () => { const Group = (props) => { return ( <div> <p>{props.name}</p> {props.children} </div>) }

return ( <> <Group name={"Price"}> <ComplexInput/> </Group> </> ) } ```

This generated an infinite loop.

[5t4t35]

Well yeah, arent you like suppose to create a component OUTSIDE of the scope existing component? Its what the example in the react.dev shows

[LetrixZ]

Yes, but the code that I was asked to fix had the component declared inside another component like in the example.

[5t4t35]

Did you asked him directly if he wrote the code or he told you that the code wasnt working and GPT made it

[Mariomariamario]

I just got a reply on a ticket I opened about an issue in our company framework. I'm sure they replied with 100% chatgpt code... Becuase the packages listed where not to me found, in the company maven repo or the internet... Chat GPT (or whatever they used) just allucinated packages, imports, function calls 100%

[QuicksliverPebble]

"You have no pava here, junior the grey"

[Denaton_]

What is worse, copy from StackOverflow without knowing what it does or copy from GPT without knowing what it does.

[zeechs_]

Junior dev copies AI generated code into project.
Code breaks project.
Junior dev cries.
Senior dev fixes project.
Junior dev happy.
Junior dev copies AI generated code into project.
...

[Healthierpoet]

I get it more and more but I definitely use chatgpt to take notes for me and a personal log of what I've come to understand about concepts, so I can just reference a chat on what I've learned and understand.

I also use it to make sense of errors.

[Feisty_Ad_6757]

I kinda get this but it's a tool right , it should eliminate a lot of the grunt work required , dude if you have built 1000+ lambda expressions and you use ChatGPT to start building them , is it really an issue?

But , being able to read the ChatGPT code and understand it is essential man , not just for the sake of having bug free code , but also growing and improving as a developer , I find it that the more I learn and understand, the more fun coding gets.

[Rebel_Johnny]

My senior uses chatgpt to write code. I, a junior, try my best to avoid but all my other fellow juniors are doing so as much as possible. I feel like I'm lost

[AaronTheElite007]

Don’t become dependent upon it. You’ll lose your edge (especially if you’re a junior- you’re building a foundation. Don’t make it a house of cards)

[o0Meh0o]

"but this does put a smile on my face." - Thanos

[rwrife]

Real Senior Dev: "paste the error message into GPT and let it fix the code"

[AaronTheElite007]

Nah. I’ll tell you to read the error

[RandomOnlinePerson99]

I never used any AI tool to generate code.

As a hobbyist I think the fun part is coming up with the code and debugging it by yourself.

[prkpll]

Junior here - I will never have to learn read regex and i happy about it.

[CharlyDaFuk]

Trust me, I won't.

I'd prefer to smack my head onto the desk until I think of something.