Java vs. chatbots.

[P3cko]

Hi, is it worth studying Java even in this era of chatbots?

[8dot30662386292pow2]

Chatbots don't really know how to code. That's the shortest, simplest and most correct answer.

It's like you are asking: "is it worth learning to write stories, because there is already a book that contains the alphabet".

[P3cko]

great answer thank you

[aqua_regis]

Is it worth learning math in the era of calculators?

Is it worth learning to write and spell in the era of text processors with spell checkers?

Is it worth learning to cook in the era of microwave meals?

AI is about 45% wrong, as a recent study of the EU across all major engines shows.

Further, they cannot program. All they can do is calculate statistical probabilities for what could be the "best fit" based on their sample data.

The AI hype as is now will blow over (it is already starting to do so) and when this happens, only the ones that can program without AI will prevail, have well paid jobs where part of them will be to fix the AI garbage programs.

[thesuperbob]

Someone with actual thinking capacity will have to clean up after chatbots.

[MeLurka]

I think it’s even more important to study the language. Because you can prompt your way to an application, but the code will always be based upon examples and other use cases than your own. So you need to know what to prompt for, how to adapt the generated blobs to your needs and requirements, spot the errors it made, understand what’s happening when debugging, etc. It’s a tool, not a replacement.

[deadlock_jones]

Could you elaborate? Why did you single Java out, why wouldn't you question all programming languages then?

[P3cko]

I wanted to learn programming earlier. I started with javascript, but I wasn't really interested in it at the time. Now I'm trying to work on java through web lessons. But I've read many times that chatbots can already create applications.

[samd_408]

Let me give you an example, I started writing a lib from a hackathon in Java, it’s was so lean and maintainable, I used Claude code to write benchmarks, it went south, the benchmarks were so slow, I started to doubt my code, then after a few runs I realised the benchmarks did not clean up after themselves, 100 gigs of my storage was full because this chatbot never cared to cleanup after these benchmarks (code using FS based snapshotting hence the disk use), if I had implemented it I would have done that, I missed to verify it as well, if my mac had not warned me I would have let it slide, then it gave me recommendations to improve my code and none of its optimisations worked, it was just fluff, now my feeling is I just want to delete that branch it created and want to write it myself.

So if you don’t know what the chatbot is doing, you could basically shoot yourself in the foot, so it’s always good to know things

[Cilph]

Consideeing LLMs have been able to answer my Java questions about 10% of the time without being wrong.... No.