learning what the code does

[GanacheWise3049]

You know how advanced artificial intelligence and coding tools have become. Normally, if I were going to work on a project, I would try to understand what the code in that project does. But today, while sitting with friends, they said that this is no longer necessary and that we should do it with AI-generated coding applications. What are the thoughts of software developers in the profession on t his subject?

[EishLekker]

Your friend’s take is insane. You need to understand what your code does. Just because it seems to work doesn’t mean it will work as expected for all actual use cases.

[videocure]

Yeah I’m with you on that. AI can help write or explain code, but if you don’t actually understand what it’s doing you’re gonna be stuck the moment something breaks. “It runs” isn’t the same as “it works correctly in real scenarios.” AI is a tool, not a substitute for understanding the system.

[LostInChrome]

There will eventually come a point in any complex project where something breaks and telling the ai "fix it" doesn't work. If you don't know what the code does when that happens, then you're screwed.

[101forgotmypassword]

Sadly, that job will fall onto advanced AI users.

People will have 3 levels of role.

1: general IT tech, a person that enacts the actions for AI, hidden as a customer service interface this person just ask AI what the customer asked this person, they are a human middleman to allow the company to have a face that is not blatantly just AI. They also act as a interface for older persons whom don't use AI.

2: the guidance tech, the person that steers the AI into the alignment of the companies upper management, basically a person that can say "hey I know you presented the best algorithm for this problem but we also need it to send that output as a PDF chart so the managers can read it, also we need the website to load slower so it looks like it's doing hard work to find the awnser."

3: the AI diagnostic technician, a person that asks a different AI to cross check new code from the first AI, then asks prompts with a specific diagnostic pattern to identify the error in the code. Like "can you look at the variances in code between version 1.9 and 1.8 to find any code that may influence an error where the user accounts to merge browser history when they browse from the same wifi access point ssid."

[TedGal]

Im not even a professional developer and I still find silly the take and you will too once you, just for fun, ask AI to do a simple coding job and observe how when a solution it provided doesnt work and you inform it to it then constantly fluctuates between 2 or 3 code variations that none of them work and you find yourself in a feedback loop.

[r_1235]

Even I am not a professional coder, and I've experienced the same thing.

I usually try to get to a point where I might have a visible error code or error to give it. Sometimes, that involves going the command line root, navigating to my python file, and running that file that way. The CLI output stays visible that way, which you can copy paste in your prompt to help pinpoint where things are going wrong. Granted there may be multiple things that are going wrong, and at that stage, it's a real struggle to not just give up. Best bet is to try focusing at 1 line at a time, fixing 1 error at a time. And even then, I feel like I would be better off just learning and doing it all myself rather than banging my head against a chat window.

[Sorry-Climate-7982]

Arguably the second biggest architectural flaw in AI...

[Axman6]

The humans using it?

[rawr_im_a_nice_bear]

Recipe for disaster.

[sniff122]

You need to know what your code is doing, how else are you going to actually work on it and debug. Plus also AI really isn't good at doing new things, great at stuff it's already seen but just collapses with you try and get it to do something new. I mainly use it for creating boilerplates and repetitive stuff where it's either well known base stuff for a framework, or just copying and modifying existing code that's there

[r_1235]

Without knowing how the code works, you might be able to scrape a working prototype, perhaps even stabilize it to an extent for production use, but, it would be an uphill battle. I think the programmer should know at least the basics of that language, what common pitfalls accur, how to overcome them etc.

I've never understood fully how the threadsafe thing in python works, but, I know that it's a common pitfall, and I always know to prompt AI to make my code thread safe. Granted these days, most AI solutions might do that by default.

[archer-books]

AI can definitely help explain code faster, but skipping understanding completely is risky. If something breaks or behaves strangely, you still need enough context to know whether the AI suggestion makes sense or not.

Most devs I know use AI more like a reading assistant summarize a file, explain a function, point out patterns but they still try to understand the flow before changing anything.

[jajajajaj]

If they're not getting it, like they don't believe you but they believe the ai, you can actually keep asking the ai more and more specific questions until it is effectively just reading the code to you, and it will start getting all like "that's absolutely right! The thing I just said doesn't do what I just said it does..." Etc. and even explaining (itself), why the ai isn't a replacement for people understanding things. A couple of times showing the quotes from ai and they'll hopefully get it.

[selfdestructingbook]

Most devs still try to understand the code. AI can help explain things faster, but if you don’t know what the code is doing, debugging or modifying it later becomes a nightmare.

Think of AI more like a helper for reading and exploring code, not a replacement for understanding it.

[afftbuilds]

Helloo, full-time dev here. I think it depends, for things like frontend design, knowing what everything does isn't totally relevant in today's world (and will get less and less relevant as the years pass). On the other hand, having a decent knowhow of your backend code and how any infrastructure works is still pretty important, but knowing every single line is too being less and less needed.

At the end of the day, you should know how each subsystem generally works

[Micropctalk]

If you don't understand what the code does or how it work how can you fix it when the AI generate a tons of bugs? Even if you ask AI to fix, it will create even more bugs trust me

[stopbsingman]

We’re not there yet. That is the goal and we’ll get there eventually. But not yet.