Rishi Dhanaraj

should i use AI to code?

Rishi Dhanaraj -

A few thoughts:

  • Coding with the AI is the future. It might have gaps, but the gaps will lessen over time. We should definitely hop on board now. (Not to mention CEOs want us to)
  • Still, we should understand, review and test the code LLMs generate. Otherwise, we get to a point where we can't debug the code effectively or can't prompt the LLM to extend the code effectively.
  • The old adage about Stack Overflow applies here. Don't blindly copy-paste code from Stack Overflow. Also don't blindly copy paste code from an LLM. Understand it first!
    • This develops the deeper knowledge that will help us down the line.
  • When you are trying to figure out a problem, try a search engine first. Perhaps I'm being old school. But a couple benefits to a search engine:
    • A LLM gives you direct access to a specific part of the knowledge tree, but when you search, you are also presented with neighboring knowledge. Sometimes you get random knowledge along the way (random Stack Overflow comments), sometimes you get a more full picture along the way (e.g. you read the documentation and learn all the params to a method). These breadcrumbs are valuable/underrated.
      • For example, I was using Cursor to write code to use the Plaid API, but it messed up because of some changes between Plaid API versions. I happened to figure this out pretty quickly because I had read the documentation a bit first.
      • Separately, I went down 3 wrong directions with implementing a gutter icon on hover for the Obsidian plugin I'm working on from LLM suggestions because I didn't know the landscape/mental models for Obsidian/CodeMirror (the underlying editor Obsidian uses).
    • Also, hopping around different websites makes the knowledge stick a little more (more visual cues, memory palace type stuff).

I'm a noob to AI-assisted dev but these are my initial thoughts.

Tell me what you think!