[NFBCS] Using AI When Coding

[charles.vanek at gmail.com]

Hi Dana,

1,000% coders should be using AI in software development, we are at a transformative moment in our industry. Coders who leverage AI are more efficient and are redefining possibilities. ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini are all able to create large portions of frameworks, handle repetitive tasks, summarize what code is doing and update test cases (unit through E2E). CodeQL & Snyk also as I'm sure many are aware use AI under the hood to make security fixes/recommendations throughout the process and fold nicely into Repos and CI-CD pipelines.

 

AI also has a better than 10x improvement on productivity when a coder needs to cross out of their normal language E.g. a C# engineer making updates to Packer/Terraform/Ansible DevOps tooling to submit PRs to the DevOps team.

 

Now this is not to say that someone learning to code should not learn their desired language very well and regularly work on solving problems and feature creation without AI, the muscle memory is invaluable. Also in meetings & team discussions it will be very clear if a coder can not talk through code that exists and conceptualize solutions in real time which are skills every coder needs if they want to rise to the level of a Sr Principal engineer in their career. 

 

Academic settings will also very likely restrict the usage of AI in testing & certifications. Thus truly learning isn't something that a person can opt out of doing. AI's ability to explain and revise code can be huge for learning if and only if the person then seeks to understand why the AI is making change suggestions. The beauty of prompted chats allows for Q&A with the AI. Anyone who just takes exactly what the AI gave and does not read through to intimately understand every change will ultimately fail in their quest.

 

As far as ethical or not, AI is ethical for writing code if used transparently and the user is not coding an unethical system (which can happen with or without AI to be 100% clear). The AI helping with coding should be known to not infringe on copywrites, create bias code, be used for hacking, etc.

 

Best,

Charles

 

Sent at 31,000 feet

 

From: NFBCS <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of dana mohsen via NFBCS
Sent: Tuesday, December 24, 2024 4:32 PM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: dana mohsen <dana.mohsen.azim at gmail.com>
Subject: [NFBCS] Using AI When Coding

 

Hello all,

 

I'm curious to know your experiences when using AI in coding (if any).

1. How has it helped you as someone with a vision impairment

2. What do you think of doing so? Do you think that, perhaps, it is unethical?

How do you think using AI hurts or helps the learning process for coding?

 

Thanks,

Dana

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