You sound like you’re young and you don’t have a ton of experience programming yet. Id be cautious about outsourcing your knowledge and skill development to LLMs at this time. There is a massive gap between what a beginner and expert can achieve with LLMs - in fact I’ve seen plenty of people who’s use of AI results in a net negative! You need to develop your skills and knowledge in order to best make use of LLMs. You can even use the LLMs to learn and grow, but I think it’s dangerous for your career to have the mentality that AI is and will always be a better programmer.
Anyways just my opinion, I don’t mean it in an offensive way at all, I just think that people need to be careful about how they approach their usage of LLMs. Even experienced people need to be careful and ensure they don’t lose their own skills.
Thank you for your kindness. If we're just counting years, I've been programming since college, so that's about 15 years, but my professional experience is around 7 to 8 years. It's a short career, and if that makes me young, then I'm young. I agree with you that offloading knowledge and skill development to LLMs is a real problem, and I also agree that there's a huge gap between what a beginner and an expert can achieve using LLMs. (I was born in 1992.)
I agree with most of what you're saying, and I think you're giving me thoughtful advice out of genuine concern. I agree with nearly all of it.
I think of the phenomenon you're describing as "layering of input." Everything you've cautiously advised me on, I believe you're right. The atrophy of coding muscle from using AI is happening to me too. That's why I make myself type for at least an hour a day, just to maintain the coding muscle I need to actually read what the AI generates.
The problem is, I'm a freelancer, and I have to accept the reality that the market itself has already shifted around AI. Open source developers can show off the aesthetic beauty of their code to others and attract sponsors. But I'm a freelance developer, and I usually get paid per project. These days, with AI vibe coding, not only are companies handling more things in house, but deadlines have become drastically shorter compared to before. What used to be a two month project is now a one month project. And the trouble is, I charge by the month. So the workload has gone up, but my pay has effectively gone down.
I also think, as you said, that people should be more careful about how they use LLMs. But the landscape has shifted so much, and in this environment, I think the people who use it more will end up using it more adeptly. In other words, I've changed from a programmer who models with typing and UML into a programmer who models by using an LLM. I don't know which direction is the better one.
That said, I admit there's probably some self rationalization going on, because I don't really have a choice. The moment I stop working, I can't make rent. The open source world isn't really open to someone like me, an Asian guy. I upvoted you because I'm not taking your advice in bad faith. I understand where your heart is, but there's a part of me that just feels like I don't have much of a choice. Have a good day.
Anyways just my opinion, I don’t mean it in an offensive way at all, I just think that people need to be careful about how they approach their usage of LLMs. Even experienced people need to be careful and ensure they don’t lose their own skills.