Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Take the joy out of programming: Use Copilot and ChatGPT
DaPhil writes: I taught myself to code at 12yo in the 90s and I've always liked the back-and-forth with the runtime to achieve the right result. I recently got back from other roles to code again, and when starting a new project last year, I decided to give the new "AI assistants" a go.
My initial surprise at the quality and the speed you can achieve when using ChatGPT and/or Copilot when coding turned sour over the months, as I realized that all the joy I felt about trying to get the result I want, slowly improving my code by (slowly) thinking, checking the results against the runtime, and finally achieving success is, well, gone. What I do now is typing English sentences in increasingly desparate attempts to get ChatGPT to output what I want (or providing snippets to Copilot to get the right autocompletion), which — as they are pretty much black boxes — is frustrating and non-linear: It either "just works", or it doesn't. There is no measure of progress. In a way, having Copilot in the IDE is even worse, since it actually disrupts my thinking when suggesting completions.
I've now disabled Copilot. Interestingly, I myself now feel somehow "disabled" without it in the IDE — however, the abstention has given me back the ability to sit back and think, and through that, the joy of programming. Still, it feels like I'm now somehow an ex-drug addict always on the verge of a relapse. I was wondering if any of you felt the same, or if I'm just... old.
My initial surprise at the quality and the speed you can achieve when using ChatGPT and/or Copilot when coding turned sour over the months, as I realized that all the joy I felt about trying to get the result I want, slowly improving my code by (slowly) thinking, checking the results against the runtime, and finally achieving success is, well, gone. What I do now is typing English sentences in increasingly desparate attempts to get ChatGPT to output what I want (or providing snippets to Copilot to get the right autocompletion), which — as they are pretty much black boxes — is frustrating and non-linear: It either "just works", or it doesn't. There is no measure of progress. In a way, having Copilot in the IDE is even worse, since it actually disrupts my thinking when suggesting completions.
I've now disabled Copilot. Interestingly, I myself now feel somehow "disabled" without it in the IDE — however, the abstention has given me back the ability to sit back and think, and through that, the joy of programming. Still, it feels like I'm now somehow an ex-drug addict always on the verge of a relapse. I was wondering if any of you felt the same, or if I'm just... old.
