Programming

17537 readers

122 users here now

Welcome to the main community in programming.dev! Feel free to post anything relating to programming here!

Cross posting is strongly encouraged in the instance. If you feel your post or another person's post makes sense in another community cross post into it.

Hope you enjoy the instance!

Rules

Follow the programming.dev instance rules
Keep content related to programming in some way
If you're posting long videos try to add in some form of tldr for those who don't want to watch videos

Wormhole

Follow the wormhole through a path of communities [email protected]

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

snowe

Ategon

[email protected]

Why Copilot is Making Programmers Worse at Programming (www.darrenhorrocks.co.uk)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/programming

54 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Over the past few years, the evolution of AI-driven tools like GitHub’s Copilot and other large language models (LLMs) has promised to revolutionise programming. By leveraging deep learning, these tools can generate code, suggest solutions, and even troubleshoot issues in real-time, saving developers hours of work. While these tools have obvious benefits in terms of productivity, there’s a growing concern that they may also have unintended consequences on the quality and skillset of programmers.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] lysdexic 2 points 2 months ago (3 children)

They existed before LLMs were spitting code like today, and this will undoubtedly lower the bar for bad developers to enter.

If LLMs allow bad programmers to deliver work with good enough quality to pass themselves off as good programmers, this means LLMs are fantastic value for money.

Also worth noting: programmers do learn by analysing the output of LLMs, just as the programmers of old learned by reading someone else's code.

[–] fuzzzerd 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I think I could have states my opinion better. I think LLMs total value remains to be seen. They allow totally incompetent developers to occasionally pass as below average developers. Is that good or bad? I don't know. What an average and excellent developer can do with LLM assistance is less clear. Certainly it can help those developers in some situations.

[–] lysdexic 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I think I could have states my opinion better. I think LLMs total value remains to be seen. They allow totally incompetent developers to occasionally pass as below average developers.

This is a baseless assertion from your end, and a purely personal one.

My anecdotal evidence is that the best software engineers I know use these tools extensively to get rid of churn and drudge work, and they apply it anywhere and everywhere they can.

[–] fuzzzerd 1 points 2 months ago

I'm don't disagree. Good developers use the tools to do better, but its incremental not revolutionary improvements for already competent developers.