My senior dev buddy convinced me to stop using ChatGPT for code logic last week

I was all in on AI helping me write database queries at work. But my friend Dave who has 15 years experience told me it was making me lazy. He said you have to understand the why behind the SQL not just copy paste. So I spent 3 days writing a complex join by hand and actually found two bugs the AI would have missed. Has anyone else found AI tools actually hurt your deeper understanding of code?

3 comments

3 Comments

elliot_gibson271mo ago

Yeah Dave's totally right, you gotta know what your code actually does.

avery_jackson1mo ago

Funny you mention that, my buddy Mike just got burned bad by not checking the details. He took over this old system at work, thought he knew the big picture from the docs. Turns out the guy who wrote the code was long gone and hid a bunch of weird workarounds in the comments. Mike spent a whole weekend untangling a mess that could have been a two hour fix if he'd just looked closer at the actual lines. So yeah, the long view matters, but the devil's in those little specifics for sure.

ruby_jones1mo ago

Actually, I see it a bit differently. Knowing what your code does is important, but it's not the whole picture. A lot of times, especially with legacy systems or when you're under a deadline, you just need to get the job done. You can understand the big picture without diving into every single line. The important thing is knowing how it all fits together, not every tiny detail.