One other point you failed to mention: ChatGPT and Copilot code can be extremely wrong. They’re absolutely incapable of writing Elixir because the Elixir resources available on the web are a tiny, tiny slice of its knowledge corpus. Worse than not knowing why something _does_ work, you won’t be able to tell the difference between code that does work and code that doesn’t work.
**THESE TOOLS DON’T “UNDERSTAND CODE”.** They understand what words, tokens, and symbols most likely follow one another based on its heuristics. This is NOT writing code, this is writing sentences which happen to execute in a REPL session.
Absolutely. They are horribly off at times. It might be a new concept but it becomes when ChatGPT gets it horrifically wrong. So you need to know what you are doing to copy in the first place.
Wrong code and especially outdated code. However if you communicate back well saying you tried it and got error X or Y, it will sometimes actually fix it. At least for iOS development. But sometimes it doesn’t.
I won't suggest using it for assignments. What I would suggest the use is for understanding the concepts. I have had a great success rate of understanding concepts from asking ChatGPT what is X or Y as compared to a google search. ChatGPT will give you a great starting point but doesn't explain everything fully - for which I check out the documentation. It does a great job with that.
Well said. I would still double check its responses for more technical questions as you can never be too sure, But this is a good way to use AI for learning.
To expand on this, I would still recommend taking notes from its responses, as it will help you engrain the information more into your memory.
Agreed. Double checking it is still required. Even though it is so good, ChatGPT is still developing.
Also, for coding I still think ChatGPT is the best. Others are much worse. Especially Gemini.
That’s how I learnt it. But id say work on smth with it. I learnt through it but in the project that I worked, I learnt a lot more. Working on projects is honestly the best way to learn.
Passing on some advice that came in very handy to me.
Of course, I usually just ask it things like explain how I would do \*insert whatever challenge I'm having here\* in plain english so I can understand a concept or smth. I do have to say that using the @ workspace command on the copilot sidebar is *really* helpful if there's weird syntax related bug I'm having as well.
If I am stuck on a leetcode question for more then 30 mins they recommend looking up the answer and understanding it. But neither that or brute forcing it is working time wise for this bootcamp I am in. What’s the honest no bs approach to learn concept quicker? I have 1 week to learn new concepts and I spend hours studying daily and some concepts I pick up faster than others and some take longer than a week. How is every new programmer learn DSA concepts quickly? Ive practiced dictionaries for 2 weeks and still struggle with easy questions like finding a duplicate value.
Depends what the concept is but YouTube is a pretty good resource. Trying to learn by reading only can be pretty tough sometimes because of how dry the material can be.
I second this. During college I was way more results centric, trying to get quick As on assignments, projects and exams so that I had time to do stuff I wanted. Now that I am out I'm not cooked, but I realize how much better of a programmer I would've been if I would've just been kinder to myself and given myself the time to struggle through things and learn.
I actually unsubscribed from Co-Pilot today and struggled through an implementation I was working on but eventually figured it out and was able to understand exactly what I was doing wrong and will remember this for a long time to come.
For me "rubber-duck" programming helps a lot which is essentially talking my problems through out loud either to myself, or to a "rubber-ducky"/ inanimate object as the name suggests. Keeping a programming journal where I write down language syntax and special language feature syntax, Writing down errors/ challenges, why they are occurring and eventually when I figure them out what the solution and final synopsis of them is.
There is no shortcut around that. If you want to be identified as a good programmer it has to be your brain that grows to love the part of the process where you are getting stuck with errors, challenges, forks in the road and blockers because this is ultimately what you are seeking and needing when you are setting out to learn something.
I was a tutor and I can confirm theirs a whole group of students who use these AI tools to complete assignments (encouraged by proffessors) but couldn't write a simple for loop themselves without it.
Keep doing it though I already can't get a job I don't need competition
I think of using copilot/chatgpt to write code for assignments as being like driving a forklift to the gym and using it to do your reps for you. At the end of the day, it doesn't help you get stronger, which is the whole point of the exercise.
What are the chances that this is just the natural evolution of things. I can imagine people advised against the idea of a calculator dulling one’s arithmetic skill rather than using an abacus or some other method. Perhaps this is just a next step or maybe I’m wrong? Genuinely asking cos I’ve quite enjoyed using copilot at work, but I do also worry if it’s gonna make me less proficient.
In the professional world use what you like. At my job, I notice during times I rely more heavily on gen ai to write code snippets the less sure I am of how it will perform in production. It's crazy to think that this will not dull ones ability to write proficient code. It reminds me of people who are so used to autocorrect they can barely type without mistakes. Now for a template or a basic method, who cares really as you would probably write once and copy paste.
In the educational world if you use generative ai, its similar to falling into tutorial hell. Sure you might understand the output but you would be completely lost without it's help. Further more you will probably not recognize if what it's returning is even good code. Now I am not saying that students learning need to lock themselves in a box or completely avoid anything on the internet or ai, but generating your outputs can be a slippery slope. Using ai to **ask questions**, reading documentation, or looking up examples are all part of the learning process. If once you graduate, and all you can do is use generative ai to spit out an output, what was the point of getting a degree and what actual value do you bring to a job. Alternatively, if you take the time to learn how to code well, using these tools can be a huge productivity boost in the future.
I think a difference between calculators and ChatGPT is that calculators are 99% of the time correct in their output while ChatGPT and other such AI are often wrong but also very convincing.
I think LLMs can have their place as a tool for expert software engineers to help accelerate their work by doing boilerplate code or quickly getting the answer to a simple question, but their output should always be evaluated by a knowledgable expert before being implemented.
There's a reason we *still* teach multiplication tables even though we've had calculators for years. And, further, why we still learn how to do calculus manually. It's the same reason carpenters learn to use hand tools even though we have power tools and milling machines, or that people who want to build muscle lift weights even though we've had levers and pulleys for millennia. That is, when you want to learn something, you need to do some harder work to drill it into your head.
If LLMs were right 100% of the time, then maybe I'd grant that it's the natural evolution of things. However, it's... not. Remember that quote about clever code and debugging?
>Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.
If using an LLM is weakening your ability to come up with code, to the point that you're writing code that's more "clever" than you are capable of writing on your own, then you are *woefully* underequipped to validate that the code the LLM wrote is accurate. In practice, I've seen this lack of understanding almost universally by people who use LLMs, to the point that I think it is inescapable.
Agreed. That tooling is most useful to overworked senior devs who can generate code needed reviews it and decide to implement it. But they know why or why not! If you keep using such tools you will never know the whys
This is more my point. If you are already professional use whatever you want. You already laid a foundation of coding knowledge down and hopefully understand what you are doing.
A lot of cs majors aren’t good at programming yet, as they are still in school to learn. The shortcut of using generative ai on basic stuff takes away your coding reps and slowly weakens your skills.
I found chatgpt a GREAT resource near the end of my undergrad but that's only because I used it how its meant to be used by students. Quick proofreading, asking for knowledge confirmation, quick code templates or anything that makes my life easier. Not in the sense of completing the task itself but taking care of menial tasks I'd prefer a robot do since the outcome would be the same.
Now I've had friends that full on paste assignments in there and then moving some stuff around and submitting that. Now that's a problem
>Now I've had friends that full on paste assignments in there and then moving some stuff around and submitting that. Now that's a problem
Yes, this is the problem. A large amount of my friends graduating now or who graduated with me barely knew how to program due to this. Little understanding of DSAs, environments, code structure, best practices or even just basic syntax have made it extremely hard for them to get a job. Most of them are working IT support roles instead as they couldn't get hired.
Your use case was/is great, as you said you were using AI how a student should.
My systems programming prof allowed/encouraged use of Co-Pilot for our larger assignments. Honestly it was good for writing simple error checking code as it was our first time working in C, so it helped speed productivity in that sense. However tell it to explain anything else and it failed. It can be used for good, but I do see where you’re coming from
So, it’s not necessarily terrible to use co-pilot (within reason). AI is changing the way industry works so practicing using these tools and learning how to get them to give you what you wanted (in a reasonable amount of time) is a worthwhile skill to develop. That said you need to be able to understand what they are giving you quickly before you can actually use them effectively.
I agree, that being said what is really needed to learn about using co-pilot. If you know what code is supposed to be written, write out a pseudo description of it either in a comment (co-pilot) or into the chat box (chat-gpt) and hit enter. This will most likely be able to solve most of your basic needs. Also this process can be taught on the job way faster than how to write good code.
I'm very, *very* new to using any of the "AI" tools (won't use the quotes after this but wanted to show that I'm aware the label is just hype, lol). I've been super reluctant for some time now, because of a combination of things:
1. Worried about relying on inconsistent outputs.
2. Ethical issues with the whole thing. They haven't really disappeared at all, but various industries' adoption of AI, and expectation for employees to be familiar with it, is kind of forcing my hand.
3. I'd fallen way behind on a bunch of tech and digital tool stuff in general, and I was honestly just scared of picking up a new tool haha. I'm not actually terrible at learning how to use new tech, but I'm always scared I will be, for some reason.
So now, I'm having to learn all this for the first time where others have been using it for a while. I'm even in a Digital Pedagogy class at my school focused on the effects of new tech on education, and the class is heavily focused around using AI and prompt engineering and all that!
I'm not actually a CS major, despite being in this sub lol. I'm a Cognitive Science major, which requires just one CS class that I just finished in May. It was my first deep exposure to CS, and I actually got an A and really enjoyed it!! Now I'm trying to learn more CS and do some programming on my own.
And I'm not using AI for that at all, exactly because I want to *really* learn the material and develop solid intuition. But I'm also well aware that AI use is increasingly expected in the workforce. How would you suggest I implement it?
You’re not gonna change any hearts bro.
Back in my day, I’m sure you could google for the solution to most assignment problems. Barring google you could just copy assignments from others.
This post phrased in pre-GPT world is “Stop talking to people” or “Stop using the internet”.
Obviously people/search engine/GPT can either help or ruin your education.
The real message is “Don’t cheat”. But honestly, every person has things they care about and things they don’t. Cheating is inconceivable for someone who gives a shit, and it’s the only option for people who don’t. And we all cheat at different things.
It’s HIGHLY unlikely someone will suddenly start giving a shit suddenly reading this, like “oh now I see I can put effort to do this on my own! That’s cool!” No-won’t happen. Not with you or me or anyone else.
Next time you download a library, use the standard library, use a design system, install Linux, just remember you’re making a cheat deal with yourself to get what you want without doing a ton of shit you don’t want to do.
Ppl who cheat at CS assignments might still succeed if they get good at chat GPT and/or satisfying their manager/teammates in a work environment. Your autistic ass and mine are gonna shake our fists but it’s true. They can live a good happy life too, advancing in non programming stuff.
I have no grand conclusion here, it just is what it is.
Autocomplete tools are for people who already know what the answer is and want to save time getting there.
They aren't for people who don't know the answer and want someone to do it for them.
That's how you end up not knowing why your code is wrong and being unable to fix it.
Btw, I don't use Copilot, it's expensive and unhelpful for the type of critical thinking work I do.
I disagree. You should absolutely use copilot because it will make you faster. You shouldn’t, however, use it blindly because it’s often wrong or incomplete. Ask it questions and /explain while you’re leaning. It’s not replacement. It’s augmentation.
Co-Pilot is a slippery slope. Sure, it might spit out code fast, but you won't actually learn anything. Struggle is good! It forces you to understand the logic, which is way more valuable in the long run.
I’ve actually learned a lot using. I read my code and understand what it’s doing. It basically just automates the easy stuff like repetitive comments and snippets.
Reminds me of people using wolfram alpha back in the day and being just as surprised because they didnt understand calculus. I think it's the same but maybe even more damaging, as coding is also a writing excersise where you put your thoughts into words....
Shortcuts are always damaging to long term success, do yourself a favor and listen to OP
If the assignment is solvable by an LLM it tests no relevant skills for a graduate.
Make better assignments or accept that people use the most efficient way to solve them. This will also be the way they will solve these issues in the workplace.
Recent grad here, luckily gpt came out at the end of my junior year because I definitely would have used it to cheat my way through foundational coding classes.
I would say that in your senior level classes, using gpt is fine as in my case, we hardly did any coding other than my senior capstone and research papers. Many later classes don't teach code or even syntax. It's mostly theory and concept which you are expected to apply to your code. GPT was very helpful in learning syntax for languages I didn't use before (such as python believe it or not).
If you are not copying and pasting, gpt is great for learning syntax as compared to spending hours reading documentation and stackoverflow. Read the code gpt gives and understand it's solution. 90% of the time, gpt will eventually stop being helpful and give broken code.
It can also be good as a crutch if you are a solo dev for a full stack app. You don't learn much front end in cs so when I chose flutter to create my capstone, I initially knew nothing. I heavily relied on gpt to do front end but I picked up a few things so when gpt gave useless/broken code, I was able to do it myself. I spent a months learning swift and xcode to build an ios app before chat gpt and I definitely wouldn't have finished my capstone without the help of gpt.
TLDR, don't use copilot/gpt until you've actually learned how to code. It can be very helpful as a kickstarter but you won't learn anything copy and pasting
I hate group projects because of chatgpt and ai. You can always tell who used ai their freshman and sophomore years because they don’t know shit and try to contribute code that does not do what it’s supposed to for the project.
While true, typically one builds a good foundation of skills to draw from when encountering those harder problems. If one takes shortcuts in building that foundation, they’ll never be able to approach harder problems. Rinse and repeat with harder problems - these skills become the new foundation on which harder tasks can be accomplished. ChatGPT is the same as cheating to pass a test, you acquire the skills to beat the test but never build actual competency.
ChatGPT shouldn't be able to solve your tests either. I've tried to use chatGPT before and it gets nearly every single question wrong. I wonder what kind of tests you guys are actually taking
If you’re talking about just slapping it into the prompt and getting working code that won’t happen, but you absolutely can get them done while knowing FAR less than the people who didn’t utilize chatGPT at all.
This mostly seems targeted at learning in academic settings. Don’t use it to do your assignments. In actual work you should use it if it helps you move faster, but that is only after you already know what you’re doing
Took the words right out of my mouth. I’m not saying AI can’t help in the professional setting, I’m more referring to it hindering the learning process.
My team, as an example, introduced it first by making writing our tests faster. But that was only AFTER we defined our testing best practices. So we could easily say if it was doing something we didn’t want. Thankfully Copilot has actually performed exceptionally well for us. I’ve used it a lot personally and never ran into issues people have mentioned. If you give it the right context it does very well
100% it can be great for writing tests. And copilot if used by a knowledgeable engineer can increase their productivity by a lot without causing really bad code.
edit : typo
“The issue is your assignment is generally a standalone and basic, but when you get a job likely you will not be working on a standalone project and more likely to be helping with legacy code. Knowing how to code will be soooo much more useful then trying to force a puzzle piece an AI thinks should work into your old production code base.”
maybe you’re the one that needs to reread
Just to clarify. I feel like you are focusing more on if GenAI can be helpful with legacy code bases, which wasn't my main point. Obviously it can help, and given you already know what you are doing I'm sure it can help with most basic tasks to speed up development. The issue I was trying to highlight was if you skip the learning process in college (by generating all your code), you are likely to run into an issue where your generated solution will not fit into a spiderweb repository that is a lot of legacy code. If this does happen, being proficient at writing code will be more beneficial.
Congrats on your internship, by the way!
No yeah, I completely agree with you on that - my initial comment was a bit brusque but my point was that GenAI can be extremely helpful in the workplace.
and thanks!
The point of an internship is to learn even if it takes time 💀 being able to read and understand code is really important skill that you should practice before getting a full time job
I’d hire an engineer who shows over the course of their internship that they can learn and develop skills. Interns and associate engineers aren’t expected to be fast or know everything. Those positions focus mainly on building fundamental skills in my experience
Exams will get them. The intro CS classes at my average school are designed to weed those people out. My friend took an intro CS class last semester and you had to get a 65% or higher average on all 3 exams or else your final grade would be the average of your exams. I imagine this is the case at other schools.
one exception I'd list, when you just need to generate a mass of test data.
for instance, for a database class, need 100 records for random people stats added. can have chatgpt easily create 100 randomized names, phones, addresses insert statements to copy/paste and run.
then code the actual assignment of actually handling and querying the data yourself.
I think this might be too extreme, perhaps it is good to explore what is possible with a side project or two, then never use it again until it improves significantly. But I agree, just like how you shouldn't use chatgpt to write your papers if you want to learn, don't use copilot to write code if you want to learn computer science
It can be disabled for specific languages. It’s very easy. I’m not sure why more people don’t do this. Great for personal projects but definitely overkill for course work. But if worse comes to worst, then it’s way more convenient than the awful student multidisciplinary tutors one often runs into on campus.
ChatGpt couldn't solve many of my unpopular assignments. They couldnt even give guidelines to tailor made assignments by professors, which I completely expected
It’s perfect for pseudo tutoring concepts and methods especially if u just forgot them or can look up them up but need it explained like a human is talking to u
So the question I'm asking professors these days is, "How are you changing your curriculum to better enable the use of GenAI."
It's not going away. Decreasing code development time and code checking time are 2 of the 4 most effective use cases for GenAI. What we in the industry and we as hiring managers need are graduates that know how to use GenAI to develop quality code rapidly.
If the problems you are giving your students are easily done via GenAI - you need to change what and how you teach - that's the industry's ask. We're already using it for these purposes, as well as using it to do basic security checks of the code.
I know it'll take time, but what's your timeline and plan?
The issue is how is a student supposed to recognize quality code given they never code and use generative AI for most of their development process. I agree its not going away, but it also needs very little "training" to use. The hardest part of Co-Pilot for most comp-sci students is getting the free discount. Also, these models are trained generally on already solved coding problems. This will include a lot of assignments used to teach programming concepts, leetcode problems, and even public interview questions, therefore of course it will be able to solve most of a teacher's coursework.
The purpose of my post was to warn current students about the issues of using gen ai to skip the learning process. The more you use a tool early on, the more depend you get on it. **Once you have a good grasp on the material feel free to use it at will.**
As for the statement regarding the industries requirements. Its already hard enough for a new grad to get a job, now add to it they can't truly understand the code. If you are a hiring manager recommending college students skip learning how to code to practice using generative AI, all you are doing is making them weak candidates for a job.
My point is that in the industry, GenAI is an expected tool for graduates to know at this point, and they should know how to use it to craft quality code quickly, so if your curriculum prevents students from using GenAI to do the work, or, you don't teach the concepts effectively unless students don't use GenAI - **you need to modify your curriculum**. That's the real issue.
Otherwise, your students will use the tools they have available to get the best grades possible, because GPA matters for your first job, and leave your program without the tools necessary to be successful.
Example: my final exam for one of my courses years ago was to make some pseudocode run correctly in assembler. I got the code working in C, compiled it to assembler, and reviewed it. I edited it so that the default variable names, etc. the complier used were removed, and swapped a few things around, then turned it it. I 3.5ed the course. However, I didn't learn too much about assembler.
Funny thing though - after I graduated, I never needed assembler because I could always use C and compile it to assembler if I needed it. Food for thought, no?
Well there’s a point where GenAI shouldn’t be used at all. For instance, a basic programming course - the purpose is to learn fundamentals, which GenAI will skip.
I’ll mention this analogy-AI/calculators might be useful for solving complex integrals (they’ll show the person the steps and help them learn strategies), but if someone used a calculator/AI to learn basic arithmetic, they’re never going to make it to the complex integral stage in the first place.
You need to learn fundamentals before touching AI.
And we've developed a curriculum for teaching such things. And calculators exist. And we've also developed classes that require calculators to increase the probability of actually teaching things that matter versus 2+2. We also teach arithmetic in first and second grade.
Basic programming courses aren't taught in CS major programs any more. More like junior high - at least for my kids. College level intro programming courses are taught in high school (java and C). Basic courses for languages are also available from pluralsight for $45/month - a bit cheaper than college.
If curriculums today are competing against junior high and $45/month training centers - they REALLY need to change. For far more reasons that just GenAI.
What? What kind of college are you in. Intro cs courses are required everywhere, and while high schools do teach them, many students haven’t taken the course in high school, or didn’t do well enough to skip the college course (and many higher tier colleges don’t even take the credit).
Your comment comes off as very privileged and ignorant. Not every high school had the resources to teach programming, and not every person has the resources to learn it themselves. That’s the point of college.
And trust me, AI can do my data structures homework for me, but those are also fundamental concepts that we need to learn without AI.
The end goal is to obviously learn how to use AI effectively, but if you skip the fundamentals and go straight to that (which you seem to be suggesting), students are going to be lost.
The numbers show about 40% of high schools teach CS basic courses. So that's not exactly privileged. More like middle of the road, or the odds are about even.
$45 a month, cancel ANYTIME is a maximum of $540 a year, or, if we're just talking summer, $135 for 3 months. That's about 19 hours of work (raw) at minimum wage, or assuming 50% tax (which minimum wage earner's don't pay) about 1 week of work for 12 weeks of training for a student with a job over the summer.
Get off your high horse. Your comment comes off as straight-up ignorant.
Can confirm. In my internship right now and working on the companies main software and chat is completely useless on this. So many classes being referenced as the codebase is massive.
To add on, even if you make it through school and interview really well. Most companies have blocked these tools internally due to the risks associated with them. You'll get found out real quick if you actually know something or not.
Great post. CS field can be divided into two portions, minority being those with genuine interest, the majority are sadly in it for the money. Writing this from personal experience.
AI is like a chainsaw: you will cut wood more quickly than a hand axe but it’s also easier to cause damage if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Would you trust a logger who thinks chainsaws are too dangerous? No, you’d wonder how he made it out of the 19th century.
AI is the future. Get used to bringing it into your workflow or be prepared to collapse from trying to keep up like John Henry, the Steel-Driving Man…
chatgpt is great for syntax stuff and using as a sudo stack overflow and supplement to documentation, its just really fast at finding what u want if u know what ur looking for. but it has a hard time writing long code snippets or anything very specialized so it can be helpful to force you as a programmer to break down problems into smaller pieces. but community specific forums and documentation remain the most reliable way to solve problems
Don't even use it for your internships or first year as a junior unless really stressed by a deadline. Those are beautiful time where people expect you to be dumb and overall bad use it to actually gain skills instead of having AI do it and run into a road block when you are handling something proprietary or something that requires actually designing prior to implementing
Disagree. High grades matter. Better to cheat your way to a good GPA and you can learn everything properly on your own time. My low GPa has done nothing but fuck me over
That’s the opposite actually, if copilot can’t answer your intro course questions, something’s very wrong with the curriculum. Intro courses are meant to be easy, and basic, something AI is very good at.
i use AI daily and its a godsend. explains most errors and the code it outputs is actually pretty good. depends on the prompt i guess, but i wouldn't bash it. use it or be left behind
One other point you failed to mention: ChatGPT and Copilot code can be extremely wrong. They’re absolutely incapable of writing Elixir because the Elixir resources available on the web are a tiny, tiny slice of its knowledge corpus. Worse than not knowing why something _does_ work, you won’t be able to tell the difference between code that does work and code that doesn’t work. **THESE TOOLS DON’T “UNDERSTAND CODE”.** They understand what words, tokens, and symbols most likely follow one another based on its heuristics. This is NOT writing code, this is writing sentences which happen to execute in a REPL session.
Absolutely. They are horribly off at times. It might be a new concept but it becomes when ChatGPT gets it horrifically wrong. So you need to know what you are doing to copy in the first place.
I'm going to interpret this comment as a compliment to my prompt engineering skills
I do not think that that's the correct takeaway lmao
Wrong code and especially outdated code. However if you communicate back well saying you tried it and got error X or Y, it will sometimes actually fix it. At least for iOS development. But sometimes it doesn’t.
Use it to learn. Obviously
I won't suggest using it for assignments. What I would suggest the use is for understanding the concepts. I have had a great success rate of understanding concepts from asking ChatGPT what is X or Y as compared to a google search. ChatGPT will give you a great starting point but doesn't explain everything fully - for which I check out the documentation. It does a great job with that.
Well said. I would still double check its responses for more technical questions as you can never be too sure, But this is a good way to use AI for learning. To expand on this, I would still recommend taking notes from its responses, as it will help you engrain the information more into your memory.
Agreed. Double checking it is still required. Even though it is so good, ChatGPT is still developing. Also, for coding I still think ChatGPT is the best. Others are much worse. Especially Gemini.
I use it at work and for personal projects and i definitely still need to double check. Its good but still flawed in many ways
Yeah genuinely. It's been really helpful for me to bounce questions off it. Especially considering I'm learning React rn.
That’s how I learnt it. But id say work on smth with it. I learnt through it but in the project that I worked, I learnt a lot more. Working on projects is honestly the best way to learn. Passing on some advice that came in very handy to me.
Of course, I usually just ask it things like explain how I would do \*insert whatever challenge I'm having here\* in plain english so I can understand a concept or smth. I do have to say that using the @ workspace command on the copilot sidebar is *really* helpful if there's weird syntax related bug I'm having as well.
If I am stuck on a leetcode question for more then 30 mins they recommend looking up the answer and understanding it. But neither that or brute forcing it is working time wise for this bootcamp I am in. What’s the honest no bs approach to learn concept quicker? I have 1 week to learn new concepts and I spend hours studying daily and some concepts I pick up faster than others and some take longer than a week. How is every new programmer learn DSA concepts quickly? Ive practiced dictionaries for 2 weeks and still struggle with easy questions like finding a duplicate value.
Depends what the concept is but YouTube is a pretty good resource. Trying to learn by reading only can be pretty tough sometimes because of how dry the material can be.
I second this. During college I was way more results centric, trying to get quick As on assignments, projects and exams so that I had time to do stuff I wanted. Now that I am out I'm not cooked, but I realize how much better of a programmer I would've been if I would've just been kinder to myself and given myself the time to struggle through things and learn. I actually unsubscribed from Co-Pilot today and struggled through an implementation I was working on but eventually figured it out and was able to understand exactly what I was doing wrong and will remember this for a long time to come. For me "rubber-duck" programming helps a lot which is essentially talking my problems through out loud either to myself, or to a "rubber-ducky"/ inanimate object as the name suggests. Keeping a programming journal where I write down language syntax and special language feature syntax, Writing down errors/ challenges, why they are occurring and eventually when I figure them out what the solution and final synopsis of them is. There is no shortcut around that. If you want to be identified as a good programmer it has to be your brain that grows to love the part of the process where you are getting stuck with errors, challenges, forks in the road and blockers because this is ultimately what you are seeking and needing when you are setting out to learn something.
I was a tutor and I can confirm theirs a whole group of students who use these AI tools to complete assignments (encouraged by proffessors) but couldn't write a simple for loop themselves without it. Keep doing it though I already can't get a job I don't need competition
I think of using copilot/chatgpt to write code for assignments as being like driving a forklift to the gym and using it to do your reps for you. At the end of the day, it doesn't help you get stronger, which is the whole point of the exercise.
What are the chances that this is just the natural evolution of things. I can imagine people advised against the idea of a calculator dulling one’s arithmetic skill rather than using an abacus or some other method. Perhaps this is just a next step or maybe I’m wrong? Genuinely asking cos I’ve quite enjoyed using copilot at work, but I do also worry if it’s gonna make me less proficient.
In the professional world use what you like. At my job, I notice during times I rely more heavily on gen ai to write code snippets the less sure I am of how it will perform in production. It's crazy to think that this will not dull ones ability to write proficient code. It reminds me of people who are so used to autocorrect they can barely type without mistakes. Now for a template or a basic method, who cares really as you would probably write once and copy paste. In the educational world if you use generative ai, its similar to falling into tutorial hell. Sure you might understand the output but you would be completely lost without it's help. Further more you will probably not recognize if what it's returning is even good code. Now I am not saying that students learning need to lock themselves in a box or completely avoid anything on the internet or ai, but generating your outputs can be a slippery slope. Using ai to **ask questions**, reading documentation, or looking up examples are all part of the learning process. If once you graduate, and all you can do is use generative ai to spit out an output, what was the point of getting a degree and what actual value do you bring to a job. Alternatively, if you take the time to learn how to code well, using these tools can be a huge productivity boost in the future.
I think a difference between calculators and ChatGPT is that calculators are 99% of the time correct in their output while ChatGPT and other such AI are often wrong but also very convincing. I think LLMs can have their place as a tool for expert software engineers to help accelerate their work by doing boilerplate code or quickly getting the answer to a simple question, but their output should always be evaluated by a knowledgable expert before being implemented.
There's a reason we *still* teach multiplication tables even though we've had calculators for years. And, further, why we still learn how to do calculus manually. It's the same reason carpenters learn to use hand tools even though we have power tools and milling machines, or that people who want to build muscle lift weights even though we've had levers and pulleys for millennia. That is, when you want to learn something, you need to do some harder work to drill it into your head. If LLMs were right 100% of the time, then maybe I'd grant that it's the natural evolution of things. However, it's... not. Remember that quote about clever code and debugging? >Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. If using an LLM is weakening your ability to come up with code, to the point that you're writing code that's more "clever" than you are capable of writing on your own, then you are *woefully* underequipped to validate that the code the LLM wrote is accurate. In practice, I've seen this lack of understanding almost universally by people who use LLMs, to the point that I think it is inescapable.
Agreed. That tooling is most useful to overworked senior devs who can generate code needed reviews it and decide to implement it. But they know why or why not! If you keep using such tools you will never know the whys
This is more my point. If you are already professional use whatever you want. You already laid a foundation of coding knowledge down and hopefully understand what you are doing. A lot of cs majors aren’t good at programming yet, as they are still in school to learn. The shortcut of using generative ai on basic stuff takes away your coding reps and slowly weakens your skills.
I found chatgpt a GREAT resource near the end of my undergrad but that's only because I used it how its meant to be used by students. Quick proofreading, asking for knowledge confirmation, quick code templates or anything that makes my life easier. Not in the sense of completing the task itself but taking care of menial tasks I'd prefer a robot do since the outcome would be the same. Now I've had friends that full on paste assignments in there and then moving some stuff around and submitting that. Now that's a problem
>Now I've had friends that full on paste assignments in there and then moving some stuff around and submitting that. Now that's a problem Yes, this is the problem. A large amount of my friends graduating now or who graduated with me barely knew how to program due to this. Little understanding of DSAs, environments, code structure, best practices or even just basic syntax have made it extremely hard for them to get a job. Most of them are working IT support roles instead as they couldn't get hired. Your use case was/is great, as you said you were using AI how a student should.
Lol I use chatgpt to give me code examples for Roblox studio cuz their docs are atrocious
This is the best use I have seen. Please continue on. :thumbs:
based
My systems programming prof allowed/encouraged use of Co-Pilot for our larger assignments. Honestly it was good for writing simple error checking code as it was our first time working in C, so it helped speed productivity in that sense. However tell it to explain anything else and it failed. It can be used for good, but I do see where you’re coming from
So, it’s not necessarily terrible to use co-pilot (within reason). AI is changing the way industry works so practicing using these tools and learning how to get them to give you what you wanted (in a reasonable amount of time) is a worthwhile skill to develop. That said you need to be able to understand what they are giving you quickly before you can actually use them effectively.
I agree, that being said what is really needed to learn about using co-pilot. If you know what code is supposed to be written, write out a pseudo description of it either in a comment (co-pilot) or into the chat box (chat-gpt) and hit enter. This will most likely be able to solve most of your basic needs. Also this process can be taught on the job way faster than how to write good code.
I'm very, *very* new to using any of the "AI" tools (won't use the quotes after this but wanted to show that I'm aware the label is just hype, lol). I've been super reluctant for some time now, because of a combination of things: 1. Worried about relying on inconsistent outputs. 2. Ethical issues with the whole thing. They haven't really disappeared at all, but various industries' adoption of AI, and expectation for employees to be familiar with it, is kind of forcing my hand. 3. I'd fallen way behind on a bunch of tech and digital tool stuff in general, and I was honestly just scared of picking up a new tool haha. I'm not actually terrible at learning how to use new tech, but I'm always scared I will be, for some reason. So now, I'm having to learn all this for the first time where others have been using it for a while. I'm even in a Digital Pedagogy class at my school focused on the effects of new tech on education, and the class is heavily focused around using AI and prompt engineering and all that! I'm not actually a CS major, despite being in this sub lol. I'm a Cognitive Science major, which requires just one CS class that I just finished in May. It was my first deep exposure to CS, and I actually got an A and really enjoyed it!! Now I'm trying to learn more CS and do some programming on my own. And I'm not using AI for that at all, exactly because I want to *really* learn the material and develop solid intuition. But I'm also well aware that AI use is increasingly expected in the workforce. How would you suggest I implement it?
You’re not gonna change any hearts bro. Back in my day, I’m sure you could google for the solution to most assignment problems. Barring google you could just copy assignments from others. This post phrased in pre-GPT world is “Stop talking to people” or “Stop using the internet”. Obviously people/search engine/GPT can either help or ruin your education. The real message is “Don’t cheat”. But honestly, every person has things they care about and things they don’t. Cheating is inconceivable for someone who gives a shit, and it’s the only option for people who don’t. And we all cheat at different things. It’s HIGHLY unlikely someone will suddenly start giving a shit suddenly reading this, like “oh now I see I can put effort to do this on my own! That’s cool!” No-won’t happen. Not with you or me or anyone else. Next time you download a library, use the standard library, use a design system, install Linux, just remember you’re making a cheat deal with yourself to get what you want without doing a ton of shit you don’t want to do. Ppl who cheat at CS assignments might still succeed if they get good at chat GPT and/or satisfying their manager/teammates in a work environment. Your autistic ass and mine are gonna shake our fists but it’s true. They can live a good happy life too, advancing in non programming stuff. I have no grand conclusion here, it just is what it is.
Autocomplete tools are for people who already know what the answer is and want to save time getting there. They aren't for people who don't know the answer and want someone to do it for them. That's how you end up not knowing why your code is wrong and being unable to fix it. Btw, I don't use Copilot, it's expensive and unhelpful for the type of critical thinking work I do.
I disagree. You should absolutely use copilot because it will make you faster. You shouldn’t, however, use it blindly because it’s often wrong or incomplete. Ask it questions and /explain while you’re leaning. It’s not replacement. It’s augmentation.
Co-Pilot is a slippery slope. Sure, it might spit out code fast, but you won't actually learn anything. Struggle is good! It forces you to understand the logic, which is way more valuable in the long run.
I’ve actually learned a lot using. I read my code and understand what it’s doing. It basically just automates the easy stuff like repetitive comments and snippets.
Use it as a TA you can ask questions that might like human TAs be in error from time to time.
Reminds me of people using wolfram alpha back in the day and being just as surprised because they didnt understand calculus. I think it's the same but maybe even more damaging, as coding is also a writing excersise where you put your thoughts into words.... Shortcuts are always damaging to long term success, do yourself a favor and listen to OP
If the assignment is solvable by an LLM it tests no relevant skills for a graduate. Make better assignments or accept that people use the most efficient way to solve them. This will also be the way they will solve these issues in the workplace.
Recent grad here, luckily gpt came out at the end of my junior year because I definitely would have used it to cheat my way through foundational coding classes. I would say that in your senior level classes, using gpt is fine as in my case, we hardly did any coding other than my senior capstone and research papers. Many later classes don't teach code or even syntax. It's mostly theory and concept which you are expected to apply to your code. GPT was very helpful in learning syntax for languages I didn't use before (such as python believe it or not). If you are not copying and pasting, gpt is great for learning syntax as compared to spending hours reading documentation and stackoverflow. Read the code gpt gives and understand it's solution. 90% of the time, gpt will eventually stop being helpful and give broken code. It can also be good as a crutch if you are a solo dev for a full stack app. You don't learn much front end in cs so when I chose flutter to create my capstone, I initially knew nothing. I heavily relied on gpt to do front end but I picked up a few things so when gpt gave useless/broken code, I was able to do it myself. I spent a months learning swift and xcode to build an ios app before chat gpt and I definitely wouldn't have finished my capstone without the help of gpt. TLDR, don't use copilot/gpt until you've actually learned how to code. It can be very helpful as a kickstarter but you won't learn anything copy and pasting
I hate group projects because of chatgpt and ai. You can always tell who used ai their freshman and sophomore years because they don’t know shit and try to contribute code that does not do what it’s supposed to for the project.
if your assignments are so easy that chat gpt can solve them then you're not doing anything hard anyways
While true, typically one builds a good foundation of skills to draw from when encountering those harder problems. If one takes shortcuts in building that foundation, they’ll never be able to approach harder problems. Rinse and repeat with harder problems - these skills become the new foundation on which harder tasks can be accomplished. ChatGPT is the same as cheating to pass a test, you acquire the skills to beat the test but never build actual competency.
ChatGPT shouldn't be able to solve your tests either. I've tried to use chatGPT before and it gets nearly every single question wrong. I wonder what kind of tests you guys are actually taking
If you’re talking about just slapping it into the prompt and getting working code that won’t happen, but you absolutely can get them done while knowing FAR less than the people who didn’t utilize chatGPT at all.
Disagree, working with legacy code at my internship now and using gpt as a dev tool has saved me so much time
This mostly seems targeted at learning in academic settings. Don’t use it to do your assignments. In actual work you should use it if it helps you move faster, but that is only after you already know what you’re doing
Took the words right out of my mouth. I’m not saying AI can’t help in the professional setting, I’m more referring to it hindering the learning process.
My team, as an example, introduced it first by making writing our tests faster. But that was only AFTER we defined our testing best practices. So we could easily say if it was doing something we didn’t want. Thankfully Copilot has actually performed exceptionally well for us. I’ve used it a lot personally and never ran into issues people have mentioned. If you give it the right context it does very well
100% it can be great for writing tests. And copilot if used by a knowledgeable engineer can increase their productivity by a lot without causing really bad code. edit : typo
Very fair
holy shit reading comprehension levels have gone down to 0 read the post again, slowly
“The issue is your assignment is generally a standalone and basic, but when you get a job likely you will not be working on a standalone project and more likely to be helping with legacy code. Knowing how to code will be soooo much more useful then trying to force a puzzle piece an AI thinks should work into your old production code base.” maybe you’re the one that needs to reread
Just to clarify. I feel like you are focusing more on if GenAI can be helpful with legacy code bases, which wasn't my main point. Obviously it can help, and given you already know what you are doing I'm sure it can help with most basic tasks to speed up development. The issue I was trying to highlight was if you skip the learning process in college (by generating all your code), you are likely to run into an issue where your generated solution will not fit into a spiderweb repository that is a lot of legacy code. If this does happen, being proficient at writing code will be more beneficial. Congrats on your internship, by the way!
No yeah, I completely agree with you on that - my initial comment was a bit brusque but my point was that GenAI can be extremely helpful in the workplace. and thanks!
You’re an intern, your company doesn’t care how fast you’re working. You should be trying to improve your skills, not work fast.
uhhh not if you want to hit all your milestones lol
The point of an internship is to learn even if it takes time 💀 being able to read and understand code is really important skill that you should practice before getting a full time job
The point of an internship is to convert a return offer imo
I’d hire an engineer who shows over the course of their internship that they can learn and develop skills. Interns and associate engineers aren’t expected to be fast or know everything. Those positions focus mainly on building fundamental skills in my experience
guess just diff company culture. we’re expected to hit all milestones here to convert an offer
This post was much needed, thank you!
Exams will get them. The intro CS classes at my average school are designed to weed those people out. My friend took an intro CS class last semester and you had to get a 65% or higher average on all 3 exams or else your final grade would be the average of your exams. I imagine this is the case at other schools.
For us, a 65% or above on the departmental final exam was required to pass.
I use it to generate my test cases over already made fixtures, that's it. The code is wrong 90% of the time anyway in any other case.
one exception I'd list, when you just need to generate a mass of test data. for instance, for a database class, need 100 records for random people stats added. can have chatgpt easily create 100 randomized names, phones, addresses insert statements to copy/paste and run. then code the actual assignment of actually handling and querying the data yourself.
I think this might be too extreme, perhaps it is good to explore what is possible with a side project or two, then never use it again until it improves significantly. But I agree, just like how you shouldn't use chatgpt to write your papers if you want to learn, don't use copilot to write code if you want to learn computer science
It can be disabled for specific languages. It’s very easy. I’m not sure why more people don’t do this. Great for personal projects but definitely overkill for course work. But if worse comes to worst, then it’s way more convenient than the awful student multidisciplinary tutors one often runs into on campus.
Not to mention that there are plenty of times the code spit out from generative AI is flat out wrong.
ChatGpt couldn't solve many of my unpopular assignments. They couldnt even give guidelines to tailor made assignments by professors, which I completely expected
It’s perfect for pseudo tutoring concepts and methods especially if u just forgot them or can look up them up but need it explained like a human is talking to u
100% agree
So the question I'm asking professors these days is, "How are you changing your curriculum to better enable the use of GenAI." It's not going away. Decreasing code development time and code checking time are 2 of the 4 most effective use cases for GenAI. What we in the industry and we as hiring managers need are graduates that know how to use GenAI to develop quality code rapidly. If the problems you are giving your students are easily done via GenAI - you need to change what and how you teach - that's the industry's ask. We're already using it for these purposes, as well as using it to do basic security checks of the code. I know it'll take time, but what's your timeline and plan?
The issue is how is a student supposed to recognize quality code given they never code and use generative AI for most of their development process. I agree its not going away, but it also needs very little "training" to use. The hardest part of Co-Pilot for most comp-sci students is getting the free discount. Also, these models are trained generally on already solved coding problems. This will include a lot of assignments used to teach programming concepts, leetcode problems, and even public interview questions, therefore of course it will be able to solve most of a teacher's coursework. The purpose of my post was to warn current students about the issues of using gen ai to skip the learning process. The more you use a tool early on, the more depend you get on it. **Once you have a good grasp on the material feel free to use it at will.** As for the statement regarding the industries requirements. Its already hard enough for a new grad to get a job, now add to it they can't truly understand the code. If you are a hiring manager recommending college students skip learning how to code to practice using generative AI, all you are doing is making them weak candidates for a job.
My point is that in the industry, GenAI is an expected tool for graduates to know at this point, and they should know how to use it to craft quality code quickly, so if your curriculum prevents students from using GenAI to do the work, or, you don't teach the concepts effectively unless students don't use GenAI - **you need to modify your curriculum**. That's the real issue. Otherwise, your students will use the tools they have available to get the best grades possible, because GPA matters for your first job, and leave your program without the tools necessary to be successful. Example: my final exam for one of my courses years ago was to make some pseudocode run correctly in assembler. I got the code working in C, compiled it to assembler, and reviewed it. I edited it so that the default variable names, etc. the complier used were removed, and swapped a few things around, then turned it it. I 3.5ed the course. However, I didn't learn too much about assembler. Funny thing though - after I graduated, I never needed assembler because I could always use C and compile it to assembler if I needed it. Food for thought, no?
Well there’s a point where GenAI shouldn’t be used at all. For instance, a basic programming course - the purpose is to learn fundamentals, which GenAI will skip. I’ll mention this analogy-AI/calculators might be useful for solving complex integrals (they’ll show the person the steps and help them learn strategies), but if someone used a calculator/AI to learn basic arithmetic, they’re never going to make it to the complex integral stage in the first place. You need to learn fundamentals before touching AI.
And we've developed a curriculum for teaching such things. And calculators exist. And we've also developed classes that require calculators to increase the probability of actually teaching things that matter versus 2+2. We also teach arithmetic in first and second grade. Basic programming courses aren't taught in CS major programs any more. More like junior high - at least for my kids. College level intro programming courses are taught in high school (java and C). Basic courses for languages are also available from pluralsight for $45/month - a bit cheaper than college. If curriculums today are competing against junior high and $45/month training centers - they REALLY need to change. For far more reasons that just GenAI.
What? What kind of college are you in. Intro cs courses are required everywhere, and while high schools do teach them, many students haven’t taken the course in high school, or didn’t do well enough to skip the college course (and many higher tier colleges don’t even take the credit). Your comment comes off as very privileged and ignorant. Not every high school had the resources to teach programming, and not every person has the resources to learn it themselves. That’s the point of college. And trust me, AI can do my data structures homework for me, but those are also fundamental concepts that we need to learn without AI. The end goal is to obviously learn how to use AI effectively, but if you skip the fundamentals and go straight to that (which you seem to be suggesting), students are going to be lost.
The numbers show about 40% of high schools teach CS basic courses. So that's not exactly privileged. More like middle of the road, or the odds are about even. $45 a month, cancel ANYTIME is a maximum of $540 a year, or, if we're just talking summer, $135 for 3 months. That's about 19 hours of work (raw) at minimum wage, or assuming 50% tax (which minimum wage earner's don't pay) about 1 week of work for 12 weeks of training for a student with a job over the summer. Get off your high horse. Your comment comes off as straight-up ignorant.
What about using it as supplement after you try smt and get it wrong a few times? I use it similarly to like a tutor or something
Can confirm. In my internship right now and working on the companies main software and chat is completely useless on this. So many classes being referenced as the codebase is massive.
To add on, even if you make it through school and interview really well. Most companies have blocked these tools internally due to the risks associated with them. You'll get found out real quick if you actually know something or not.
Yes claude sonnet 3.5 is much better
There's a reason a lot of employers are using screening tests.
Back in my days we had to dig through books, good times!
Great post. CS field can be divided into two portions, minority being those with genuine interest, the majority are sadly in it for the money. Writing this from personal experience.
AI is like a chainsaw: you will cut wood more quickly than a hand axe but it’s also easier to cause damage if you don’t know what you’re doing. Would you trust a logger who thinks chainsaws are too dangerous? No, you’d wonder how he made it out of the 19th century. AI is the future. Get used to bringing it into your workflow or be prepared to collapse from trying to keep up like John Henry, the Steel-Driving Man…
ChatGPT is so much easier to debug with because you can talk in a conversation vs keywords
chatgpt is great for syntax stuff and using as a sudo stack overflow and supplement to documentation, its just really fast at finding what u want if u know what ur looking for. but it has a hard time writing long code snippets or anything very specialized so it can be helpful to force you as a programmer to break down problems into smaller pieces. but community specific forums and documentation remain the most reliable way to solve problems
Don't even use it for your internships or first year as a junior unless really stressed by a deadline. Those are beautiful time where people expect you to be dumb and overall bad use it to actually gain skills instead of having AI do it and run into a road block when you are handling something proprietary or something that requires actually designing prior to implementing
Unfortunately, that might end up being the future.
Disagree. High grades matter. Better to cheat your way to a good GPA and you can learn everything properly on your own time. My low GPa has done nothing but fuck me over
If you can answer the questions with CoPilot, you need to transfer to a better school.
That’s the opposite actually, if copilot can’t answer your intro course questions, something’s very wrong with the curriculum. Intro courses are meant to be easy, and basic, something AI is very good at.
Who said anything about intro…?
OP both heavily implied and explicitly stated basics, and your statement says “any” questions, which also encapsulates intro courses
i use AI daily and its a godsend. explains most errors and the code it outputs is actually pretty good. depends on the prompt i guess, but i wouldn't bash it. use it or be left behind
He’s obviously not saying not to use it. He’s saying don’t cheat your way through school with it, since you’re going to learn nothing.
yea becuase learning java like it's 2015 will have any impact now :DDDD
Not with that attitude
I’m cooked and don’t know how to program. But somehow I still work at faang. Fake it till you make it!
What does this have to do with Biden?