I think this is the really important part, you have to challenge yourself and go outside of your comfort zones to keep learning.
Going through extra steps to learn something through primary sources and valuing being uncomfortable at times are important for my evolution as a programmer.
The big difference for me is being able to struggle right up until I'm ready to give up, and then ask ChatGPT for insight. Usually my issue is a syntax one, and I have the concepts down (i.e. I was right to solve it using nested if statements, but I forgot I need to put a variable outside a function, for example). This way I get that dopamine hit of being mostly right, and quick feedback on what I need to improve. If not for ChatGPT, I'd be left feeling like I just failed entirely and I'm not getting it at all, which I don't think is the case.
I think the same experience would be achieved with a good teacher, but then I'd need my schedule to overlap, and the feedback on problems would still be often be delayed instead of instant.
But as a senior, I can’t imagine using an LLM at this stage for solving anything meaningfully complex.
I could possibly be way off in my estimations, though. A true comparison would be having me do a task with and without it, but of course once I've done it once, the next time I will do it faster.
Without ChatGPT I'd just ensure I got an exercise right, and move on, half cloudy and uncertain in my understanding. The static content on Codecademy obviously doesn't explain that when first teaching you, but ChatGPT allows you to do ANY such comparison, and explains things exactly as you asked them, complete with demonstration code blocks and said fringe/examples where, in the above example, one method or the other would break or be suboptimal.
I wouldn't use Copilot. I've noticed how it distracts people in screen recordings. They pause to see if what is proposed makes sense, and it usually doesn't. Distractions are the last thing I need.
Actually, back in the days, google would have given you a tutorial with the correct answer together with examples too. You don't need LLMs for this, just honest search. But honest search is gone.
I wonder how long till ChatGPT gets entshitified too...
What might save us from ChatGPT enshittification are the freely available LLM's. Probably won't be long before we can have a code companion running locally. It's probably already here
In my experience if you search for an advanced topic it's likely to drown you in beginner's tutorials for anything even remotely related.
My pet peeve is i do embedded linux on custom hardware, and every time i need to check something i'll be up to my neck on tutorials telling me how to enable, say, spi on a raspberry pi in user space. Even if I was explicitly searching for a totally different SoC and a recent reference for the kernel functions :)
Dear ProbablyRealPersonGPT, please provide the necessary code in C with a short explanation
... Which is Tiny C Compiler
Some of you are set in this idea that an LLM can possibly not be even slightly helpful that you have to trudge through pages of documentation just to look for one slight thing that it'd have told you right away _if_ you wanted it to.
To make an analogy to music, I see it like brass players at the advent of the valve.
It’s a new way of playing the instrument. The old ways and new ways aren’t congruent in all ways, but the new way does seem to have a higher skill ceiling
You shouldn't take the easy route when learning lads
I like that point of view and generally code for fun that way. My biggest use for autocompletion is when working with unfamiliar Java APIs on a tight timeline.
But clearly using an IDE does not make one a bad programmer any more than using ChatGPT will in the future. The bigger issue is the field is awash in people not really interested in programming. There's nothing wrong with this as everyone has to make a living, but this has a far bigger impact on the quality of engineers out there than the nature of the tools used.
Not long ago I was at a hip Bay Area startup and I don't think any of my coworkers, senior or otherwise, spent a second of their free time thinking about programming. For me I program for a living because it's great to get paid to do my hobby during the day. Getting started in the field during the shadow of the dotcom bust, the majority of the senior engineers that inspired me were likewise obsessed with programming and would be programmers even if it paid minimum wage. I don't think I would have necessarily become a programmer today since I wouldn't have been near enough the flame to ignite my own spark.
But programming will remain domain of CS, which requires a deeper understanding and proper studying to perform it well. So, while I agree with you, I don't think all of this is that bad. It must be a positive think that more and more people at least try to pick up coding, can solve some basic problems with it, and if anything, will maybe motivate their kids to learn it properly.
Then again, we've had similar conversations about "iPad kids." As an iPad (along with everything else) user, I find it's not a bad approximation of a laptop -- you do have a filesystem, for example, and apps continue to be more fully-featured (in an Apple-approved way, of course).
I use copilot myself, but mostly as a smart autocomplete for setting variables or other minor things that consume time better spent contextualizing through problem solving and interacting with teammates. It's not a substitute for being an engineer.
Expertise comes with experience and experience will only come if you keep coming back. Some people can force themselves to toil endlessly, but here's some wisdom for mere mortals: start by searching for a part of software that you can truly love, then cultivate it.
If you simply do more work in your free time you might burn out. You want something that provides relaxation but still synergy effects with your day job.
I've seen incredibly smart people in the coding space (definitely smarter than I) basically "smart themselves out of it" because they felt it wasn't challenging anymore. Or they felt tired of the "wrong" challenge, like "waiting for everyone else to catch up to them." (They were usually involved with bleeding-edge tech that ended up being the norm years later.)
If fascination is motivating, I guess be happy that you're not too smart? ;)
If you just need someone to have done the legwork and established the exercises and presentation of material for you, there are a myriad of options: books, blogs, videos, open courses, paid courses, etc.
The trick I've found to mastering a field without having a teacher standing over me and guiding me (and even when I have a teacher) is to learn to construct my own courses and exercises. These are "synthetic". I look at multiple university courses on a topic and grab one or more books, and then work through them in an order that fits my way of learning. If they have a lot of exercises, I do them. If they don't or their exercises are poor (happens), I have learned (over the years) to construct my own exercises.
A major lesson from years of doing this is that there are no perfect teachers, courses, books, or other resources that will, on their own, teach me a topic to mastery. I have to assemble it myself to fit my way of learning and needs as a learner. That part requires introspection along with trial and error. I attempted courses and books that taught me nothing (or barely anything). After a bit of floundering with that, I took a step back and figured out what resources were effective and ineffective for me, what they had in common or were missing, and started assembling my own "courses".
That's a very useful skill to develop, and it transcends disciplines. Even if you do have an actual teacher with you this is still helpful (perhaps even essential) to be able to go beyond what they're teaching you and to cover over their weaknesses as a teacher (either general weaknesses or weaknesses with respect to you).