I suck at coding. I always have sucked at coding. I've worked on getting better at it for several decades, but even small projects (regardless of language) get me bogged down very quickly. Historically, most of my coding projects get abandoned as being apparently-insurmountable (by me). Writing code is not something that has ever fully "clicked" for me.

But in the past year or so, I've finished some coding projects that are useful to me. Mostly, I've done this using a ton of help from the bot.

But I don't just blindly trust what the bot produces. I read the output until I understand what it does (and why it does it that way), and if I can't understand it or if the method is awful then I get clarifications and/or revisions until I do understand it or the method is sane. I test it to make sure that it does do what I think that it should do, even with weird parameters. And if it's got unreadable spaghetti in it, or it isn't following my specifications, I coach it back towards not fucking up that way and we start at the beginning again for that section of code (wherein, I don't just blindly trust it).

It is not a particularly quick process, and it does have its rocky moments, though I am getting faster and better at it...and the results are... eh? They're alright.

Now, sure: I do have all of my previous failings ("learning opportunities") to look back on as I work with the bot to produce the things I want -- I've got a ton of useful (if functionally incomplete) background relating to the production of code under my belt.

But this is a process that works for me. And I definitely am not cheating. I'm just using a fairly new and widely misunderstood tool to accomplish things that I (despite decades of frustrating effort) was previously broadly unable to accomplish on my own.

I don't have any regrets about using this process. I don't feel, say, that I'm somehow less of a man because I've found utility in the use of a tool -- I was fully a man before I started using that tool, and I remain fully a man today.

In fact, in using this tool I've learned more about code in the past year or so than I ever have before. And not just syntax and formatting, but also good structures for that code, and the importance of planning that code before a single line is ever written, and of revising that plan whenever it becomes necessary -- no matter what needs thrown away or grossly-refactored as a result of that revision.

This makes me feel that the idea of writing code (without a bot) may actually "click" for me someday soon, but it also makes me question the necessity of that: Does it ever have to "click" when I've got tools like this available for me to use?

At the end of the day, lazy interns were also lazy interns an eternity ago. Lazy interns produced shit code 60 years ago, and lazy interns will still produce shit code today (except now, they can produce shit code even faster -- wheeeee! -- but that's also not new). Supervising lazy interns has always been an arduous task, whether they were using written arithmetic, a slide rule, or a pocket calculator; or whether using relay logic or punch cards or one of those new-fangled glass teletypes. When the output of a lazy intern is wrong because they are just don't care about their answer, then that lazy intern is still wrong no matter how they got there or how quickly they're able to show that they're wrong...again.

Much the same as it always has been.

But what has changed fairly recently is that we've begun a journey that is now absolutely inevitable, and we're all in for a long ride -- whether we like it and want to be a part of it or not, we're already well on our way.