Why not use AI to accelerate development? It will allow you to multiply your output so you can also focus on school work. Additionally, I assume you're studying computer science, so you have the skills to not simply bibe code it.
"Why do hobbyists still paint art when they can AI-generate a picture in seconds?"
I may be in the minority of programmers, but I actually enjoy writing code, so the idea of outsourcing that just removes the fun. Add in all the other reasons why I dislike AI (like the cognitive decline that happens with repeated use) and you have the reason.
I don't necessarily like writing code itself. As a stand-alone activity with its own rewards. If I'm writing code on my own time it means there is a problem to be solved.
My last place was an AI horrorshow. Owner thought AI could do anything. That with AI anybody could do anything. Not great as a dev but great for getting exposed to AI.
I used it to make some little tools that I couldn't really justify doing manually. At the end when we were required to be fully AI I fully automated my job. A collection of scripts and CLI tools and skills. It was a fun problem to solve. And if our tickets are AI generated and our code is AI generated and the code review is AI generated there wasn't much use in me putting in any effort. So I found a different problem to solve.
Somewhat cherry-picked. If it works and has been reviewed for security then it's fine, but he's made it very clear that "AI did it" is no excuse for buggy code.
Cherry picked the way art is cherry picked. If you know how to use modern tools you will likely be more effective than choosing to do things the old fashioned way.
This is why I spit on digital artists. Sure they're using a stylus and making their own thing, but its all computer-assisted slop. If its not on a physical medium, its not real art.
So my post is unbelievable bait, and /u/Maximum_Dragon's is correct and proper 100%. So where do you, personally, draw the line between the two? What if a photographer uses AI to color correct a photo they took. Is that acceptable?
Pretty much every corporate programmer - yes even game dev studios - are using AI to code now. It has vastly increased development speed and the time it takes to get features out.
Or you can look at the AI mods and recomps that are everywhere.
it's insane how delusional ai bros are and its a clear way to identify who truly likes programming vs doesn't.
disregarding the corporate part of your statements for now, why does the timeframe of a personal project matter? what sort of deadline would your own project possibly have? who CARES how long it takes??? nobody is waiting on you. if you are making something that you care about, then the speed of creation should not matter in the slightest. i, and many many other people, actually enjoy programming. the act of programming is FUN. this is why we got into the field in the first place. the end product of a project may be cool to see, but it is EQUALLY cool to progress through the stages of development manually, and for each component you create to join with others and eventually make the whole, because you know that YOU DID THAT. if programming is something that one enjoys - why would they let some hunk of scrap circuits do that for them?
by the same logic of 'oh just let ai make your code for you its soooo much faster'; why don't musicians just skip the entire creative step and get slop music asap? why don't painters just skip the entire creative step and get slop paintings asap? why don't chefs just skip the entire creative step and get slop food asap? BECAUSE THEY ENJOY IT !!! PEOPLE ENJOY DOING WHAT THEY ARE GOOD AT !!!
going back to corporate programmers - i can personally attest to this point. i work in software in a moderately large corporation and its frustrating how out of touch execs are with forcing ai usage on everyone. we are ranked by our token usage weekly (just for fun apparently; though would not be surprised if people started getting fired for their low scores). i hate it. do i have a choice? unfortunately not. if i got fired now i likely would not be able to get a job in software again. nobody knows anything about our codebase anymore. claude knows it all. everyone just presses enter. so you are correct - corporations absolutely do use ai, excessively so. but even if my job mandates it, doesn't mean that i like it. i do programming recreationally at home also. i do it because I LIKE IT.
gaming execs also do not understand that we do not care how long a game takes to release. it doesn't matter. i would wait ten years for a game if it meant the team behind it was using that time to create the best possible version of the game that is possible.
people need to realise that yes, while life is short - good things take time, and time is a commodity we all have, even if not at the moment. eventually you will.
I think you need to take a step back and cool off.
Every programmer develops upon the back of giants that come before them. Unless you're scraping together lines of assembly to make the next roller coaster tycoon you're using shortcuts. A lot of fucking shortcuts.
I really enjoy programming, I do, but I also enjoy making solutions to fun challenges (and God forsaken technical issues). Not every aspect of programming is fun. People use linters; people use automatic getters and setters; people use libraries; these are all means to write less code. Does that mean they are somehow deficient in your eyes?
Yeah, I totally get the desire to throw shade at the idiots who have no idea what the code they generate does, but I wouldn't throw it at every programmer.
I can provide an example. I make mods for HOI4. Because of the way modding works for that game, one mod can have hundreds of individual text files for each individual country. I used to have to manually create each one, copying what new/changed data I wanted from existing ones or whatever. Even if you have all your stuff ready, prepping it for the game can take hours.
Now I just do it all on one document sheet with my own notation system, and have AI load it into folders/individual files all in a few seconds whenever I want to test or whatever.
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u/Maximum_Dragon yellow like an EPIC banana 12h ago
Create: Airwaves specifically, but this is generally how I interact with vibecoded mods.