this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2026
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Programming

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Are there programmers that still don't use AI? (lemmy.world)
submitted 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) by CodenameDarlen@lemmy.world to c/programming@programming.dev
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Four months ago I asked if and how people used AI here in this community (https://lemmy.world/post/37760851).

Many people said that didn't use it, or used only for consulting a few times.

But in those 4 months AIs evolved a lot, so I wonder, is there people who still don't use AI daily for programming?

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[–] HetareKing@piefed.social 82 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

I don't, and probably never will. A whole bunch of reasons:

  • The current state of affairs isn't going to last forever; at some point the fact that nobody's making money with this is going to catch up, a lot of companies providing these services are going to disappear and what remains will become prohibitively expensive, so it's foolish to risk becoming dependent on them.
  • If I had to explain things in natural language all the time, I would become useless for the day before lunch. I'm a programmer, not a consultant.
  • I think even the IntelliSense in recent versions of Visual Studio is sometimes too smart for its own good, making careless mistakes more likely. AI would turn that up to 11.
  • I have little confidence that people, including myself, would actually review the generated code as thoroughly as they should.
  • Maintaining other people's code takes a lot more effort than code you wrote yourself. It's inevitable that you end up having to maintain something someone else wrote, but why would you want all the code you maintain to be that?
  • The use-cases that people generally agree upon AI is good at, like boilerplate and setting up projects, are all things that can be done quickly without relying on an inherently unreliable system.
  • Programming is entirely too fun to leave to computers. To begin with, most of your time isn't even spent on writing code, I don't really get the psychology of denying yourself the catharsis of writing the code yourself after coming up with a solution.
[–] Orygin@sh.itjust.works -1 points 2 hours ago

Here's my opinion on those points, if people care.

  • Indeed, that's why I'd love for local models to be enough for my needs. Not yet the case but hopefully someday
  • It's already half my week. Explaining in natural language, to my coworkers, what they need to do. Either directly or through tickets
  • I don't think it's always the case. IDE already have powerful tools but they don't come close to the "understanding" an LLM can have on your code.
  • The generated code is reviewed exactly like any other of my coworkers code. I check it does what it says on the tin and passes tests.
  • All code ends up like other people's code. You don't always remember what something does a few months from now. Overall we read more code than we write, so the importance of the code being readable and easy to understand is the same as before. You're still the one getting woke up a 4am, not the LLM.
  • Not really true. I can implement a feature once and have it implemented and extended on all other services. The LLM mostly understand there are differences between them and work around that. Is it perfect? Ofc no, but I've never seen an automated tool you can just point at a file and say "do the same for x and y".
  • Programming still needs to be done by humans most of the time. LLM are just parrots so they cannot create some new API that a human previously had to create. I like making architectural decisions, organizing the code and structure it how I want. I don't like having to edit 25 files to make some small adjustments. In the same way a "Refactor" button did not make us stop programming, LLM won't either.
[–] qupada@fedia.io 27 points 18 hours ago

You wrote this all a lot better than I could have, but to expand on 2) I have no desire whatsoever to have a "conversation" (nay, argument) with a machine to try and convince/coerce/deceive/brow-beat (delete as appropriate) it into maybe doing what I wanted.

I don't want to deal with this grotesque "tee hee, oopsie" personality that every company seems to have bestowed on these awful things when things go awry, I don't want its "suggestions". I code, computer does. End of transaction.

People can call me a luddite at this point and I'll wear that badge with pride. I'll still be here, understanding my data and processes and writing code to work with them, long after (as you say) you've been priced out of these tools.