My Updated Thoughts on AI in Coding
Hey folks, You might remember back in September 2025 I dropped a post sharing my initial thoughts on AI in coding. Most of what I said still holds up for me, but after actually using it day-to-day for the last couple weeks, Iāve got some real-world updates and a few tweaks to my take.I finally jumped in and started tinkeringāinstalled Cursor IDE (which comes loaded with those built-in AI agents) and let it loose on my projects. Bottom line: itās a mixed bag, same as before. There are legit pros, some clear cons, and Iām still 100% not on board with the idea that AI is about to replace developers anytime soon. Hereās what Iāve seen in practice: - New / greenfield projects ā this is where it shines. Give it a clean slate and tell it the tech stack you want? It can spin up a solid skeleton stupidly fastāfaster than any of us typing from scratch. Huge time-saver there. - Styling / UI polish ā eh, not so much. Itāll throw something together that looks generically āfine,ā but if you have a specific vibe, brand guidelines, or just want things to feel right, youāre usually back to tweaking by hand. Itās like asking a robot to match your personal tasteāit gets close, but rarely nails it. - Existing / legacy codebases ā way more hit-or-miss. Simple refactors or small changes can somehow take 5Ć longer than if Iād just done them myself (super frustrating). But then itāll surprise you and handle a chunky piece of business logic flawlessly on the first try. Itās unpredictable, which means you canāt just lean on it blindly. So yeahāno magic bullet. It speeds some stuff up and drags on others. Overall, it makes certain parts of the day a little easier, but itās not solving every problem or making anyone obsolete. Important part (and Iām dead serious here): You still have to understand your codebase. You still have to know what the AI just spat out, why it did it that way, and where it probably screwed up the edge cases or missed the nuance. There will always be manual adjustmentsāsometimes small, sometimes big. Developers arenāt going anywhere. If youāre already in the field, youāre still very much needed. If youāre thinking about getting into development, donāt let the hype scare you offāyouāre still needed too.