Learning to code in the age of AI

What is software development?

A software developer's job is to...

A software developer's job is to...

A software developer's job is to...

Figure out what the problem even is

Like this?

We start with a problem or idea...

Full of assumptions about...

• the world
• what is possible with current technology
• shared understanding

Communicated imprecisely...

The most precise way to describe how an application works is in code

Like this?

Like this

The process

• Follow up questions
• Push-back
• Consider tradeoffs
• Suggestions
• Inspiration
• Empathy for the user
• Solution architecture
• Selecting the right tools
• Validation of solution

Solving problems

			while True:
					figure out what we need to do to move closer to the solution
					solve a small problem
					write it down
						

Watch this...later

Evolution of code...

Punch cards

Time passes... abstraction happens

What is abstraction?

C and C++ era languages

Python era languages

If the language changes, what will stay the same?

Software developers now

• Solve problems
• Tell machines what to do

Future software developers

• Solve problems
• Tell machines what to do

How might the language change?

Human languages

Punctuation

							"The koala eats shoots and leaves"
							"The koala eats, shoots and leaves"
							
							"She ran away from the fire, in her pajamas"
							"She ran away from the fire in her pajamas"
						

US CONSTITUTION, ARTICLE IV, SECTION 3

Common mistakes

							"There, their"
							"Too, to"
							"It's, its"
						

Misuses

							"Borrow versus lend"
							"Literally == figuratively"
						

Staying hip with the times

							Lit 
							Kiff
							Drip 
							Cool 
							Cheddar 
							Goat
							DRY 
							Lol
						

Hammers and laser-beams

• Human languages are like hammers
• Languages like Python - more like a laser beam
• C is still a thing
• Even assembler

Code ==

Code up close

• What order things happen in
• Under what circumstances
• Where knowledge comes from, where it goes
• How things change
• When things repeat

Code up close

• Logic and algorithms
• Written in a way that is clear to machines
• Written in a way that is clear to people

What will get abstracted away?

• NOT if statements, loops, flow control
• NOT functions
• NOT variables
• NOT classes and objects
• NOT exceptions and errors

What will get abstracted away?

• NOT our ability to think
• NOT our ability to express ourselves

Body Builders

How do body builders get good at lifting heavy things?

Software developers

How do devs get good at solving hard problems?

Problems

But wont AI get better?

Problem solving is a transferrable skill

The power lies with the people who can...

• Think about big problems
• Express themselves clearly

Sam Altman

Learn to code => learn to think

• to harden our own thinking
• learn to express ourselves accurately
• to get feedback from people
• to get feedback from the world
• to get feedback from our future selves

Reading... Japanese?

Reading code...

• To read the minds of your team mates
• To read the minds of powerful thinkers

Can AI help me learn software development?

YES!

Richard Feynman

Illusions of competence

Components

• Dunning Kruger effect
• Overconfidence in future-self
• Hindsight bias

MASTERY

• Familiarity
• Nodding while someone/something else does the thinking
• Housed in your short-term memory

MASTERY comes from

• Deliberate practice
• Recall
• Struggle

Bad strategy for solving problems

• "I don't feel like solving that problem..."
• Get the solution
• Convince yourself that you could have done it yourself
• Stroke ego
• Move on to next problem

Strategy

• Try it yourself first - embrace struggle
• Opportunity to be wrong == Opportunity to upgrade yourself
• If you get stuck - get unstuck
• Recall things later on, practice over time
• Learn to teach (to learn) - protégé effect