January 30, 2026
Speedrun to brain fog?
Way AI assistance impacts the formation of coding skills
AI speeds up coding—but the class still fails the quiz
TLDR: A controlled study found AI help made coders slightly faster but 17% worse on a follow-up quiz, raising fears of shallow learning. Commenters split between “the job is learning” veterans and worried juniors, with links to similar studies and meta “duplicate” drama underscoring a bigger question: tutor or crutch?
New study drop: developers using AI finished tasks a bit quicker, but then flubbed a pop quiz by 17% compared to those who coded by hand. Speed gains didn’t even hit “statistically significant,” and readers pounced. The twist? Folks who used AI like a tutor—asking follow‑ups and “why” questions—kept more knowledge than those who just pasted the answer.
The comments lit up. One pro cheered the transparency while admitting, with a wink, they’ve long outsourced the grunt work: “learning concepts faster” is easy when you offload the building. A 25‑year veteran thundered that “the job is learning,” sparking a clash with cynics warning juniors are “coding faster but not understanding anything.” Another reader lobbed receipts: a similar 2024 study of students backs this up. Meanwhile, the forum’s hall monitors yelled “Duplicate?”, igniting meta‑drama and eye‑roll emojis.
Amid the memes—“AI is the calculator you cram with, then forget your times tables” and “press Run, pray, repeat”—the core fight is clear: Is AI a brain bicycle or training wheels you never take off? The study’s fine print keeps hope alive: treat AI as a coach, not a code dispenser, and your skills might survive the hype.
Key Points
- •A randomized controlled trial tested AI assistance effects on developers learning the Trio Python library.
- •Participants using AI scored 17% lower on a post-task quiz than those coding by hand, a statistically significant decrease in mastery.
- •AI slightly increased task speed, but the speed gain was not statistically significant.
- •Mastery depended on AI usage patterns; asking explanations and conceptual questions while coding improved retention.
- •The study used an online platform where an AI assistant could access code and generate correct solutions; assessment covered debugging, code reading, and code writing.