February 28, 2026
Keyboard vs. Botboard
Poll: Code with AI or Not?
30-year coder calls AI his mentor; commenters split between 'write by hand' and 'why not both'
TLDR: A seasoned developer says AI turned from “smart junior” into his personal mentor and imagines bots shipping features for review. Commenters split: keep practicing by hand, use AI for research and debugging, but many refuse AI-written code—showing a real tug-of-war over how much control to hand the machines.
The internet asked: Should you let AI help write your code? One 30-year veteran says yes—AI isn’t a “smart junior,” it’s the mentor he never had. It spots issues he’d miss, makes dreaded web page styling less painful, and even makes him feel less alone. He mostly keeps it as an assistant, but dreams of an “orchestrator” sending a squad of bots to build features and deliver tidy pull requests for humans to review.
Commenters pounced. The strongest chorus: use the robot, but don’t lose the craft. As lkbm warns, you still need to “write by hand.” Another popular stance: research with chatbots, cross-check with search, but draw the line at code generation—7777332215 flatly says they “do not use it for code gen.” On the practical side, throwaway2037 uses AI like a tech librarian, to find the right tools and decode infuriating error messages. The thread’s chaotic energy was pure internet: tobr asked whether this was advice or confessional, while bossyTeacher marveled that this might be the first poll on the site. Meme of the day? Robot interns vs. artisan typists. And that fantasy of autonomous agents quietly shipping features? Half thrilling, half terrifying—like waking up to a perfect commit from a stranger.
Key Points
- •A developer with ~30 years of experience reports AI significantly improving their coding capabilities.
- •AI is used in assistant mode for code review and tasks like CSS/HTML, making work more efficient and enjoyable.
- •The author suggests AI is particularly effective in codebases with recurring patterns (CRUD, MVC, layered architectures).
- •They propose an orchestrated group of autonomous agents, including a QA agent, to implement detailed requirements.
- •The envisioned process produces pull requests that the developer reviews, squashes, and merges; agents may ask clarifying questions.