On AI coding. AI certainly cannot replace serious devs, but rather it makes them more productive. But it can be immensely helpful to people who use development, or a particular kind of development sparingly, as just one tool in their toolbox. I am an ERP consultant, most of my work time is not development, but I do write smaller programs, really just customizations, not whole apps, in the AL for the Microsoft Business Central, https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/dev-itpro/developer/devenv-programming-in-al which is very, very limited, it cannot really call external libraries and so on. So when I just want a Python script to transform a DBASE DBF file to CSV so that I can import it into BC with AL, Claude or even Bing AI can do the job well. Well enough. I still need to fix bugs, but the effort and learning invested is much smaller. Due to the simplicity and heavy limitations of AL, AI can also help me develop in AL with much less typing, in a much shorter time. I simply use the free web based Claude or the AI in the Bing browser. No subscription.
I think AI is a great help to those for whom coding and rather simple coding is only a part of the job.
It has been noticed long ago, that expertise in a given field plus combining with basic scripting type of programming works well. When they started to develop diagnostic software in the 1980′s, they found out programmers do not understand well the specs doctors write, because the doctors forgot to write down those things that seem basic and obvious to them. So a simple “medical BASIC” programming language was made, doctors were taught to use it, and it was very successful. ERP development, like AL, or say SAP ABAP is the same.
Now AI pushes it further, it really helps the “major in something, minor in programming, automate your major with simple scripts” kind of people like me.
On AI coding. AI certainly cannot replace serious devs, but rather it makes them more productive. But it can be immensely helpful to people who use development, or a particular kind of development sparingly, as just one tool in their toolbox. I am an ERP consultant, most of my work time is not development, but I do write smaller programs, really just customizations, not whole apps, in the AL for the Microsoft Business Central, https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/dev-itpro/developer/devenv-programming-in-al which is very, very limited, it cannot really call external libraries and so on. So when I just want a Python script to transform a DBASE DBF file to CSV so that I can import it into BC with AL, Claude or even Bing AI can do the job well. Well enough. I still need to fix bugs, but the effort and learning invested is much smaller. Due to the simplicity and heavy limitations of AL, AI can also help me develop in AL with much less typing, in a much shorter time. I simply use the free web based Claude or the AI in the Bing browser. No subscription.
I think AI is a great help to those for whom coding and rather simple coding is only a part of the job.
It has been noticed long ago, that expertise in a given field plus combining with basic scripting type of programming works well. When they started to develop diagnostic software in the 1980′s, they found out programmers do not understand well the specs doctors write, because the doctors forgot to write down those things that seem basic and obvious to them. So a simple “medical BASIC” programming language was made, doctors were taught to use it, and it was very successful. ERP development, like AL, or say SAP ABAP is the same.
Now AI pushes it further, it really helps the “major in something, minor in programming, automate your major with simple scripts” kind of people like me.
Thoughts?