New Junior Developers Can’t Actually Code.

https://ponder.cat/post/1665917

New Junior Developers Can’t Actually Code. - Ponder.cat

Lemmy

I’m a little defeatist about it. I saw with my own 3 eyes how a junior asked ChatGPT how to insert something into an std::unordered_map. I tell them about cppreference. The little shit tells me “Sorry unc, ChatGPT is objectively more efficient”. I almost blew a fucking gasket, mainly cuz I’m not that god damn old. I don’t care how much you try to convince me that LLMs are efficient, there is no shot they are more efficient than opening a static page with all the info you would ever need. Not even considering energy efficiency. Utility aside, the damage we have dealt to developing minds is irreversible. We have convinced them that thought is optional. This is gonna bite us in the ass. Hard.
How is it more efficient than reading a static page? The kids can’t read. They weren’t taught phonics, they were taught to guess the and with context clues. It’s called “whole language” or “balanced reading”

I don’t think phonics are the most critical part of why the kids can’t read.

It’s proven that people who read primarily books and documents read thoroughly, line by line and with understanding, while those that primarily read from screens (such as social media) skip and skim to find certain keywords. This makes reading books (such as documentation) hard for those used to screens from a young age and some believe may be one of the driving forces behind the collapse in reading amongst young people.

If you’re used to the skip & skim style of reading, you will often miss details, which makes finding a solution in a manual infinitely frustrating.

It’s not that phonics is integral, but rather if reading is a guessing game that’s just one more barrier to reading, and they read less, and what they do read they skim over and potentially ignore foreign words