How I use AI in 2025

It's gotten really good. But devs aren't out of jobs yet.

As someone who genuinely likes to code, I find AI extremely useful without having it take away the things I like to do. I should preface that while I like to code, I like to engineer solutions more, so I don't mind that AI does some of my coding, especially when it's things I don't like to do.

Here's some ways that I use AI effectively while staying happy:

• Avoid agent mode all together. I don't like reviewing a ton of AI slop, so I just don't have AI produce all the code.
• Use the auto-completions. They are quite good.
• Use AI to plan the solutions and poke holes in my own thought process. AI is a great rubber duck to use prior to coding a single line of code.
• Use it for code snippets once you've written or at least planned out things.
• It's great for translating code from one language or framework to another.

With that out of the way, I'd like to call out a few things I think are incredibly important.

Treat AI like an adversary

AI is so agreeable lately - looking at you ChatGPT. You really need to question it and treat the solutions/code it provides as an adversary. I know that sounds a bit extreme but it's real. Small mistakes can turn into big losses, especially when dealing with money. Just question and double check what it's doing.

Test like your life depends on it

Seriously. Tests save your butt when AI makes changes to something you didn't want it to do.

Use languages & frameworks that you are familiar with

Even though AI can write code in pretty much all languages, albeit in varying ability, I think it's incredibly important to work with it in a language you know or plan to learn in detail. If, and when, AI makes mistakes, you will be responsible for flagging and fixing them. Knowing the programming language significantly improves your chances of being successful.

Stay sharp

I've noticed that heavy reliance on AI can make me a bit dull when it comes to catching bugs. It's important to find ways to stay sharp. I think forcing yourself to write a large chunk of code without AI on a weekly basis helps keep you sharp, especially if it's a challenging problem and not just something trivial.

In a few years or months time, I'm not sure where AI will be. Maybe it'll have improved by 10x. Maybe it's about the same. Only one way to find out - check back in the next time I write something about how I use AI.