What I Learned After Using AI for Every Coding Task for 7 Days
A few weeks ago, I caught myself doing something I do too often: opening an AI coding assistant for one small function, then closing it again out of some vague sense that "real coding" shouldn't involve that much help. I'd use it for autocomplete, maybe a quick syntax check, then go back to typing everything else myself, like I was protecting some kind of professional integrity. That habit started to bug me. Was I actually being careful, or just stubborn? So I set myself one rule for the next seven days: for every coding-related task, I would use AI first. Not as a backup. Not as a last resort when I got stuck. First, every time, no exceptions. Boilerplate, debugging, documentation, even the tasks I usually enjoy doing myself. I expected one of two outcomes. Either I'd discover AI was overhyped and go back to my old habits with a clear conscience, or I'd discover I'd been wasting hours of my life doing things the slow way. I didn't expect the answe...