Junior Coders: The One Rule You Should Follow to Adopt AI
15 Sep 2025 #coding“Is using AI totally forbidden?” “When and how should I use it?” “What’s your take on vibecoding?”
I was on a firechat with a community of new coders last week. Those questions kept popping up. They all wanted to know about AI.
I get it! There’s a lot of noise:
- AI is taking our jobs.
- “%X of code is generated by AI at $BigCorp.”
- Some guy shared on Twitter/X that he built an app with no coding skills and now he’s retired, drinking martinis in the Caribbean.
Don’t be discouraged by those headlines. (There’s a lot of nuance behind them.) We’re living in the best time to learn coding.
You won’t like it, but…
Here’s the rule:
Don’t use AI to generate code until you’re comfortable coding on your own.
If you only copy and paste what ChatGPT, Cursor, or $NewestFastestLLM gives you, you’re in trouble. You need to know if what that tool is spitting out is good code. And for that, you need your own judgment.
When in doubt, think of AI as a powerful calculator in math class. It makes you faster, but you still need to know how to solve equations. The thinking part is still yours.
AI can spit out code in seconds, even with a bad prompt. But coding is more than syntax. It’s also about teamwork, clear communication, and problem solving. That’s why I wrote Street-Smart Coding: 30 Ways to Get Better at Coding, a practical guide to the skills that actually make you a better coder. It’s the roadmap I wish I had when I was starting out.