AI slows down open source developers. Peter Naur can teach us why
10 months ago
- #Mental Models
- #Software Development
- #AI Productivity
- AI tools slow down experienced open-source developers by 19% when working on familiar codebases, contrary to their expectations of a 24% speedup.
- Developers' inability to accurately perceive the impact of AI tools on their productivity highlights a gap between belief and reality.
- The study's findings may not generalize to all developers, especially those working on unfamiliar or corporate projects where AI could offer productivity gains.
- The slowdown is theorized to stem from the difficulty in transferring developers' rich mental models of their projects to AI tools, which lack understanding and context.
- AI tools might benefit developers working on unfamiliar codebases by quickly generating functional code, but this approach may hinder the development of a deep mental model of the system.
- For long-term project understanding and effectiveness, manually writing code is recommended over relying on current AI tools.