where i stand on using ai to build stuff

Date : 20-11-2025

since im shipping a compiler today (lat) i wanna say something about how i actually build, because its in the readme and i mean it, i used ai HELP to develop lat, but not automated coding via agents or tools doing it for me. and that distinction matters a lot to me so lemme explain

theres a big difference between using ai as a thinking partner and letting it just... write your project. i'll ask it to explain a parsing concept, or rubber-duck a tricky bug, or help me understand ruby idioms since i basically learned ruby to build this. thats ai as a tutor, and its incredible for that, it accelerates the LEARNING. but i dont hand it the wheel and let it generate the whole thing while i paste and pray. because if i did that, i wouldnt actually understand my own compiler, and the entire point of building a compiler was to understand compilers

my whole thing has always been "build it yourself so you actually get it." i built a physics engine, a shell in c, a fluid sim, a ui library, all from scratch, specifically because the understanding is the reward, not just the finished artifact. if i let a tool skip me past the hard part, i skip past the exact thing i was trying to gain. so i use ai the way i'd use a really smart friend who explains things, not the way youd use a vending machine that dispenses finished code. the struggle is not a bug in learning, its the whole feature