Look, I'm going to be real with you. When I graduated from my coding bootcamp six months ago, I thought I'd have AI writing all my code for me within a week. I'd seen the YouTube videos—"AI will replace developers!" "Just prompt your way to a full app!" And honestly? I was excited. I figured I'd never have to write another for loop from scratch.
Then I actually started trying to use AI for coding, and... wow. I had no idea how wrong I was.
The first time I asked an AI to write a Python function for me, it gave me something that looked right but had a bug so subtle it took me three hours to find. The second time, it wrote beautiful code that worked perfectly—until I hit 100 users. Then it crashed spectacularly. The third time? It just refused to even try.
I was shocked. I thought this stuff was supposed to be magic?
Fast forward to today, and I've learned something crucial: not all AI models are created equal for coding. Some are incredible. Some are trash. And the prices? They're all over the place. I've spent way too much of my own money testing these things, so you don't have to.
