The Evolution Of Developer Crutches

For decades, error handling was that thing everyone nodded about in code reviews but secretly wrapped in a try-catch that just logged "oops" to console. Nobody wrote proper error messages, nobody validated inputs, and stack traces were treated like ancient hieroglyphics. Then AI showed up and suddenly everyone's an error handling expert. Why? Because when your LLM hallucinates or your API call to GPT-4 fails, you can't just shrug and refresh the page. Now you need graceful degradation, retry logic, fallback strategies, and detailed error context. The massive book represents all the error handling knowledge we should've been using all along. The tiny pamphlet is what we actually did before AI forced us to care. Nothing motivates proper engineering practices quite like burning through your OpenAI API credits because you didn't handle rate limits correctly.

Google really said "let's revolutionize coding with AI!" and then proceeded to create the most EXHAUSTING onboarding experience known to humankind. You're hyped, you download it, and suddenly you're trapped in authentication hell—three login attempts like you're trying to break into Fort Knox. Then BAM, rate limited after 5 prompts because apparently Google thinks you're trying to speedrun the singularity. And the cherry on top? Rumors swirling that Google's own engineers aren't even allowed to use their own creation. The absolute BETRAYAL. So naturally, you crawl back to VS Code with your tail between your legs, defeated by corporate bureaucracy once again. Sometimes the old reliable just hits different.

The perfect metaphor for GitHub Copilot's autocomplete functionality! You start typing some code with a clear intention in mind, and Copilot jumps in with the confidence of someone who absolutely knows what you're going to say... except it's hilariously off-target. Just like when you're about to deliver a profound statement and someone interjects with "sandwiches?" The AI is trying so hard to be helpful but sometimes the suggestions are so wildly disconnected from your actual coding intentions that you can't help but laugh. It's that special relationship where you type "const authenticate = async (user" and Copilot suggests "...PizzaDeliveryOptions) =>"

The eternal tech cycle continues! In a boardroom meeting, the boss asks about new features, and two eager executives immediately jump on the buzzword bandwagon with "Blockchain!" and "A.I.!" Meanwhile, the lone sane developer suggests, "Shouldn't we fix our old bugs?" only to get promptly defenestrated from the building. The perfect illustration of how technical debt gets ignored while shiny new tech gets prioritized. That developer probably just wanted to refactor some legacy code from 2015 that's held together with duct tape and prayers. But hey, who needs functioning software when you can add blockchain to your company pitch deck?

The modern "full stack" - three AI tabs open in your browser while you pretend to know what you're doing. Remember when being full stack meant actually knowing multiple languages and frameworks? Now it's just knowing which AI to ask for which problem. "Yes, I'm proficient in Claude, ChatGPT, and Perplexity" should be the new line on resumes. The only stack that matters is the stack of browser tabs helping you fake your way through that ticket your PM swore was "just a small change."

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