> Once the data structures are set the coding is easy.
I don't always find this, because there's a lot of "inside baseball" and accidental complexity in modern frameworks and languages. AI assist has been very helpful for me.
I'm fairly polyglot and do maintenance on a lot of codebases. I'm comfortable with several languages and have been programming for 20 years but drop me in say, a Java Spring codebase and I can get the job done but I'm slow. Similarly, I'm fast with TypeScript/CDK or Terraform but slow with cfndsl because I skipped learning Ruby because I already knew Python. I know Javascript and the DOM and the principles of React but mostly I'm backend. So it hurts to dive into a React project X versions behind current and try to freshen it up because in practice you need reasonably deep knowledge of not just version X of these projects but also an understanding of how they have evolved over time.
So I'm often in a situation where I know exactly what I want to do, but I don't know the idiomatic way to do it in a particular language or framework. I find for Java in particular there is enormous surface area and lots of baggage that has accumulated over the years which experienced Java devs know but I don't, e.g. all the gotchas when you upgrade from Spring 2.x to 3.x, or what versions of ByteBuddy work with blah maven plugin, etc.
I used to often experience something like a 2x or 3x hit vs a specialised dev but with AI I am delivering close to parity for routine work. For complex stuff I would still try to pair with an expert.
I don't always find this, because there's a lot of "inside baseball" and accidental complexity in modern frameworks and languages. AI assist has been very helpful for me.
I'm fairly polyglot and do maintenance on a lot of codebases. I'm comfortable with several languages and have been programming for 20 years but drop me in say, a Java Spring codebase and I can get the job done but I'm slow. Similarly, I'm fast with TypeScript/CDK or Terraform but slow with cfndsl because I skipped learning Ruby because I already knew Python. I know Javascript and the DOM and the principles of React but mostly I'm backend. So it hurts to dive into a React project X versions behind current and try to freshen it up because in practice you need reasonably deep knowledge of not just version X of these projects but also an understanding of how they have evolved over time.
So I'm often in a situation where I know exactly what I want to do, but I don't know the idiomatic way to do it in a particular language or framework. I find for Java in particular there is enormous surface area and lots of baggage that has accumulated over the years which experienced Java devs know but I don't, e.g. all the gotchas when you upgrade from Spring 2.x to 3.x, or what versions of ByteBuddy work with blah maven plugin, etc.
I used to often experience something like a 2x or 3x hit vs a specialised dev but with AI I am delivering close to parity for routine work. For complex stuff I would still try to pair with an expert.