Enhancing Productivity with Tools, Aesthetics & AI • Cassidy Williams & Ben Hong

This interview was recorded for GOTO Unscripted.
https://gotopia.tech

Read the full transcription of this interview here:
https://gotopia.tech/articles/330

Cassidy Williams - Senior Director of Developer Advocacy at GitHub
Ben Hong - Staff Developer Experience Engineer at Pandan Studio 

RESOURCES
Cassidy
https://twitter.com/cassidoo
https://www.linkedin.com/in/cassidoo
https://github.com/cassidoo
https://cassidoo.co

Ben
https://x.com/bencodezen
https://m.webtoo.ls/@bencodezen
https://github.com/bencodezen
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bencodezen
https://www.bencodezen.io

Links
https://obsidian.md
https://www.notion.so
https://bear.app
https://www.keyboardmaestro.com
https://github.com/features/copilot
https://claude.ai
https://www.cursor.com
https://www.tabnine.com

DESCRIPTION
Cassidy Williams and Ben Hong explore the intersection of aesthetics, functionality, and AI in the world of coding. They begin by examining how the design and feel of tools, from digital typewriters to customized keyboards, can significantly impact productivity and enjoyment. As they delve into AI's growing role, they assess various tools like GitHub Copilot, Claude.ai, and others, emphasizing how these technologies complement rather than replace human creativity.

Their conversation highlights the balance between leveraging AI for efficiency and maintaining personal touch and critical thinking in coding. They argue that while AI advances, the human element remains crucial in driving innovation and crafting meaningful work. [...]

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Taylor Royce • The 2024 Developer Productivity Guide • https://amzn.to/3XNAjqz
Unni Panicker • The Software Developer's Guide to ChatGP • https://amzn.to/3MSpoWw
Alex Castrounis • AI for People and Business • https://amzn.to/3NYKKTo
Phil Winder • Reinforcement Learning • https://amzn.to/3t1S1VZ

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Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 2:47 Exploring tools, obsidian & the second brain concept
• 12:15 How simple tools enhance creativity & productivity
• 16:07 Optimizing tools for distraction-free creativity
• 23:01 The role of AI tools in modern coding
• 36:12 Outro

Transcript

Intro

Cassidy Williams: Hello. I am very excited to be on this GOTO Unscripted podcast with Ben Hong. My name is Cassidy Williams. You can find me at Cassidoo, C-A-S-S-I-D-O-O, on most things, or my website, cassidoo.co. And, Ben, could you introduce yourself?

Ben Hong: Hey everybody, I'm Ben. Basically doing some consulting recently, but mainly do a lot of open source work on the Vue core team and consulting with the Angular docs right now. You can find me under BenCodeZen, B-E-N C-O-D-E-Z-E-N. Very excited to be here with Cassidy.

Cassidy Williams: So Ben and I have known each other, it's been a while now. I think we've known each other for like four years, if not more, around four years, I think.

Ben Hong: At least I think, yeah.

Cassidy Williams: Time flies.

Ben Hong: It really does.

Cassidy Williams: Especially in a post-pandemic world, it feels like it's both been way longer and shorter.

Ben Hong: Absolutely.

Cassidy Williams: But we first got to chatting, not because of code, but because of Go, the board game.

Ben Hong: Yes, completely wild. I remember on our interview where you had apparently ran across one of my Go blog entries when I was reviewing a book and that's like, oh, it's our first like serendipitous crossing of paths, even though we didn't know it at the time.

Cassidy Williams: I remember I was, I like found you on Reddit and stuff on accident talking about Go where I was just like, oh, I wonder about this move or how this thing worked. And then of course, you would write like a whole essay on a concept and I'd be like, hey, amazing.

Ben Hong: And for those who don't know what Go is, think of it, it's kind of like a form of chess, but instead of like about capturing pieces, it's more about surrounding territory. I think it's one of the oldest board games, if not the oldest, I think one on record.

Cassidy Williams: I was going to say like it and backgammon, I think are the oldest ones. It's very fun.

The Productivity Powerhouse: Exploring Tools, Obsidian, and the Second Brain Concept

Cassidy Williams: Speaking of writing and stuff, something that Ben Hong and I really have a lot in common with and about and on and all of those words is just productivity in general. And, Ben Hong, I feel like you're one of the more productive people I know who writes everything, all of your notes, all of your organizations, whether it's on paper or online. And let's talk about some of the tools that we use, because I feel like you have the most knowledge on this subject ever.

Ben Hong: Oh, how I wish that were true. But to your point, I have spent a lot of time in the space, I think trying out different tools, because I mean, there's always ways to better optimize, right? I am definitely one of those like constantly endlessly trying to optimize my system, much to my detriment a lot of times. But apparently, as far as tooling goes, though, my primary tool of choice is Obsidian. So for those who don't know or haven't heard of it before, it's kind of a newcomer on the note-taking scene in a sense. And so I think many people here probably use something like Notion or Bear, or they might have heard of Evernote. And so I think a lot of note taking tools, interestingly enough, they're very what they're cloud-first architecture, right? Everything is saved to the server.

And Obsidian was, I think, one of the first real newcomers kind of introduced the idea of note first, local first storage when it comes to your data. And that was one of the things that really brought me on to it because I remember being on Notion, and I had everything on there. We're using all the databases and everything. And then they had a server outage at a time where I needed to get work done. And that disconnect from my notes is really kind of what I guess set off the red flag of, like, I need something that I can like, you know, rely on basically at any point, and that can be continued on someone else's servers being online or not.

Cassidy Williams: That's such a real thing, because I, I also had a very similar experience with Notion, and no hate to Notion. It's a great tool. I still use it for other things. I think I was on an airplane or something, and I wanted to take notes in it. And I couldn't, because just, yes, it didn't have Wi-Fi. And it was not their outage's fault. It was my own because I just didn't have access. And so a tool like Obsidian has been really great when I actually came to it from Bear, which is a Mac only editor, and I really liked Bear, but I wanted a little bit more functionality and linking. And so that's when I went to Notion. And then I was like, that's too cloud-heavy, and just also not what I was looking for. And then Obsidian, I feel like it's awesome. It's so for those who don't know what it is, it's a glorified markdown editor. Leave it at that first, treat it like a text editor, treat it like a markdown editor. But it's fully extensible like a really good plugin system. Plus you can link between all of the notes that you make, and basically create your own Wiki for yourself of just anything you could ever write down.

Ben Hong: I think that's a great description of it.

Cassidy Williams: It's where I write all my blog posts, where I write even my own journal entries, where I'm trying to think through things. It's project planning. I feel like I just put everything in it at this point.

Ben Hong: I think one of the things that makes Obsidian like the elegant solution it is, is that everything that it saves, even though it's like an app, it just saves to as Cassie said markdown. And so for those who, in case you're new to that, it's just a plain text file. Like it's not some glorified database, you know, JSON object that you have to parse through in order to like get the data out and understand like, no, it's just like if you open up the file, it looks basically just like normal text with maybe some symbols to indicate different styles or that kind of thing. And I think that is also really interesting from a data preservation perspective, because if Obsidian should one day just go away, your note is just plain text, you don't have to worry that you have some random tarred database that you can't, you know, parse anymore. And so you lose all that data.

I think that's one of the scariest things when it comes to your notes and your thoughts is that it is such a personal thing. So being able to have access to that and keep it close to your chest at any point is great. Then you can always leverage your point about other tools, which are good for other things. So for example, for those who are thinking that, oh, Obsidian sounds interesting. One thing it's not really good at is multiplayer collaboration, right? Whereas like Notion thrives on that. Like that's one of the things I love most about Notion is easy access control, have multiple collaborators inside of documents. That's all great. Obsidian as of this point of recording, that's not one of its strengths.

Cassidy Williams: It's not what it's meant to do.

Ben Hong: No, not at all.

Cassidy Williams: I think for your own self, the other concept that people call it is like a second brain concept. Or like, it's, you don't typically share your brain with other people. You might talk with other people, but it's supposed to be your second brain of where you put all of your information, or whatever information you want to put in it. Some people use it for writing, some people use it just for project planning. Once again, I've seen people run D&D campaigns in it. It's been really just an effective tool. And again, I think it's because it's basically plain text, but with added bells and whistles that you can add optionally, it can kind of be a choose your own adventure with how you want to use it.

Ben Hong: Exactly. I think one of the things it does really well is that it makes it very easy to integrate and embed notes within one another. And so it allows for this graph relationship of notes, because I think a lot of us when we're thinking of how we organize notes, most of us are thinking, if you think of like a traditional filing cabinet system, right, your note is a piece of paper that you put in one particular folder for one particular category. But I think any of us who've written notes after a while realize that notes often belong in more than one place. It's not just work, sometimes work and hobby, sometimes work, hobby and personal. But if you keep to that kind of traditional hierarchy of file folder organization, it only belongs in one place.

But the graph relationship that Obsidian allows you to do essentially allows you to connect to whatever the heck it is related to, you can just do it. And I think that's something that's really interesting from a software side too, that we're seeing more of is that we're moving away from just that linear list sort of hierarchy. And because databases are getting more powerful, and we just have better computing, we can start thinking at a much larger scale when it comes to these relationships between items.

Cassidy Williams:  I think it's nice to be able to take notes kind of at the speed of thought without having to think about organization. And that was something where I was talking to a friend just yesterday where he was saying like, you know, I've come up with all of these different systems for myself, but I always end up having to think like, okay, if this note goes in this folder, then what if I think is related to this folder? And like he was thinking so much about organizing his notes that you just stop taking notes. But if you just don't care about that part, if you just write what you need to write, it's all in one place, organize it later, or figure out some way that you can find it later in a system that works for you. I think that is what makes you be more productive because you're creating more and you don't have to worry about the recall later.

Ben Hong: The trust in the system is wonderful. It's why like, I know when I talk to people about creating their first like Obsidian Vault, like one of the things I recommend is that they don't actually, so like most programs in order to create something new, you hit like Command+N or Ctrl+N, right, for like a new document, new note. And I tell everyone to actually disable that feature and to switch the hotkey instead to open, essentially to search within existing notes first. Obsidian has that feature where if you can't find it with the search, then it just automatically defaults to create a new note. And so it's this really nice way of recycling your old notes because essentially you'll type something thinking like, oh, this is the first time I'm thinking of it. And you'd be surprised. You'd be like, five years ago, I had this note on how to merge type unions with TypeScript. And then it'll be like, oh, and then you can jump on that and build on that. And I think that's what makes it really nice because it makes that sort of like your past knowledge surfaceable.

But more importantly, one of the things I love about a feature that Obsidian introduced that I love is that they have the concept of aliases, which I know, Cassidy, you use. Which not enough software has. And so for those who don't know what aliases are, essentially, you know, when you name a document, you spend so much time trying to name something, right? Like what, it's the running joke that naming things is the hardest thing in software development. Obsidian lets you name the same file in multiple ways so that you can reference it however you see fit in different contexts. And I found that to be so helpful because at one point, my brain will want to name things one thing. Later on, I'll search for it, can't find it, but then realize, oh, this is what it used to be named. I can add an alias for how my brain contextualizes it now. And now I have two different ways for my brain to access the same information. And I think that's been such a game-changer for me.

Cassidy Williams: The thing that I thought was really impressive that you did with aliases was using symbols. And I don't remember exactly what you do. So correct me that because I'm wrong, not even if I'm wrong. It's like you said, like, when it's an app that you're writing down or something, you had the alias start with a plus sign or something like that. And so being able to do that as a whole other level of organization is kind of both thoughtful and thoughtless because you don't have to think too much about it, but it just works.

Ben Hong: Yes.

Cassidy Williams: That is so cool to me. It's just a different level where I still do take notes like with a notebook and a pen and stuff and like by hand and everything. But it's nice to have that level of organization that I can like to transfer into something digital if I want to.

The Power of Pens: How Simple Tools Enhance Creativity and Productivity

Cassidy Williams: Also, speaking of writing with a pen, Ben, I have a bone to pick with you.

Ben Hong: Oh, what happened?

Cassidy Williams: Because you have given me a couple of very nice pens. And I love them. Here's the problem. My other pens suck. And I don't think I realized they suck until you gave me a pen that's actually nice to use. I literally started taking a class recently, and I started to take notes with just a regular pen that I had on my desk. And I was like, "Oh, how did I ever tolerate this? Oh, no, I need my nice pen, this Japanese pen that Ben Hong got me." And or and like I tried my fountain pen and stuff. And I've become such a snob when it comes to pens. I feel like I've just kind of seen the light with how nice writing can be. And now, man, I can't go back.

Ben Hong: Well, I am sorry that I have ruined all normal pens for you.

Cassidy Williams: How dare you? How dare you make me feel delighted with a pen?

Ben Hong: It's funny how much that tooling makes such a big difference. I mean, similarly, like, I had the opportunity to go to the pen that Cassie's mentioning, I had the opportunity to go to a calligraphy shop, like a calligraphy paper pen shop in Japan. And for those of you not familiar with Japanese culture, like, when they choose something to like, when they choose their craft, they are very serious about it. This place just had like, the most amazing handcrafted material. And you could just tell that everything had been chosen with such care. And so it was just a phenomenal experience. Since then, it's just it's opened my eyes in terms of like, how the care towards your tool can really impact like the output because then instead of thinking about like, oh, my pen's out of ink or it's not coming out, like, you know, I mean, it's not just it just goes your ideas just flow out and it's just fantastic.

Cassidy Williams: And it is wild how like, the aesthetics of something can actually impact you. Like even just with I used to use just like fidget toys where I would play with my hands and stuff, or like play with a toy on my desk just to like, do something if I needed to think through something. Now I'm writing. Even though I'm sometimes just writing a silly sentence, like, wow, I'm kind of bored today, but I should be doing these things or something like that. Just the fact that I'm writing it, I'm just getting more out there and out of my brain and onto paper and thinking about things more clearly, I feel like, because I have the tools that help me do that better.

Ben Hong: It's funny you mentioned that about doodling, because I've been thinking a lot about this and how it impacts our like, creativity output. And the fact that like, when we're just working in a text editor, we actually lose the ability to doodle. Right? Like, it's always talking about what's hierarchically going to go top down. And the ability to have the pen and paper to be free to like, just as your brain just like, you know, marinates on something, there's something magical about that process. And of course, for those of you who have tablets and styluses, obviously, you can do the same thing on a canvas. But it was just such an interesting thing that as we see more and more technology just sort of, a just good old paper and pen can go a long way. So still not obsolete.

Cassidy Williams: But yeah, it's not obsolete and it can also work alongside your other tools. Like, it's not like you have to be one or the other, like the digital nomad or analog girly or something, like you can be all of the above. And it's been fun to improve that not only for like, productivity and output and getting things, but also just I think, for brain clarity, and feeling like you're thinking a little bit better instead of just sucking into the latest TikTok trend or something.

Ben Hong: Absolutely.

Optimizing Tools for Distraction-Free Creativity: Aesthetic Functionality and Productivity

Cassidy Williams: Something you also said about aesthetics the other day was when we were talking about distraction-free writing devices, where there's one that I built recently, and I don't have it on my desk with me right now. But I recently built a digital typewriter. And it was basically a 3D-printed version of the Astro House free write, which I know, Ben, you have one of those. And they're meant to be just distraction free writing devices where they are digital typewriters even where you write, it's just a very plain screen. It does pretty much nothing except let you write. Look at that, you got one. It's beautiful.

And there is as you write with it, because it just is one device that does one thing, you don't really have notifications popping up saying, "Hey, you got an email," or, "Hey, you have a social media mention or something," and you just write. And since getting this device that I have, which again, not not as cool as a Freewrite, but it's you know, the one that I hacked together, it's cool to really realize how much like the aesthetics of a tool do kind of matter because there's so many digital typewriters in the world. Some are like 20, 30 bucks, but they're kind of ugly. And it isn't like a delightful experience. It's just like a tool that gets the job done. And I do think that often you want function over form, not necessarily form or function, but form definitely helps function, I think, when you're trying to just go.

Ben Hong: I definitely think as well, like as you start to elevate your craft too, it's hard to actually ignore the form. Because at one point, at some point, it's not just about getting it done. There's an experience that like, all these things play together. I mean, we see that to switch to a completely different industry, I mean, like dining is a great example of this, right? There's like, you just want your food to like all the points where like, like you have the Michelin star restaurants that do incredible almost like an art performance with their dessert. And I'm telling you, it does something to the experience. It absolutely does.

Cassidy Williams: It does. It doesn't elevate it somehow where, like, yes, it just is this tool that does this one thing. Don't overthink it. But at the same time, it's kind of fun to overthink it because then you get to just enjoy it more. We're like, I build so many mechanical keyboards because it's fun to type on a pretty machine. And we even see it when we're live streaming people will be like, "Hey, what font is that?" Or, "Hey, what code editor-like theme are you using or something?"

Ben Hong: Oh, my gosh, so many color themes.

Cassidy Williams: It is something that you're going to be looking at and using a lot if it's one of your tools in your arsenal.

Ben Hong: Absolutely. I totally agree with that.

Cassidy Williams: So again, it's not that aesthetics should matter. But it's nice to have things that are just delightful enough that you can do more with it. That being said, in terms of like, other aesthetic things, can you think of anything else? The tools that you use that you've, I don't want to say perfected, but something else that you've optimized, not as much to your detriment, but where you're just like, this is a delightful experience that helps me do more.

Ben Hong: Gosh, that's a great question.

Cassidy Williams: Or are there ones where I guess the, not to interrupt your train of thought, are the ones where you are like, "Oh, I don't want to optimize that one, it doesn't need to be optimized." Because I feel like there's elements of that too. Like I know, for example, people have code snippet libraries, so that way they can always have the same code snippets and stuff. Sometimes that's one where I'm just like, I probably should, but I don't really need to, I'm okay with just writing the code.

Ben Hong: Okay, actually, now that you mentioned it, I do have one that I basically have settled and don't optimize any further if I use an app called keyboard maestro. I think this is Mac-specific. And so it basically allows you to create macros for how you use your computer. And so one of the things that I've never changed is I use what I think they call it the hyper key, which is where you change your caps lock to be Ctrl+Alt+Command and Shift all at the same time. Because as we know, most software have like, you know, they have like, Ctrl+C or Command+C for copy. So you don't want to override like those but like, none of them have all four hitting at once, right? Because ergonomically speaking, no one's gonna hit all four keys and something else. So you assign your caps lock to that. And then as a result, you unlock this whole world of macros that no one can ever touch.

And so for me, for example, I have it do like if I do caps lock three, that opens up, I think that one for now that one does, oh, yeah, that's my email. And so I have like my first five, like top five apps are like 12345. And then I have other ones too. So if I want to open like Obsidian, that's just like caps lock+S. And so it allows me to switch context really seamlessly. And I don't even have to do anything with it. And so that's one that's been basically there for years now, I think I've been doing this for a while now. But how about yourself?

Cassidy Williams: Well, now I'm thinking I should do something like that. I've mapped caps lock to just more hardware layers on my actual physical keyboards where it's like caps lock+M always makes it so I can mute my keyboard on and off. So that's just one where it just does it quickly if I ever need to turn off or something to check on something and same with the carats next to where comma and period are, that's volume up and volume down.

Ben Hong: Oh, smart. I like that.

Cassidy Williams: It's something or M it's easy to remember for muting but stuff like that I use caps lock for different kinds of mapping. Like HKJL I also have the arrow keys kind of just like where, if for whatever reason, I'm just like I don't want my hand to go all the way over to my arrow keys, I could do it just a little bit closer with that. And so I don't have any software ones, but that's a smart idea. I've seen tools like Script Kit and stuff where you can make macros for all kinds of complex workflows. Like I saw someone do something where it was like FFM peg where it added an intro and conclusion to a video with a... I know.

Ben Hong: I haven't gotten that far mainly just context switching and then some text snippets. But otherwise, that is pretty cool.

Cassidy Williams: We have a mutual friend, Alex Revere, and he had posted some interesting shortcuts recently that he made, just like Apple shortcuts where it was also like a key command where he called it like distraction mode and distraction-free mode that would switch between stuff and like it basically like closed out and banned all things like Discord, various social medias, anything to just go to focus mode and then you could toggle it back on when he went on a break. So he had like a Pomodoro clock or something that would let him switch between the two of those and I thought that was pretty cool.

Ben Hong: Yes.

The Role of AI Tools in Modern Coding

Cassidy Williams: Would you say these tools impact your coding at all?

Ben Hong: I would say it for me, it impacts it a lot because we were talking earlier, I mean, like tie back to the note taking we're talking about like in terms of things flowing properly, when I'm coding, I think it's important to be able to keep that line of thought of the problem you're solving. And so whether it's switching context with your code editor. And so this is why for me, I'm like a minimum two screen person when I'm coding because, you know, doing web development usually has your browser hot reloading whatever changes you're making, right. But then also being able to easily like so I have like macros for resizing my window. So like the left half, right half, top half, that kind of stuff can be huge because then it's easy to like go, oh, I need it to be mobile. So you'll do like one-third on the right, and then bring up like the documentation two-thirds to the left. And so allowing that kind of stuff to kind of just come up, like sort of come out and flow more naturally has been really helpful for me when it comes to coding.

Cassidy Williams: Yes, that's so nice. I don't like the documentation. That's so smart. But I do have things like, for example, to get rid of the file tree, so I can just focus on the one file. Sometimes if I'm really just like, I just want to figure this out, I'll like straight up zoom in on my text. I'm just like, I'm going to make sure that this function is perfect. Now it feels like I don't have to do as much with the advent of GitHub Copilot and other various tools kind of "helping me along," unless the code is wrong. But yeah, that's otherwise I feel like my coding environment is pretty cut and dry. I could probably use more plugins and things but I kind of just let it be editing text on a screen.

Ben Hong: Yes, I think and then I imagine for you too though, like most of your commands are all done via keyboard shortcuts, right? Are you touching the mouse at all when you're ever coding?

Cassidy Williams: It depends on if I'm in Vim mode or not, which I used to be like very hardcore only Vim nothing but yeah, and then I had a team where they had a bunch of custom VS code extensions and so I switched over. So then for a while I was the snob using VS code or using Vim in VS code. As I've live-streamed more over time, I use it less because it's just easier to use a mouse and occasionally do things. But yeah, I'd say I'm definitely way more keyboard heavy, but I'm not afraid to reach for the mouse if I need to just scoot around, you know?

Ben Hong: Same.

Cassidy Williams: Do you use Copilot or any other AI coding tools?

Ben Hong: So I've tried I think most of them at this point. The one I've been using more recently is the Claude.ai because it seems to be a little bit more...

Cassidy Williams: Claude is good.

Ben Hong: I know he was getting a lot of flack at the beginning for like, I think they made some kind of large claims regarding its ability to take a list of requirements and build something. But as a tool to aid your ability to code, it is very, very good at what it does.

Cassidy Williams: I was just talking about this because I've been working on some client projects recently and they asked for a complete change in requirements and I was like, oh, I'm going to have to rewrite all of this stuff. And Copilot, it's really good at going along with my train of thought. But when it's like, change this whole file, it doesn't do that. And so I tried both Claude and GPT. GPT fully misunderstood the question. Like I gave the files, tried to explain things, tried to be really specific with prompting and it was just like performing data analysis on your code. I'm like, no, no, that's not what I wanted. And Claude, even though it's not perfect, like 80% of the time, it gets me 90% of the way there where I'm like, I'm happy to do the little changes to get it 100%.

Ben Hong: Yep. That's been my experience as well lately, particularly with ChatGPT, it's just not as consistent with the creative output and it'll kind of miss the direction that I'm heading. Whereas Claude is way better at taking the right context cues for whatever it is, even to the point of like, even if I compare the same snippet of code in both platforms, like the explanations are very, very different. So I think Claude has at least currently got my bid as far as like my go-to. And then like you said, I Copilot when I'm in the editor, I still use it. But if I'm ever doing something more large, large, like I need, like a full conversation, Claude has been my go-to lately.

Cassidy Williams: I've seen people talk about like Cursor AI and then I think there's one called Tabnine and stuff. There's so many, so many tools. I haven't tried all of them quite yet.

Ben Hong: We are in an interesting time. I mean, it's funny because AI was, it was such a, there was such a big like, I don't know, I'll call it like a scare fest of like what it was going to do to the industry. It's funny because at the beginning of this conversation, we were talking about Go. And that was a game that people thought AI would not crack for a long time. And so we thought that because, for those who don't know, there's so many permutations on it. It's more than like the number of atoms in the world or something absurd like that. So many permutations exist.

Cassidy Williams: Something absurd. It's a complex game. Great game. Complex game.

Ben Hong: And so they were like, well, computers can't just like brute force it. Therefore you would technically need AI to do it. And, but for those who don't know, AI has like, it is a big part of the Go community now, but that hasn't made it so that Go itself as a sport or like as a game that like people compete in, like it hasn't gone away. It's just been elevated to a different level of craft. And I feel like that's what we're seeing in coding as well. It doesn't just, I feel like it hasn't completely uprooted everything. It's just changed the way we work.

Cassidy Williams: I think that like, it's not replacing us anytime soon. I genuinely don't think that like, and who knows, maybe we'll look back on this and laugh. I don't see people replacing junior engineers with an AI tool anytime soon. It's just not there. There are still levels of human intuition that are needed so far. But like with Go, I was actually part of this research study where they were talking about how alphaGo, the AI tool, kind of ruined your enjoyment of the game. And so many people were like, not at all. And in a, like in a way you're just like, dang, I'll never be as good as a computer. But at the same time, it's kind of like when construction equipment started coming out, like a crane, I'm sure there are people being like, dang, I'll never be as strong as a big truck, but you're not meant to be. It's a tool that helps you get to the next level. And I feel like as a tool, AI has helped me, maybe not necessarily become a better coder, but it's helped me do tasks a little bit faster because I know what I need to do. I just need to use the tool to get me there a little bit faster than if it were just me.

Ben Hong: Exactly. I think it's in some ways too. It's also about the AI, it kind of democratizes your ability to almost ask for pinpointed feedback on things. Because there'll be times I've written a function for like, I don't know, like I'm practicing an elite code problem. And it's like, I have no idea why it's not working, right? Like my brain at that point just cannot see it. And so I have, I've dumped it into like Claude and then been like, what's wrong with this function? And it's fairly good about getting me to look in the right direction. And then there's kind of usually there's that light bulb moment. And then it's like, oh, okay, now I see what my brain could not see earlier.

Whereas in the past, you would have to hire, you know, or assume you didn't have a friend who could just come in and like help you. It was harder to get access to like senior devs to come in. And I think to your point about Go, that's just it. It was actually before AI tools, playing against people who were stronger was actually kind of difficult to do. Because stronger players just didn't have any interest in playing weaker players. But now you could practice against a legitimately strong skill level of Go and then use that to elevate your skills. And so it's really fascinating to see what it's done to the community.

Cassidy Williams: It's just a different kind of tool that helps you in different ways. And kind of like you said, like there's some things where, for example, there are points where I write code where I'm like, it works, but I know it could be cleaner. But I don't feel like refactoring it. But it should be cleaner. Ask LLM, hey, would you mind just cleaning this up with a refactor? And then you see it, and you're just like, okay, this part good, and this not so much. This is great. And being able to just do that and move on without having to expend extra brainpower to rewrite something you've already written, it's really nice.

Ben Hong: Absolutely. I love it for that. I think that's a great way to use it.

Cassidy Williams: We'll see what happens in the coming months and years. I do think that we're kind of on not a downturn, but like the hype wave for AI has slowed down a little bit. And now people are just like, "Okay, it's here, what's next?" a little bit more than just like, it's going and more and more and more.

Ben Hong: The world is ending.

Cassidy Williams: Before that, it was crypto. And I forget what was before that. But there's always different waves of like, this thing will be huge, and then it settles a little bit. And then the next thing is huge. And we'll see. But I do think that it is something that has been a good productivity tool. Sometimes an incorrect one, but no tool is perfect.

Ben Hong: I don't think with any of these, you just can't take away the critical thinking aspect of it if you actually want to work with it. And I think that's what people often miss is that they think it replaces the thinking and that's what it doesn't do.

Cassidy Williams: I think that's why I like something like Copilot the most because it works alongside you in a different way, where it's not just like, hey, write this whole thing. It's more like, hey, you seem to be writing this. This is what I think the next part should be. And that I like and at my previous startup, which is no longer a thing, we called it iterative AI, rather than generative, because it iterates on what you're already thinking. And I think that element of AI is what we should be focusing on, on like, how do we iterate on what a user is trying to create to make it a little bit better?

Ben Hong: I like that iterative AI. I'm going to use that.

Cassidy Williams: It's better for refining and stuff too. Because if you just say, "Hey, write a cover letter," it will be generic. But if you say, "I wrote this cover letter, will you help me personalize it a little bit?" Then you could be just like, okay, this is where I need to fix it and stuff. I think there's pros and cons to all of this. But yeah, again, iterating on something so that it makes you better rather than replacing you is better in the long run, I think, for your brain.

Ben Hong: Well, it's funny too, though, because that expertise and being able to identify like, this is good, this isn't good, this is what I'm going to change, I think really is the difference in how people use AI. Because I think, I mean, recently, there was someone talking about how they were hiring for a position. And they just got a bunch of resumes and cover letters that were very clearly generated from AI. They just sounded all identical. And people think that like, oh, yeah, cool, like AI helped me generate a cover letter. That's true. But if your goal is to get a job, that is not what's going to differentiate you, right? It's that personal touch that you still can't get away from it. Like AI does not help with that part.

Cassidy Williams:  I was helping a company review resumes recently. And sometimes in the answers that they would submit, it was just like, this person didn't put any effort into the application whatsoever. And like, I get it, it's a tough market. You get a mass supply sometimes. But also, when a company is receiving hundreds, if not thousands of applicants, they're going to probably go for the people who put in their own effort into it. And so like, it's both a numbers game and I get that you have to play it, but you also should put some effort in too.

Ben Hong: If we had another 40 minutes, I would love to talk about the job application market, but it's a tough one. It's definitely a tough one, for sure.

Cassidy Williams: All this being said, sounds like to apply for jobs, we should just use really nice pens and tools.

Ben Hong: Yes. Honestly, I mean, I have to joke, it's like, we're back to the day where like people want to meet people, like real people, because that's what's ultimately making the difference. I've seen so many people talking about how either they're only looking at people they have connections with or referred to by, because, to be honest, it's just impossible to go through the tens of thousands or not, not always that, but to your point, hundreds or thousands of applications, it's not realistic.

Cassidy Williams: There's so many. I saw a study recently that they did where some research group did and take all of these fake numbers with a grain of salt, because I don't remember where it was, but it was something like more than 50% of applications that companies are receiving are being done with AI right now, which, once again, I get it because it's tough, you gotta get out there. But at the same time, how are companies supposed to keep up with that too, and hire the right people? And so yeah, the human connection ends up being a big part of it. And so figuring out how to network and talk with people, that ends up being more important than whatever nice keyboard you have, whatever nice setup, because you want people to have a relationship with you enough that they would recommend you for things.

Ben Hong: Exactly.

Outro

Cassidy Williams: Well, that being said, it was really fun talking with you, Ben, on the show today.

Ben Hong: Right back at you.

Cassidy Williams: Once again, my name is Cassidy Williams. You can find me at Cassidoo, C-A-S-S-I-D-O-O, on most things. Cassidoo.co is my website, and that's also where my newsletter and blog are.

Ben Hong: And once again, I'm Ben Hong. You can find me on the internet of things at Ben HongCodeZen, B-E-N-C-O-D-E-Z-E-N. It's been a pleasure, and thanks everybody for listening to us chat today.

Cassidy Williams: Bye.

Ben Hong: Bye-bye.