Auto-Complete a.k.a. Intellisense Is Your Most Dangerous Dependency

by Mike Levin

Learn to code.

Don’t hard-wire your skills to proprietary features in proprietary products leveraging proprietary data-sets.

If you have to steer your way down through an object-menu every time you want to invoke a method of an object, then you’re sunk. When the tools change as they inevitably will, you’ll have phantom limb syndrome and lose key abilities, top-most among them is your competent and confident typing speed. You’ll never “internalize” the data-structures into your head.

Intellisense is Microsoft’s word for code-completion that you’ll find adding pop-up menus as you type, with arrow-key command-line completion. Wow. Imagine yourself becoming entirely dependent upon it to the point you couldn’t code without it.

Harsh news. That’s exactly what’s happening to you, and if you’re not careful the same dependency is going to happen with even just writing the code because AI.

Power tools are great, but power tools powered exclusively by a vendor’s metered pump, not so much. You’re locked-in. You’re herded. And relearning the shiny next new ain’t so easy as things get more competitive and you get older.