Build Real Coding Skills—Then Use AI (In That Order)

In the days of StackOverflow, we had to verify answers. Now, too often, we accept AI's output without question. Catching AI red-handed The other day, in another adventure with AI, I asked Copilot to turn a couple of SQL table definitions into mapping classes for Entity Framework Core. It was the classical 1-to-many relationship. The problem came when I asked it to generate an API endpoint to store a parent record with a bunch of child records. Something like: create a parent record from this request, then read a table to create its children. Its first solution was to persist the parent record. Then inside a loop, persist every child record. The classical N+1 problem. Well, the inverse one. Arrggg! When I prompted it to change it, saying there was no need for the loop, it replied with a "Yes, you can simplify it that way." Caught you Copilot! Why coding skills still matter The N+1 problem was something I could find on the spot. Now imagine how many AI answers we blindly accept without q