And now with AI I’m using it to fact check Claude. And still reading it for myself to understand why other peoples code is written a certain way. It’s basically the most important thing to reference when coding.
Sure today Claude can just read the library code and tell you what a function does or how to do something. But it still won’t tell you why something is a certain way or won’t figure out specifically-designed usage patterns as reliably as the author telling you “this is an example of doing x”
I brushed up on the docs since I haven't touched it in a couple years, explained my understanding of the ob_* functions, and gave him a very brief demo on a PHP playground.
He could have asked any LLM to tell him what that chunk of code did, and to explain the three functions, and instead he reached out to me. That felt _good_. Talking shop has always been a good way for me to form connections, because the pressure to socialize becomes task-oriented and you start to learn about how people think and feel, and that opens up easier paths for actual connection. It was nice.
Just like the Old Internet still exists - niche websites, mailing lists, probably a BBS or two (likely more right?), the pre-LLM world will trudge on, for a time. I hope LLMs actually lead to good things for people in the long run, and for now I personally will remain sparse in my usage of them.
You need the documentation to know why certain things work a particular way, or to know why some relationships or methods are the way they are
It is shocking how much of a differentiator this is. You will discover that the software you’re already using is much more capable than you realized.