Chapter 2 · Practice 3 of 3
Stay the author: you own every line you ship
From Use AI tools well
Why it matters
Whoever merges the code owns it, whether a person or a tool typed it. That means you must be able to explain any change you submit: what it does, why it is correct and what could go wrong.
A useful personal rule: do not submit code you could not defend in review. If an assistant produced something you do not understand, either learn it before you submit or rewrite it in a way you do understand.
This is also the habit that protects your growth. Anthropic's 2026 study found that engineers who delegated code generation while learning a new library scored lower on a later quiz than those who used AI to ask questions and get explanations.
Do
- Be able to explain every line you submit
- Use AI to ask "why", not only "write"
Avoid
- Submitting generated code you could not explain to a reviewer