The AI-Powered Developer review

In May 2024 the Accessibility Book Club read The AI-Powered Developer by Nathan B. Crocker, a comprehensive guide to using generative AI tools like ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, and Amazon CodeWhisperer to improve the way you build software. Here is my end-of-month review.

What the book covers

The book takes an in-depth look at how generative AI tools work, how they differ, and where each one shines. Step-by-step examples show how to bring them into your coding workflow, and the author uses one consistent project that grows in complexity as the chapters go on. Find the full details on our AI-Powered Developer book page.

Key takeaways

Understanding the tools

Knowing how each assistant works helps you pick the right one for the job, instead of treating them all as interchangeable.

Practical application

The book moves from exploring a problem space with ChatGPT to productive coding sessions with Copilot and CodeWhisperer, and every step is grounded in the running project.

Project-based learning

Building one project from start to finish makes the lessons stick far better than isolated snippets would.

Highlights

• Interactive prototyping: using ChatGPT to design and document solutions, and to explore building whole projects with different technologies
• Efficient coding: Copilot and CodeWhisperer excel in well-known problem spaces and make for highly productive sessions

What it means for accessibility

AI assistants can speed up development, but they only know the patterns they were trained on, and plenty of code on the web is inaccessible. Treat every suggestion like a pull request from a new teammate: test it with a keyboard and a screen reader, and check it against the WCAG 2.2 specification (opens in a new tab). The GitHub Copilot documentation (opens in a new tab) is a good place to learn how to guide its output.

For hands-on accessible patterns to compare against AI output, read our posts on accessible buttons and skip links and keyboard accessibility.

Who should read it

I recommend this book for developers who already know Python and want to stay current with state-of-the-art AI tools. It offers valuable insight and practical steps for adding these assistants to your workflow.

Join the conversation

Have you read The AI-Powered Developer, or brought AI assistants into your accessibility workflow? Share your thoughts in the Accessibility Book Club LinkedIn group (opens in a new tab).