Comment by moshegramovsky

It doesn't seem like the author has ever used AI to write code. You definitely can ask it to refactor. Both ChatGPT and Gemini have done excellent work for me on refactors, and they have also made mistakes. It seems like they are both quite good at making lengthy, high-quality suggestions about how to refactor code.

His argument about debugging is absolutely asinine. I use both GDB and Visual Studio at work. I hate Visual Studio except for the debugger. GDB is definitely better than nothing, but only just. I am way, way, way more productive debugging in Visual Studio.

Using a good debugger can absolutely help you understand the code better and faster. Sorry but that's true whether the author likes it or not.