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Ask HN: How much coding should beginners learn in the AI era?

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31–40 of 73 posts

Re: Ask HN: How much coding should beginners learn in the AI era?

#31
Learning computer science theory is probably going to be more important for the future than writing code yourself, because LLM coding is here to stay, and the human's job is going to be guiding the LLMs effectively: the AIs are writing code that pass tests, but how would you know that you are having the LLMs coding the right things?

Personally, I think learning specific implementation of algorithms probably should take less of a priority compared to fundamental architectural understanding why these things are done in the first place: data structure, automata theory, interpreter/compiler methodologies, etc. You still have to learn how to code, even if you won't be doing a lot of coding directly yourself, because the fastest way to learn how to evaluate code is by writing code yourself.

Re: Ask HN: How much coding should beginners learn in the AI era?

#34
post #22

On effective engineering teams, there's always at least one person who is fluent one layer below where the rest of the team operates. That person tends to be extraordinarily useful in tricky situations. Examples: someone who can read assembly on a team writing C; someone who spends a lot of time in the browser debugger on a frontend team; or someone who is comfortable stepping deep into third-party library code with…

Well put. The step to AI is a little like the step to using an IDE. It simplifies and automate a various bottlenecks. But when the IDE starts randomly failing, you need to call on that guy that knows how to work without the IDE.

Re: Ask HN: How much coding should beginners learn in the AI era?

#36
I've heard a statement that the mainstream programming language over the past 10 years has been Python, and it has become much simpler than assembly language. So many people will believe that in 5 to 10 years, the most mainstream programming language will be English. The so-called programming ability means being able to express requirements, goals and tests in English.

Re: Ask HN: How much coding should beginners learn in the AI era?

#37
post #5

All of it. AI is magnificent in hands of a skilled coder. And absolutely crap in hands of someone who has no clue how computers work.

Yep. There's a lot of room for error when you start by asking the wrong thing, then don't understand the output. I've seen prompts that were literally "fix it", then the LLM goes and changes assert status == 200 to 500. Tests pass now! Problem solved!

Re: Ask HN: How much coding should beginners learn in the AI era?

#38
post #21

None. My company is hiring anyone who can use a computer and having them produce code via AI then review via AI and that is that. I was told to stop writing any code 6 months ago and haven't written a single line since. Not sure learning anything is worth it anymore, I'm shown every day at my company how they are replacing me directly and no longer have "devs" or "IT". They now call "IT", Digital Services and it can…

This reads like a grievance to me, so I’ll say—-I’m sorry, your company sounds like it sucks. Your skills are still valuable, I hope you can find somewhere else that values them.

Re: Ask HN: How much coding should beginners learn in the AI era?

#40
You can’t learn enough anyway so this is kind of like the beginner asking “would it look bad if I put on too much muscle?”

That aside, AI era is irrelevant for learning to program so far imo. But it is not possible to guess for 10 years.

I recommend starting something like freecodecamp and reading as many textbooks as possible (written by people that actually teach the subjects). Like the intro to programming book by Guttag

Also learning english well enough to be able to watch conference videos and read textbooks, if you don’t already know it.

Good ways to use AI are code review and finding bugs imo but both of these can be very harmful for learning.

Also would recommend only considering the opinions of people actually write code and earn a living by writing code. And mostly disregarding future projections from anyone.

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