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Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

kyrylo.org

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Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#101

Post by bob1029 »

nkrisc wrote: post #6

If you spend time on places that attract newbie programmers (some subreddits focused on game dev or game engines, for example) you’ll see the outcome of “I no longer think you should learn to code.” And it’s not pretty. Many, many posts of people looking for help fixing AI-generated code because the AI got it wrong and they have no idea what the code even does. Much of the time the problem is simply an invented metho…

> Much of the time the problem is simply an invented method name that doesn’t exist

I spent a solid 2 hours yesterday trying to get an SSDP protocol implementation going because the LLM was absolutely insistent upon using 3rd party libraries that don't exist and UDP client methods defined in Narnia. I had to spoon feed it half-way attempts before I could get it to budge on useful code. This was all before I realized we had a problem with multicast group membership and multiple network adapters.

These models definitely can help (I wouldn't have gotten as far as I did without one), but you need to know what you want every step of the way. Having mere "vibes" about a sophisticated end result will result in unhappy outcomes. I think the model would have made my life much worse if I wasn't as cynical and suspicious regarding every aspect of its operation. I can see how these models would steal learning opportunities from more novice developers. Breaking out Wireshark is the sort of desperation that only arises when you can't constantly ping some rubber duck for shreds of hope (or once you realize there is no hope).

Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#102

Post by sharemywin »

sharemywin wrote: post #100
adriand wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing how to code, and having a lot of experience and an "intuitive" sense of what is a good idea and what is a bad idea, also puts you in a position to question the advice the AI gives you. Just now I was asking Claude to help me with an issue with a React component and it told me to add useEffect with a timer. I am not a React expert, but that immediately felt like a code smell to me, so I followed up: > is it we…

that's the thing if your inquisitive and have an interest in learning things then you can still go far with AI coding. can you explain why this code works? is this the best way to do it or are there other solutions? what are the pros and cons? are there security problems with this? how could I make this code more secure? what are some things I should look out for with AI coding(meta question)? what does this error me…

and that's just about any topic.

Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#103

Post by dingnuts »

derekp7 wrote: post #82
chii wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That hasn't been my experience, nor that of others using the AI. It's a force constant, rather than a multiplier. If you're low skilled, asking it to do a low skilled task, it works fine. If you're high skilled, and asked it to do the low skilled task, you saved a tiny bit of time (less than that of the low skilled person). But it cannot do a high skilled task (at least, not right now). It can pretend, which can lead…

You could also be a mixed skilled developer. Good at regular code, architecture, and algorithms but not as familiar with a given UI framework. Having the LLM generate the html and css for a given layout description saves a lot of time looking through the docs.

LLMs will be best at HTML and CSS among programming languages because even if it's subtly wrong the browser will still render something.

Still, I'm not sure I need to spend $250/yr to occasionally generate some HTML that I could use a template to generate

Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#104

Post by d3nj4l »

nkrisc wrote: post #6

If you spend time on places that attract newbie programmers (some subreddits focused on game dev or game engines, for example) you’ll see the outcome of “I no longer think you should learn to code.” And it’s not pretty. Many, many posts of people looking for help fixing AI-generated code because the AI got it wrong and they have no idea what the code even does. Much of the time the problem is simply an invented metho…

Yeah, I like using LLMs when I code, but every time I've tried "vibe coding" (i.e. letting the LLM do the whole thing start to finish) it's never written a full, functioning app that doesn't have bugs in the basic functionality. I tried this just a couple days ago with the SOTA Gemini 2.5 Pro - it wrote itself into a corner and when I gave it the logs from my bugs it literally said "this doesn't make sense" and got stuck. That finally prompted me to take a look at the code and I immediately knew what it got wrong.

Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#105

Post by kornaki »

I think of it as a magic wand that makes me more efficient when it comes to smaller projects. I now do things I would earlier not even pick up because I simply type less now. But I feel like you need to have intuition/experience to question AI all the time. Why this code was added? Is it safe? Is it the right way? Is it the right method, tool, library, maybe we can try another approach. I feel like I learn faster too, because I can so quickly ask a question in a context with which AI is familiar. I would neither down play its role or follow "learning how to code is useless" hypers.

Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#107

Post by dingnuts »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #56

I've been programming for a few decades. I love LLMs. They make tedious things quick. Help me resolve gnarly issues. Make short work of writing unit tests. Generate oodles of boilerplate at will. Etc. It makes me more productive and less reluctant to take on risky things. By risky I mean things that formerly would have likely derailed my busy schedule because I'd get side tracked for to long and would have to de-prio…

I've been programming for a few decades. I hate LLMs. They generate oodles of buggy shite that I have to fix by hand. They frequently steal my time and make me less productive because people on this site say I have to learn them or retire, and then I waste time looking up the details the bot got wrong. They're a slot machine and the people who think they are good are justifying an addiction and sunk costs.

So retire me, I guess. I'm probably younger than you, but I'm almost ready to retire because I'm cheap and I don't buy into expensive fads, so I'm almost ready to cash out of this nightmare

except then you realize the valuations of anthropic etc are propping up the whole economy and doing so on the promise that LLMs are going to deliver AGI!

LLMs are marginally useful in some contexts. But I have seen absolutely nothing -- nothing -- to justify the costs or the valuations of these companies. They are definitely not AGI and before you accuse me of moving the goalposts, the AI companies are the ones promising this.

It's a bubble. It's easy to get started. Good luck building a real product with just AI though. Good luck with that.

If you turn out to be right I will happily exit this God forsaken industry. Lord free me from silicon valley; I liked computers. Not this. Not these people.

Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#109

Post by moregrist »

DrScientist wrote: post #29
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #14

> Because if you can vibe code… so can everyone else. That's really the money shot, right there. CEOs have this dream of firing all their "obnoxious" engineers, and "vibe-coding" their own products. That's not something new. People have been selling this dream to gullible C-suiters since I first started coding in Machine Code (1980s). The future will belong to the engineers that can leverage AI. Engineering is a lot…

> CEOs have this dream of firing all their "obnoxious" engineers, and "vibe-coding" their own products. Give one of the key skills of a CEO's is pulling together the resources to make something happen, what happens to CEO's if you no longer need resources to make stuff happen? ie if everybody can Vibe code, vibe market, vibe deploy - aren't you going to be swamped with competitors? So the interesting thought experime…

> Give one of the key skills of a CEO's is pulling together the resources to make something happen, what happens to CEO's if you no longer need resources to make stuff happen?

Never underestimate how much importance a lot of people in middle and upper management place in the number of reports they have. It’s almost a measuring contest with some of them.

They’ll hire people. It might not be in engineering. But I bet they’ll find a reason to hire more engineering. It might even be justified. Software productivity has been increasing for decades. This has not led to a smaller number of software engineers. Only to more ambitious projects.

The future might be different, but I think the chances of that are small.

Re: Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

#110

Post by johnisgood »

dingnuts wrote: post #98
theshrike79 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why platforms(?) like Claude Code, Cursor and Windsurf are essential. Claude Code forces you to create a CLAUDE.md to direct how it works, with Cursor you can (and should) write Cursor Rules. The difference with a good spec + AI vs just vibe coding from scratch is like night and day.

why would I pay for the advanced features when I haven't been impressed with the free features? in fact Claude 3.5, which is what is available, is a nearly worthless product, with value comparable to a free search engine, and not even a very good one. It is usually incorrect and frequently in subtle ways that will cost me a lot of time. pro AI people sound like someone with an expensive addiction trying to justify it…

Free version of Claude sucks because the prompts get too long very quickly. I have the Pro version and I have completed many tasks successfully.

(I know what I was doing and had a great understanding of what is going on).

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