I'm glad AI didn't exist when I learned to code

If you learn to program before learning to code then with AI you will never have to learn to code.

I think this really isn't about AI, but rather about the good self discipline as well as the willingness and perseverance to explore deeply.

I have seen people who learned to code before AI, and yet because they don't bother to ask themselves another layer of "why" they continue to have a superficial understanding of everything. And I have no doubt that the truly excellent programmer will understand the whole system even if they learned coding after AI.

> I had the habit of not copying code from YouTube tutorials

This is what makes all the difference. If you know you should not blindly copy code from YouTube tutorials, you also know you should not copy code from AI output, and if you were to be born in my generation you would also know you should not copy code blindly from a textbook.

Kudos to the author though—I think this person has the right personality to become a good programmer regardless of whether they wrote their first line of code before or after the age of LLMs.

I mentor a few recent grads and folks who change careers into tech, so I'll share here what I've told them for years.

Writing code is the easiest part of software engineering. You're hired for your perceived ability to solve problems the employer needs solved. Many times you'll solve it with code. Sometimes you'll solve it with process. In every instance, you're expected to solve it using your learned experience and ability to critically think through the constraints (time, money, etc.).

If you can't be bothered to deal with the easiest part of your job, writing some code, how do you expect to be trusted with the hard stuff? I'm not saying don't use AI tooling, but I am saying don't cheat yourself by becoming dependent on it.

Me Too! and I was a high schooler in the 1970s...

Since I'm close enough to end of career to be able to ignore the whole trend as a developer, I'm mostly dreading having to "talk" to some frikin bot everytime I need support on some product.

If you agree that "customer support" system hell is bad already, then you have to know that this is all on the verge of being much worse...

me: My payment keeps being rejected on a known good card...

bot: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that...

The problem is that people are using AI to avoid learning to code.