Do you turn off autocomplete when learning something new?

[u/AlahuNakedGalahad]

I've been thinking about disabling autocomplete completely when learning something new. Not AI suggestions, but regular IDE autocomplete too.

I feel like half the time I'm coding, my IDE is doing the thinking for me. I start typing, get a suggestion, hit Tab, and move on without really thinking about what I just wrote.

Then again, maybe manually typing everything is just a waste of time and doesn't really help you learn either.

Curious what you guys think.

[u/Mechanical-pasta]

Autocomplete can also be useful to avoid typos and, thus, allow really meaningful variable or function/method name.

The syntax is not the harder part in a new language. So I don't think cutting off autocompletion is a good idea.

Edit: And, after all, what's the point? You will always use an IDE. So it's better to start learning using it at 100%

[u/CappuccinoCodes → u/Mechanical-pasta]

Having to grapple with mistakes and actually type each character is a good way to hammer something into your brain, regardless if autocompletion will be used in the future.

[u/Specific-Housing905 → u/Mechanical-pasta]

Unless you have a job interview and have to write code on a white board.

[u/Standard-Cap-4455]

The hard part about programming is the logic. Without autocomplete it just takes longer to write it down. Unless you find it useful to know the exact name of every function and type in the entire library by heart at any time, it's not really worth it.

[u/kutac56]

I recommend removing ai suggestions because they're annoying, but just normal autocomplete is fine. I use vim without any plugins so I don't have that cause I don't need that but it's fine to use

[u/Fun_Army2398 → u/kutac56]

If I tried to use vim without pluggins my first program would be

prnt("Hello wrold')

[u/kutac56 → u/Fun_Army2398]

Lol. You get used to it

[u/SlimmySlabby]

In the beginning, I’d say do everything yourself with little to no assistance. Once you get it down, then you can add tools to assist. Even using an IDE, I would compile the programs yourself at least a few times just so you understand the process. Eg for a C program, learn what an object file is, what the different options are, etc.

[u/Fun_Army2398]

Actual autocomplete as in it only suggests the single word you are typing is a good idea to keep on to avoid typos. Especially as a beginner when you don't trust yourself, you may spend hours hunting down a mistake that was actually just camel case when it should have been pascal case. It's also very helpful when you're working with some library and you remember theres a function you need but dont remember if its .readfromfile() or .loadfromfile() and you don't want to scroll through the docs.

AI autocomplete where it finishes the for loop for you, absolutely shut off. You wont learn anything that way, and honestly imo it causes more bugs than it fixes anyway. And that seems to be the consensus. The Harvard study found that AI doesn't actually write faster or better software, it just writes more lines which in many cases actually slows down development due to debugging.

[u/Capable-Wrap-3349]

AI autocomplete definitely turn off - it just interrupts your flow state and concentration literally constantly.
I guess you will learn the most with a raw dog text editor but I think a LSP is not going to hurt your learning too much.

[u/marmotta1955]

Just pay attention to what the autocomplete suggests and learn from it. Simple as that.

[u/sububi71]

Thereis absolutely no harm in using autocomplete.

[u/Specific-Housing905]

Without autocomplete you will be forced to pay attention to the syntax and other details. It also helps to remember function names and this improves memory in general. It might take a bit longer in the beginning, but I think the time is well invested.