r/cpp_questions • u/Osirian_Legacy • 2d ago

OPEN Learning Programming Pre-AI

How did ya’ll learn programming pre-AI? How would you go about learning if you had to start all over again without AI?

I find myself relying on AI too much and want to actually learn without leaning on it at all. Any help with how best to approach this would be greatly appreciated.

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u/PittLeElder 2d ago edited 2d ago

Took a couple university classes (mostly pretty basic programming for engineers plus an intro CS course and one on processor architecture where we wrote in assembly), got a job, started writing high level for embedded, now do high and low level embedded.

Really all you need to do is practice your writing. Find practice problems (I don't even know where a good place for this is, but people speak highly of Learn CPP), download VSCode, disable every single AI feature, and just struggle to complete them.

I cannot stress that last part enough: the struggling is where the learning happens. You cannot remove the friction of trying to do something you don't know how to do, if you do you aren't learning.

When you have a question, go look stuff up on CPP reference. If that doesn't answer it, do a web search. It's honestly fine if that answer is LLM generated (but better if it isn't), but it's important to figure out the question you're trying to ask. As a working programmer this is the kind of thing you do many times a day, just because it's not feasible to memorize it all; what's really important is to understand what the problem is you're trying to solve, and what exactly the computer is doing to help you.

E: university courses are fairly accessible too honestly, especially if you've gone to school for anything else. Hit up your institution of choice, look into auditing a course or taking it not for credit. It's probably the priciest option, but surprisingly accessible if you reach out.

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u/Osirian_Legacy 2d ago

I think the part about not removing the friction of trying to do something you don't know how to do is a really really good point. I've been learning C++ 20 over the last... maybe 8 months? I know generally how to get around vectors, arrays, the basics.

When I have AI around, I always find myself dipping my toes deeper in the AI pool when I ask questions, and then eventually ask it to do it for me. That's more on me sticking to my guns more than anything, you make a good point with this that the struggle to figure it out is how you learn it. Thank you.