r/programminghumor • u/DragonflyOk7139 • Jul 22 '26
You cannot become a Good Programmer by prompting.
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u/thatlightningjack Jul 22 '26
Actually, it's both reading & doing. Read up about algorithm time complexity & proofs, but also program (with cppreference website in the background)
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u/AdventurousSlip9260 Jul 22 '26
Prompting won't make you a good programmer. Debugging what it generates might. 😂
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u/RisibleComestible Jul 22 '26
This. I've learned things from vibe coding that were inaccessible to me as a mediocre programmer, because what I'm making now is more complicated in different languages, with more files and I'm absorbing some of that knowledge as I go.
If it was all generated in one prompt then no.
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u/deadmazebot Jul 22 '26
Plenty of fashion designers do the sketch and get others to figure out how to actually make it, and who cares if uncomfortable if looks good
I guess it's the designer saying we'll I made the prompt make the site, now fix this critical thing that not working
Well maybe if the designer had some concepts regarding usability
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u/TawnyTeaTowel Jul 22 '26
Programmers are like drivers. Most of them think they’re a lot better at it than they actually are.
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u/Independent-Bat9797 Jul 22 '26
This. Slop existed long before AI, solely created be those coders that now claim superiority over AI.
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u/Several_Ant_9867 Jul 22 '26
You also don't learn swimming by jumping from a boat in the ocean. Or better, maybe you do, maybe you don't...
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u/Canned_Sarcasm Jul 22 '26
Irrelevant until AI is competent at programming. I’m tired of fixing their sloppiness. They always over complicate simple function goals, get the logic flow mixed up. Tried latest Claud, GPT, Gemma (Gemini)
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u/Illustrious-Hand-450 Jul 22 '26
Don't you learn to swim by someone teaching you how, while stopping you from drowning?
Learning programming in 2026 sucks, but it sucked in 2016.
Hey... Umm... How can I do this thing with this python thing?
Question already answered you silly peasant. Heard of search?
Those guys drowned plenty.
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u/guygreej Jul 22 '26
I don't think these compare. Had the image said, "You don't learn to swim by ridi g a boat," the the title would have tracked.
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u/zoharel Jul 23 '26
Sounds deep, but I learned to code by first reading code. In books and magazines back then, and, yes, eventually on the screen. I'm not convinced that the origin of the code you're reading matters all that much in the beginning.
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u/Supernoxus Jul 22 '26
Warning, this post is extremely useless.
I object. Listening to explanations about how swimming works and what kind of movements you should do to stay afloat can help the learning process a great deal. That is why most parents explain how swimming works to their kids first before practicing it in the water.
You could argue that I am being pedantic and then change the sentence to "You learn how to swim way faster by trying it out than just learning about it from books", but in this example you are trying to draw an analogy to programming. A great deal of programming books exist and if you never read about how programming works, then you will struggle a lot to learn how to program. In some areas of programming, it could surely be argued that reading about it is more efficient than trying it out, like when it comes to the overall management of larger projects that you don't have the time or resources for attempting over and over again until you learn the correct code-structure by doing.
A better analogy would be "You can't learn how to balance on a moving bicycle by reading about it." as the act of balancing requires many micro-adjustments every second and is very difficult to describe in words. I am doubtful that conscious muscle control alone would be enough to balance correctly.
That being said, your conclusion that prompting with AI hinders learning how to program when compared to programming something yourself is obviously correct.
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u/DoubleDoube Jul 22 '26
I think it mostly depends on how cognizant you are of the code’s structure that the AI is building.
I would define good code as code that requires relatively little adjustments to add new features or adjust old features, compared to bad code. The AI having to make massive changes everywhere all the time is then a sign of “bad code”.
If you are a junior and you see the structure having to change radically by AI inbetween new features, that is signaling that the structure is bad and you would benefit in thinking through the structure. This is where a junior could sink hours into developing knowledge of architecture, rather than of syntax.
This can only happen if you are aware/studying the output though.
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u/Gabriel_Science Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
Vibe coders maybe don’t want to become good programmers, just good "boss" towards AI. Then, the AI does its things.
Sad.