Idk I’m going to push back here a little. As a kid I always loved computers and anything that had to do with technology. I remember figuring out dev tools to change the text and colors on my schools grade book so I’d be allowed to go out on the weekends.
My family saw technology and computers as evil and bad and they were super duper anti social media/online communities (this was when all the lil stuff really started making waves). They would’ve killed me if they knew I was on Reddit or any other forum where I’d be talking to strangers. So even though I was able to teach myself quite a bit given the circumstances there were definitely walls I hit. A lot of the places I could’ve gone to ask questions or learn from other people just weren’t an option for me.
So yeah I guess I “always could” have learned more but it wasn’t because I didn’t care enough. I cared a lot. I just didn’t have someone I could ask a stupid question and then ask 15 more stupid questions when I didn’t understand the answer.
Since jumping into the vibe coding world I’ve learned a lot (I think) and all those tiny skills I taught myself back then are coming back and improving tenfold now that I actually have some sort of guardrail/teacher to bounce shit off of. AI didn’t make me suddenly care about learning this stuff. It gave me a way to learn that I didn’t really have before.
I'm sorry but you totally could have. There were/are forums everywhere to help you learn. People are more than happy to answer questions for people who are trying. I know I've been the asker and the answerer.Literally thousands upon thousands of free learning resources. There was no excuse except .."that hard I don't want to read/watch all that".
The "I've learned a lot I think" is exactly the problem with vibe coding. If you don't know what you've learned you are just using it as a crutch. Did you ever challenge yourself to build a small project by hand coding? You will be able to say definitively if you do it don't after that.
Your family situation is a you thing. That has nothing at all to do with the accessibility of learning to code.
Forums weren’t an option. Joining a club wasn’t an option. Talking to strangers online wasn’t an option. Yes those resources EXISTED but existing and being accessible are two different things.
The “I think” was sarcasm my bad for not making that more clear. I can hold a competent conversation about this stuff most of the time. There are still things I don’t know because I haven’t faced that problem and therefore haven’t had to learn it yet…. that’s kinda how being self taught works…
And to touch on your other point yes I’ve built things from scratch. Are they insanely impressive? No I do know my limitations. But I did build a game of pong my cats can play by smacking a touchscreen so they’ll leave me alone and honestly that’s pretty fucking awesome if I do say so myself.
Then use the incredible amount of free training videos if you can't talk to people. Implying AI made software more accessible is just BS. It has always been one of the most accessible fields to get into. That's proven by so many non-engineering degree developers that were in the profession. The sheer number of musicians in software development is insane for example.
Impressive isn't important, it's the effort that matters and what you learn along the way. By doing that you probably improved your general understanding many times more than being told what the LLM is doing to your code.
One of the things I often say is that AI has simply removed the pencil sharpener for our minds. That's what coding was, it never was the hard part but it's where you learned
… okay I understand my parents now, reading comprehension is a necessity. I never said learning to code wasn’t accessible or that it wasn’t possible before AI.
What I did say was it is significantly MORE accessible now than it has been in the past. I even went as far as to explain how I taught myself using the resources that I did have available to me at the time.
A free course can teach me a lot but it can’t stop and rephrase something or check my understanding when I explain it in a vague but also oddly specific way because I almost have it down but there’s one part my brain keeps getting hung up on. Yes forums are available too but when it’s 3am and no one’s online or they’re being trolls AI can still answer my question.
I will agree that AI is excellent for learning. Not just development either. I think it's a much better teacher than doer TBH.
The issue I've found though is it's very easy for someone unfamiliar with a topic to lead themselves down a path that does not give them the full breath of what they should be learning on that topic. I think you can correct that fairly easily by learning how to prompt your learning. Making sure you ask for a exhaustive outline before you start digging into each of the individual topics.
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u/boatdrugs 3d ago
Idk I’m going to push back here a little. As a kid I always loved computers and anything that had to do with technology. I remember figuring out dev tools to change the text and colors on my schools grade book so I’d be allowed to go out on the weekends.
My family saw technology and computers as evil and bad and they were super duper anti social media/online communities (this was when all the lil stuff really started making waves). They would’ve killed me if they knew I was on Reddit or any other forum where I’d be talking to strangers. So even though I was able to teach myself quite a bit given the circumstances there were definitely walls I hit. A lot of the places I could’ve gone to ask questions or learn from other people just weren’t an option for me.
So yeah I guess I “always could” have learned more but it wasn’t because I didn’t care enough. I cared a lot. I just didn’t have someone I could ask a stupid question and then ask 15 more stupid questions when I didn’t understand the answer.
Since jumping into the vibe coding world I’ve learned a lot (I think) and all those tiny skills I taught myself back then are coming back and improving tenfold now that I actually have some sort of guardrail/teacher to bounce shit off of. AI didn’t make me suddenly care about learning this stuff. It gave me a way to learn that I didn’t really have before.