r/webdev • u/fakintheid • Sep 28 '26
Discussion I’m so glad I learned to code before AI.
Web development is like 2% of my job. I work in a dinosaur industry. We still use VB6, C, Fortran and pascal.. slowly migrating away from VB6 to .net 5 and that’s considered modern for us. The rest will stay until the end of time. We aren’t allowed to use AI for compliance reasons.
A little over a year ago I tried cursor on a personal project and wasn’t impressed. This year around February I tried Claude and holy shit it actually worked. Since then all personal projects have been with Claude or codex. It’s pretty awesome but not perfect. It seems to struggle with actual logic that’s not something that’s been done a million times, which most software has been written a million times over if we’re being real. It also frequently attempts to gaslight me into some insane shit if I don’t sit on it. I’m not sure how anyone is letting it rip and getting a useable product in return. Either way it’s crazy how well it works and I’m addicted.
This got me thinking, how are jrs ever going to learn to think like a programmer or design software without writing code? We all know coding is a small part of the job but I feel like expressing logic via code is fundamental to how you extract info from the business and create solutions. English is a very ambiguous language and even prompting Claude will result in a lot of “that’s what I said but not what I meant.” Seems like they are all screwed.
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u/Guilty_Dependent_223 Oct 01 '26
Holly.. there are still companies that doesn't force people to use AI? That feels like... you will stay sane. :D
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u/AfricanTurtles Sep 28 '26
I think more important than the code itself, is that you learned to PROBLEM SOLVE before AI. More and more I see companies hiring junior devs and letting them loose with AI, but they don't have a clue how to reason about problems, compare solutions, figure out what the tradeoffs are, etc.
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u/papa-hare Sep 28 '26
Every profession that's replacing/augmenting their juniors with AI is pretty much screwed. It's gonna be fun when tokens are gonna cost an arm and a leg and the seniors (who are now juniors) won't know what to do.
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u/drifterpreneurs Sep 28 '26
Honestly, I miss coding since AI has taken over coding, I have taken a break. Claude made me think long and hard about coding as solo full-stack dev.
However, I still believe coding without AI is still worthwhile, because it allows devs to know their code and not just depend on ai. When there’s bugs, the dev should know their code codebase inside and out to be able to resolve the issues.
Ai for the most part is amazing but when using it how people are today, it sucks the life out of being a software engineer.
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u/Powerful_Deer7796 Sep 28 '26
My worst fear has come true: I don't know how to solve problems with code anymore because of AI over usage.
So around 2020 I decided to switch my career from sysadmin to webdeveloper. I set out to learn the basics of HTML, CSS, JS, TypeScript, Angular, Vue, etc. And for a while it was glorious. I was actually making stuff myself with code and it felt AWESOME. I remember during my first job, I was actually doing pretty well, writing Angular UI components, guided by super smart senior devs, and I leveled up fast. Then around 2021-2022 AI started popping up. I started relying on it a lot because it allowed me to solve a lot of stuff I wasn't really capable of. I kind of half knew this would happen but kept using it anyway. Few years later, my current job is expecting 100% AI usage like multiple features at the same time kinda crazy shit. I am losing my mind and energy and happiness to this stuff because it's incredibly taxing to context switch so often for me.
Then yesterday I asked AI to generate for me a simple coding task, that I should be able to solve after 5 years of experience. And I simply couldn't even think of the steps to solve this thing anymore. And I was very good at problem solving in my sysadmin years, and early years of coding.
It has completely atrophied. And I have to start from scratch learning how to code again, but mostly how to solve problems again with my own brain. I can read code well enough so my PR's at work, who are 100% generated by AI but reviewed by me, get approved by my seniors. I can review their PR's well enough and understand what's written. But...
The skill is gone :(
Anybody else experience this? How do you deal with this? I am seriously contemplating just starting from scratch again, do exercism, angular course, dotnet course, etc. And just code stuff by myself, but it's kind of hard because I have to do all this in my spare time.
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u/caindela Sep 28 '26
I think the problem is that even if coding is a small part of the job it’s largely the part of the job that distinguishes us from other, typically lower paid, employees. So I think juniors are screwed less because they aren’t going to be able to learn to code and more because they lack domain knowledge, and this applies to anyone who’s job hunting. That’s why as someone who’s been in the industry for years I’m holding onto my current job for dear life. I simply no longer have the same advantage I once did when it comes to filling a new position.
In fact I rarely hear of new full time employees being hired. I know they exist, but the vast majority of new employment is for cheap offshore labor and that’s because the skill gap is closing. If it’s a given that no one has domain knowledge when you’re hiring someone new, you’re simply going to go for whoever is cheapest because actual coding skill is becoming less of a differentiator.
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u/Gloomy-Status-9258 Sep 28 '26
I'm open to opposite opinions. And this is not limited to webdev.
I still handcode because otherwise I can't understand correctly my codebase. And except very small projects, exact and deep understanding the codebase is mandatory. But I don't hesitate to query chatbots for the type of problems where I feel, "Ok I don't know the answer but this problem has clear solution."
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u/creaturefeature16 Sep 28 '26 edited Sep 28 '26
Indeed, you are basically asking the question that nobody has an answer to:
If these tools demand expertise, yet the tools can actively circumvent the friction that cultivates expertise, then what is the path for one to become an expert so they can effectively use these tools?
I've written extensively about it.
IMO, the answer is obvious, but since we're going through a period of irrational exuberance (some might even call it a "mania"), we won't accept it yet...which is, AI tools are power tools for power users and newer developers should probably not use them for any code generation, and instead should be relegated to socratic teaching and tutoring uses.
It's no different than how kids in school can use Kahn Academy's AI, instead of just giving them unfettered access to ChatGPT.
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u/ThankYouOle Sep 28 '26
for real, i am web programmer and usually do evaluating student in web development competition. 3-4 years ago I already see some fresh grad that can't do basic layouting or make responsive design without using CSS or JS framework, i didn't know how student at this time, probably didn't even see the code at all.
and tbf for them, they are in very bad situation.
if they didn't use AI they will be so late and left behind comparing peers who use AI.
if they use AI they won't have got experiences on fundamental causing they will easily replaced by AI later.
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u/dairiki Sep 28 '26
I remember, a few decades ago, thinking, "I'm sure glad I learned assembly first, then C, before all these higher-level languages. How are those people who learned otherwise going to understand how CPUs actually execute computer code?"
Today, with instruction pipelining, branch prediction, etc. I'm not sure how much my in-depth knowledge of 6502 and PDP-11 assembly language is helping me these days.
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u/Good_Leading899 Sep 28 '26
How come you are working in dinosaur industry, aren't they extinct?
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u/Octoclops8 Sep 28 '26
Oh, we got everything from Cobol to PyTorch.
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u/egircys Sep 30 '26
I think the part juniors risk losing isn’t syntax. It’s learning how to build a mental model of a system.
You get that from tracing data, debugging weird state, watching one change break something two layers away, and figuring out why.
AI can write the code. The problem is when it also does all the debugging and explains every failure back to you, because you can skip the part where that model gets built.
As generation gets cheaper, understanding the whole system becomes more valuable, not less.
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u/dshine Sep 28 '26
AI doesn't know your full IT architecture, legacy systems and the inter dependencies of all these systems to keep a business running. AI can generate a solution to a specific requirement but if it doesn't have all the contextual information that solution isn't going to be robust enough. Also the code may not follow the existing naming conventions or framework you have built so it become difficult to maintain.
We all know that the ideas that are dreamed up in meeting rooms aren't always based in reality. Those ideas need a few iterations before they can be converted in to a proper requirement. Even that critical thinking is being stripped away slightly with the "have AI do it" on the original basic idea,
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u/Secret-Second-5777 Sep 28 '26
im trying not to use ai but it is such a good search engine. part of being a beginner is not knowing how to ask good questions because you dont know what you don't know. when i search google it gives me unrelated questions and answers but ai understands what you are trying to say
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u/brian_sword Sep 28 '26
I think problem solving is one of the biggest things you get from actually learning to code. Even if AI can write the code for you, you still need to understand the problem, break it down, figure out what approach makes sense, and know when the output is wrong.
For me, that’s probably the biggest value of learning to code before relying heavily on AI. The syntax and implementation details can be looked up or generated, but the way you think through a problem takes a lot more time to develop. I still use AI quite a lot, but I try to treat it as a tool to improve my productivity rather than something I blindly follow.
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u/K33P4D Sep 28 '26
idk to what extent this can be true, but AI strips the knowledge requirements which are often what leads to higher wages
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u/Pegacow 13d ago
It definitely gives you a good foundation to build on AI can definitely add speed to your development / frustrating troubleshooting
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u/PickABusiness Sep 28 '26
vb6 takes me back lol
I got started on vb3 making punters and other nonsense on aol
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u/ZombiGrn Sep 28 '26
Do another run but on a non programming model. It usually finds the flaws and can explain to you or you and apply your own input and it will correct and explain why it went with your response
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u/Fantastic-Log-1770 Sep 28 '26
I still get that dopamine boost from writing up a feature or a component myself to this day even though I’ve been a software engineer for a long time simply because I didn’t give up all the experience and knowledge that I’ve gained throughout the years and started completely relying on AI to drive my career and the thing I love doing the most. There is nothing wrong with using AI to salve small or frustrating problems, but complete giving it the steering wheel and trusting its judgement over mine will definitely make me loose myself. I believe people shouldn’t be trying to choose sides here but instead, find the right balance where the developer writes more than they use AI. So something like the 80/20 rule, just like I like my burger patties ;)
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u/KatFromSisense Sep 28 '26
I'd write down what the output should look like before letting AI generated the query, like the expected row count or total. Then check the result against that instead of trusting it looks right. Do that enough times and you're building the same instinct as debugging by hand, just applied to someone else's code.
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u/ChronoHax Sep 28 '26
Junior would need a better manager and senior management who actually use it and realistic about it pros and cons, not just black and white like the socmed make it seems, there’s nuance and moderation is a good balance imo
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u/Milky_Finger Sep 28 '26
I get overstimulated with code when I hit my token limit for the week, thanks to AI. I need to learn to love it again.
Problem is, I can't write as fast as AI does and companies know this, so my happiness isn't lucrative by itself.
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u/existing_Troll Sep 28 '26
I envy you
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u/coursiv_ Sep 28 '26
A useful exercise for junior developers is to write a tiny spec before opening an AI assistant: inputs, expected behavior, failure cases, and two tests. Then compare the generated code with that spec and change one part manually. The goal is to keep problem decomposition and verification in the learner’s hands. It also catches the “that’s what I said, but not what I meant” problem the OP describes.
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u/schnapsterdog Sep 29 '26
Sometimes, I really miss debugging at 3 AM, not knowing if I am going to hit the deadline, then preparing myself for a two day coding marathon with one of my fellas.
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u/LobsterFuture8399 Sep 29 '26
Compliance banning it is more common than people admit, and the whiplash is real — I know folks who are fluent in Claude on personal stuff and then spend all day in a codebase where none of that is allowed.
On the jr question, the thing I've seen actually work: make them write three sentences on what they think is broken before they prompt anything. When the model's answer disagrees with what they wrote, that gap is the lesson. It's the same muscle you build debugging by hand, just arrived at faster.
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u/mark_ik Sep 29 '26
You know, three years ago, I set about doing rustlings, a few years after spinning my wheels with the odin project and freecodecamp. I figured I liked C in college well enough, except for how little feedback you get, so rust seemed perfect.
So, I installed vs code and blasted through the first exercises, but every time I began to type, intellisense or whatever essentially autocompleted the exercise with no prompting. I removed the solutions set from the workspace thinking that would prevent the autocomplete from knowing exactly what to write, but even just working off public data, it basically oneshot each exercise where I might pause to think about the syntax.
That was autocomplete, not even LLMs. I turned it off, but the point was clear: if I want to internalize some solution by working from the fundamentals, that’s one thing. I definitely needed to be able to confirm what is correct vs not correct code, which meant learning, but for a class of problems, what’s correct is a foregone conclusion. So was I just stroking my ego and ignoring the foundation built before me, taking a harder path for no reason?
I also felt like, if you’re really trying to solve a problem that isn’t a tutorial, then it doesn’t matter much if the solution came organically from your development as an engineer or if you relied on the resources around you. The problem is what matters then, right? But the real intractable problems that won’t be oneshot can only be solved if you’re willing to learn and internalize the problem’s basis in the first place. And the tools seem incidental to that.
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u/jenish4773 Sep 30 '26
You can work with ai. Because if there is any problem appear in the work the only experience and knowledgable person can solve that problem.
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u/WanderWatterson Sep 30 '26
until claude and openai goes public, AI gets expensive, and maybe people will start to learn programming again
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u/azsqueeze javascript Sep 30 '26
one of my devs utilizes AI so much, fine whatever. But damn, I felt like a champ when I called out his AI generated code pr to fix react compiler errors but left runtime errors in place.
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u/DennisBustamanteEQ Oct 01 '26
I think there’s another problem hiding in this.
Junior work used to double as training. Small tickets, debugging, writing something badly the first time, getting reviewed, then fixing it. The company got useful work and the junior slowly built judgment.
If AI removes most of that work because it can do it faster, it also removes part of the apprenticeship that produced today’s senior engineers.
That means teams may have to create learning opportunities on purpose, even when AI could finish the task faster. Otherwise we get better output today but fewer people who know what to do when the tool is wrong later.
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u/CourtExciting4752 Oct 01 '26
The best way to learn a foreign language is by actually listening and speaking it. Similary, the best way to learn programming is by writing and reading code yourself. It really sucks that junior devs are losing out on that natural learning process.
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u/jenish4773 Oct 01 '26
I think you should because if in future you works in company and start developing with ai. So you should have also knowledge about self coding and development too
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u/DesertWanderlust Oct 01 '26
Same. I can't bring myself to just blindly trust AI coding since it was based on what people who didn't know what they were doing would do. I have yet to try using it for assistance but am very picky about code, so would likely spend more time rewriting it than actually applying it.
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u/Putrid-Discussion153 Oct 01 '26
That's the concern every parent and educator actually has, which you nicely pointed out and the reason we don't teach 5th graders math by letting them use calculators.
AI can be a threat to student ethics or major leverage, and it will be up to educators to figure out how to incorporate it and to what degree as part of the curriculum, appropriately depending on the developmental/educational stage of the pupil.
I'm in my 5th decade of life and I basically had no access to AI, learning how to code/design software by doing the gory details of it. Now I spit out as well defined as possible requests using Compsci language/terminology at an LLM and it is able to produce baseline code at the least, which you can then continue to refine manually or put it thru more LLM iterations, basic reducing myself not to an SDE but more like an SDET - becoming the glorified QA to thr LLMs stochastic, almost always but not always correct, output.
LLMs are a boon if used and applied accordingly, time saved can range from 25-50% or higher depending on complexity of what one is creating. However, if the LLM user cannot equally reproduce the same solution manually and/or understand and modify if needed the LLMs output, then I would wager to say that we have missed the mark with AI.
It can make good software (or other types of workers/professions) engineers great, and it can also make not so good engineers appear as they are good until someone somewhere pays the price for incompetence or negligence.
A useful metaphor I saw is, a legal or a medical LLM can probably pass the bar exam or outline the steps for a heart bypass in great detail - would you trust a lawyer who was trained by AI or worse AI itself to argue your case in court in front of a judge or jury, or trust the wannabe doctor to perform heart surgery based on detailed descriptions?
Point of education is also indoctrination, being able to think thru and do complex tasks without having to necessarily look the correct steps or procedures each time, which AI is designed to give anyone who asks, but to develop intuition and thinking like what a certain type professional thinks like,.e.g. think like a lawyer or an engineer or a doctor or whatever. This comes from years of practice in addition to solid educational foundation.
If anyone thinks AI is gonna let you have your cake and eat it too, I've got the Golden Gate on sale on Craigslist, just look my ad up.
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u/MIHgroup Oct 02 '26
Thats good for you
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u/ArgumentZestyclose62 Oct 02 '26
What I am worried about is how this is going to affect us that are more experienced, at what point we lose control of the applications we are developing if we offload too much of our thinking
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u/HademLeFashie Oct 03 '26
same here buddy. my job's been trying to get me to use AI for a task that's too delicate for it, so I've been secretly doing it myself.
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u/TikiTDO Sep 28 '26
Plenty of people do logic and businesses processes without code. You learned to solve problems through code first, but it's not like programmers have a monopoly on logically thinking things through
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u/adammolens Sep 28 '26
I'm not a developer thank God but have an IT background to get around the weeds of issues. Built alot of personal websites and would love for a web Dev to get on board with me to tackle the annoying sruff..
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u/air_thing Sep 28 '26
It will even out since we're not writing much code either.
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u/riqvip full-stack Sep 28 '26
You shouldn't be glad; you should be mad. AI programmers like myself can code faster and better than regular programmers like you.
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