Hello everyone! For many years, I have been coding every once in a while and actually learned a lot. I especially liked C and C-Like languages and building useless stuff just for fun and for the sake of the intellectual challenge that came with it, but since when AI became decent enough, it just kinda ruined the passion for programming and computers as a whole. Thing is, I am in university now and need to go back to using C and program regularly, but now that AI does everything 20000 times better than I ever will I always either cede to temptation to use it (thus nullifying learning) or just get bored so quickly I just turn off the computer to do something different.
is there a way to revive the interest for programming and building projects? I am doing my best to stop using AI but heck I really am self-indulging. please help!
Put it in coaching modę. Write the code yourself and only invoke it when you need a principal explained. AI doesn’t understand things, but you do. Use what it’s good at — writing text in statistically predictable ways to help you get better at what you’re good at.
The main issue here is that googling becomes less and less attractive due to the emergence of copycat AI generated articles. Oftentimes, you have to wade through several identical copies of an original tutorial with ads crammed every other line before you find an actual resource.
What I find to work reasonably well:
- IF I use AI, I instruct it to never change files or run console command, but instead explain to me what to do and why
- If not straightforward advice, I will check with official documentation pages and correct if needed
This way, AI acts as glorified Google that can read your local context. For me it works quite well and I learn a lot. Nonetheless I find myself often wondering if I am doing the right thing.
I’d suggest actually disabling your write, edit, and bash tools if that’s what you want. If you just instruct it you’re risking it ignoring you.
If you can’t drop the use of AI for your own learning, use it for learning. Tell it specifically that you want guidance on how to do something, not to do it for you, perhaps have it create a html guide you can follow without it giving you all the answers.
If it does something in a way you didn’t expect, ask why. Ask if the way it has done something is the best way of doing it, and then do a bit of research and challenge it when it’s wrong, and it will definitely be at times.
Just don’t use it?
Al does everything 20000 times better than I ever will
This is where you’re wrong. Models you can afford are not that good, and you can actually learn to do a lot of stuff better than affordable LLMs ever will
Earlier I replied to someone who made a similar comment to yours: I’m sure AI must have a limit since AGI is still not there and apparently won’t be realized any time soon. I know I can become even better than AI but that is gonna take years and this is the kind of thing that requires for pleasure to be found in the pathway to the objective and not to the objective by itself
now that AI does everything 20000 times better than I ever will
Now I’m no cognitive behavioral therapist, but, uh… this is what I think is catching you.
I use AI plenty. I write most of my code with it. The garbage it spews out if you don’t hand-edit or get ultra-specific with design instructions is just atrocious, even if it looks sleek in the gestalt. You can give it small tasks and one-shots that it handles perfectly, sure, but it will rot a large codebase to the core if you start letting it make any real structural decisions.
There’s simply no replacing architecture and focused thought, and writing code by hand isn’t going anywhere, even if the majority of the industry works with AI. I mentor junior engineers, I’ve seen the worst spaghetti they can make, and I can nonetheless confidently assure you that you’re better than “frontier” AI across multiple domains.
Thank you bro, I just lack willpower to focus on studying the “old way” without AI. Do you think getting a good manual would be better?
Yeah, O’Reilly books or any other printed stuff that strikes your fancy are great options. DDIA and Learning the Bash Shell are personal faves.
I will check it out. I have got a manual of C that really sucks and puts nothing useful on the table. Do you think I should get the official manual?
I’m not a C guy, but afaik the closest thing to a useful manual in print is the K&R book (written by Kernighan & Ritchie, authors of the language).
I have a copy on my shelf and it’s… alright. It’s much more focused on basic language constructs than pragmatic usage and opinionated style. Good for what it is, but you should pick up something more recent and opinionated to go alongside it IMO, based on whatever C dialect you want to focus on (C89/C23).
Thank you for your advice
Np!
AI does t do everything 20000 times better than you ever will.
Don’t tell yourself that.
It’s better than you right now, but every mid-level tech worker will tell you it sucks. You have significantly higher capacity than it, you just have to learn to get there and that isn’t easy or quick.
Thank you for your encouragement :3
Yeah the problem is will he learn faster than AI improves? I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.
It is known that, with effort, a person can improve from the level they are in university
It is not known how much AI can be improved
It is not known how much AI can be improved
I didn’t say it was. But at this point it would be a pretty wild prediction to think it’s not going to continue to rapidly improve.
Is it a wild thing to predict that AI improvement will slow down faster than humans?
Yes.
Why?
A few reasons:
- The evidence so far seems to be that AI capability scales with compute, and compute continues to advance. Including with crazy AI hardware like Cerebras and Taalas. There are still a ton of AI hardware startups that have yet to tape out.
- There’s an enormous amount of research into algorithmic and infrastructure improvements, which also show no signs of slowing down.
- Empirically, it has been getting better continuously for several years now. There appears to be no reason to suspect any blockers.
In other words: why not?
To steel man, the main reasons I would counter with are:
- Moore’s law is pretty much dead… Except that we still have a ton of headroom with custom AI-focused chips. E.g. I know of at least two startups working on DRAM stacked on the compute chip instead of next to it, which gives dramatically higher memory bandwidth.
- There are still a couple of architectural issues, e.g. context length is limited, AI can’t really remember/learn things on-line, hallucination is not solved. But… in practice those problems seem to not matter too much and also hallucinations seem less common the more capable the model is, so maybe it doesn’t need an architectural solution at all.
Oh no, they have bettered themselves for nothing!
You should watch TNG When the Bough Breaks, that’s the future we’re heading for if everyone decides to not learn hard things because the computer can do it
You said
It’s better than you right now, but every mid-level tech worker will tell you it sucks. You have significantly higher capacity than it, you just have to learn to get there and that isn’t easy or quick.
I was just pointing out that this view completely depends on AI improving slower than he does. I would not put money on that.
It does not.
AI can get better but this is learned helplessness.
Of course it does. You said he has a higher capacity than AI and he just needs to learn to get there. Well that’s no help if by the time he does AI has advanced even further.
learned helplessness
No, I just accept reality. You can bury your head in the sand if you like.
And once AI can no longer sustain itself once people become reliant on it, you get the modern version of “The Machine Stops” by E. M. Forster from 1909: https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/the machine stops.pdf
I’m not sure it’s even faster. Damn thing ties itself in knots trying to do basic tasks.
A very long time ago I was taught that the lifecycle of a program is 20% design, 10% coding and 70% maintenance. The LLM can do some of the design & coding for you (which is the stuff you need to learn) but it’s going to (if it works) produce functional but impossible to maintain (for which read - change later for any reason) code. You’re training your brain to know how to do this stuff, and that’s important in and of itself.
Don’t use it.
I know it seems like everyone is doing it, and it’s really good and cool, but that’s not reality, and you can certainly just write code the old fashioned way by thinking about what you want to do, and then typing some words on into an IDE or text editor.
Yeah, it’s a mental thing. Why draw something when there’s proper artists out there? Why learn to play the guitar when Mark Knopfler is out there? Why assemble a Jacuzzi in your backyard, when there’s a waterpark in the country? Why do your own barbecue when restaurants exist?
Do stuff that you find interesting. I can buy good looking cups, but I still run the pottery wheel to make something by my own hands. It’s wonky, not perfect, but it’s made by me and I’m proud of that
AI does everything 20000 times better than I ever will
I find it hard to believe that AI throwing pointers and references at random counts as “20000 times better” than anything.
Besides, saying that means that you fell for the worst trap, of believing that everything it does is flawless. It’s not. You’re in uni, so you don’t really have experience in ordering people around, which is what fucking around with AI is - you give an order and wait for a result. If you trust 100% of the end result, the problem is you.
AI is great at stuff you don’t know about, because when you do know about it, you’ll notice errors and mistakes, making you realize you cannot trust it.
is there a way to revive the interest for programming and building projects
Read some books on programming. Or read some programs others have written. This was good advice for finding inspiration even before AI.
These models can create apps that are great for a single person with no skill but they all miss something. its a great tool for analyzing. but it misses in style and domain.
here is my best analogy. i love mesding around with suno the ai music creator. it offers similar fun as mad libs does for me. i plug dhit in snd see what i get. well i am 50 and miss 90s alternative rick/grunge music. i try to see what suno can come up with. recently i tried to have it mimic the wallflowers. it created a song thay seemed technically the same but didnt have the same feel.
a non dev can plug shit in and have an app but it takes skill to use that tool to make a solid piece of software.
The satisfaction you’re looking for comes from the process of learning and doing, not having the final product explained/handed to you. You have to remind yourself that the joy is in the making, not the final product.
